Mad, Mad, Mad Respek for the Mouse

In Which the Blogger Gets Over a Not-Small Amount of Snobbery and Learns to Love -- I Mean, Fucking LOVE -- Disneyland

You guys, the Mouse has got it DIALED.

There is a reason people go there, and then go again and again and again. Every detail -- holy shit, they have every detail covered. Everything from ambient music to shop fronts to the way the queues work -- every perfectly-groomed trash-and-gum-free border planting -- every attendant's themed uniform -- every vista -- every bathroom, for chrissake!  The rides are fun as hell (OMFG, Radiator Springs Racers! Worth the park admission all by itself!), the FastPass system is genius, the workers' commitment to upbeat hospitality is awesome, the experiences of each area and attraction ... holy crap, you guys. I cannot praise this family vacation highly enough -- we barely looked at our phones, except to coordinate our movements and meetups, and we watched precisely zero TV or iPad for five straight days, which is miraculous for us. We walked as much as 13.2 miles in a single day, we blazed from six a.m. to 10 p.m. three days in a row ... we are all fucking exhausted but had such an awesome time! I'm over being a snob about the kind of people who go to Disneyland -- cause now I'm one of them, and I love the Mouse.

Herewith, some thoughts:

• I would under no circumstances attempt Disneyland & California Adventure:
• at anything less than 90% of my optimal health and mobility (CHRIST there's a lot of walking, stairs, walking, getting in and out of small spaces, onto boats, etc., and walking), 
• with any child under 40" tall (the threshold for virtually all the best rides), 
• without the Extra Magic Hour/Magic Morning (obtained either by staying in an on-property hotel or via buying the whole package through Costco Travel -- a whole hour before the park opens to the public. It's worth every penny)
• or with less than a 3-day park-hopper pass (there's no way to see/do everything you want to do in less time without dying of exhaustion). 
• I was under the impression that the FastPass system was pay-to-play -- but it isn't. I won't explain it here, but all it is is, with a little planning, you can skip lines and just ride rides. DO IT. 
• Cars Land -- Radiator Springs -- is the greatest theme park "land" I've ever seen in my life.
• The animation academy -- learn to draw a Disney character in about 15 minutes -- was fun, and not something I'd've thought to do, but Kid Gleemonex wanted to, so we did, and now I want to do more of them.
• The spaces allowed by the queue fencing on all the older rides (basically all of Disneyland, and anything built before, say, the mid 90s) are hilariously narrow -- not built to accommodate today's XXL American Physique, lordamercy. 
• World of Color was kind of meh -- it's supposed to be fountains and fireworks, and it is, but it's also -- primarily -- this weird worship service for The Genius And Wonder of The Most Beloved Dreamster Of All Time, Walt -- WONDERFUL Walt -- Disney. 

It's ok. Last year I got saved so I could go on the ski trip.

Here Is A Thing Which You Probably Did Not Know About Me, and Which Will Likely Make You Laugh the Freckles Right Off Your Face If You Also Know Me IRL

I was in the church choir for a not-small unit of time, back in the seventh and eighth grades.

(Might've been sixth-seventh? My mind is like swiss cheez.) ANYway. It wasn't my fault -- me the non-singer with the weak pipes who had a rabid case of performance anxiety despite being a loudmouth in general (maybe I thought nobody was listening?). It was the fault of a person who ... well, I don't know if you could properly call this person a friend; more like -- a person who was in the same class as me, and hung out with me, and did all the usual friend-y shit with me, but who mostly used me as a prop, an extra, in her life. And SHE wanted -- for reasons ever opaque to me -- to be in the church choir. She press-ganged me into doing it with her; the only thing I remember besides her extreme persuasiveness in the matter was that I did like the notion that I'd be seen as a super-extra-Christian if I did it. So.

We auditioned for the music director -- it was an all-volunteer thing, they took all comers; he just needed to see which section to put us in. We were placed, and told to show up Wednesdays at 6:00 or whatever for rehearsal, and 15 minutes early for church on Sundays for a refresher and to get our robes and whatnot. I must say, I adored being welcomed as a "fresh new young voice" by the real choristers, and treated like the Exemplary Christian Teen -- that precise stripe of vanity, rather than a genuine Love Of The Lord or desire to Know His Grace or whatever -- drove about 97% of my churchin' overall. (Sorry, Ma. Truth.)

And we ... well, we did about 60 percent of what was asked. We often showed up to rehearsals, sometimes even on time. We mostly sang what was in the hymnal. We sat quietly during the sermon and whatnot, and you probably couldn't even tell from the pews that we were playing hangman with golf pencils on the backs of our programs the entire time.

Friend-ish Person X got bored of whatever reason she'd had for doing this in the first place and bailed after a few months; I kept going for awhile longer, but then sort of drifted off and finally officially quit when I got a paying gig keeping the church nursery during services instead. And thus ended my gospel singing career.

It was while we were putting up the decorations for this that Berwie explained to me that the Extreme song "More Than Words" was about BJs.

26/40

Y'all, I'm pretty sure you think you had a prom, but if you look at this, you'll understand: *I* had a prom.

This is the bunch I went with to the junior prom. We had one of the moms* drive us to Ft. Worth in her minivan, and then had pooled our babysitting/Dairy Queen cash to hire a limo to take us from our motel rooms to the event site (a "ballroom" at Tarrant County Junior College, aka TacoJocko). The theme, which was selected by me and pretty much strong-armed into place over any thoughts anyone else might have had in the selection process, as was my wont in those days: City Lights. The dress I wore** is one of the most awesome garments I have ever known, including the 24 years since this photo was taken. Lab Partner and Berwie would have and should have been in this pic, but they went separately with a wild crew from a neighboring town (only juniors and seniors from our school were allowed to attend, so the boys they brought spent the actual prom time getting shitcanned at the Sandbagger, if I recall correctly). Ahh, kids. Good times.

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* I think it was the blonde girl right next to me in purple, whose mom, a couple of months prior, also let a bunch of us drive that minivan, alone, the TEN HOURS overland to Lubbock to the state finals basketball tournament to watch our HS boys' varsity team get fucking crushed by a real HS boys' basketball team. 
**It was a clingy black sequined sheath with spaghetti straps, under a 3-foot-long black fringe that hung from the very top. Hard to describe, but OH I LOVED IT. 

I am pretty sure we're discussing who's going to the Bon Jovi concert.

21/40

So, there's a lot going on in this casual snapshot of the gals of the class of 1992 lounging about by their lockers before school on a ... spring? day of ... 1989? Possibly fall '88? Anyway. That's me, second from left, on just about the worst hair day of my high school career. And I'm not kidding about the Bon Jovi concert. That really was what we were probably babbling about.

You don't eat or sleep or mow the lawn

Post 1 of 40 in my 40/40 Vision series -- shit that is related to me turning 40 this January. Some of the linkages are gonna be a real stretch, and some of the posts are gonna be real small ... 

So I'm volunteering at my kid's school this morning, and I'm going around to the desks distributing photocopied items to be used in a Hanukkah collage* while the kids are sitting on the carpet listening to the teacher reading a book on the history and significance of the holiday; at the end of each page, the kids are joining in as he sings another of the many verses of the Dreidel Song.

And I am fucking DYING INSIDE, trying not to sing the South Park version of the song out loud. DYING. I'm like Roger Rabbit when the bad guy is trying to draw him out of hiding by knocking on the wall with "shave and a haircut ..." and RR eventually bursts out with "Six biiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiits!" In my head I'm doing each of the parts (Cartman: "Jews ... play stupid games ... Jews ... that's why they're lame!"; Gerald: "Court-ney Cox, I love you, you're so hot, on that show," etc.) I can't make eye contact with anyone, especially not this earnest, pop-culture-illiterate guy who most certainly would not be amused by my shenanigans. But I am a goddamn grown-up, addressed universally in this context as RoomMom, and so. I. don't. sing it out loud.

Maturity. Even when it almost bursts my spleen.


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*Pause to note, with pride, that there is a lesson on Hanukkah at this school, a public elementary; in my day, not one single one of us small-town mainstream-Protestant Texass Kindergartners had ever even heard the word. California/2013 FTW!

Yes, secular colleges have a lower price tag. But, what might that decision really cost your family?

What the fuck is with Christianists and their 55-gallon-drum-spilling use of adverbs & adjectives? It barely takes me one sentence to identify Christianist writing, they're so fucking predictable. This is also the way they halt all real conversation to tell stories -- oh, I'm sorry, "share testimony." And why does it have to be told as a story/parable in the first place? Do the dummies you're trying to convince not understand anything that doesn't have characters in it who sound just like them? Do they not get that these are never real people -- they're always completely fabricated composites? I JUST CAN'T WITH THIS. Anyway:

Courtesy of the wondrous potpourri basket of awesometacity that is Stuff Fundies Like, I bring you a wee parable of heavy Christianist bullshittery: A Bible college* blog post purporting to tell it on the real about why you should send your kid to Bible college instead of actual college. Everything about this makes my skin crawl -- I mean, it's hilarious, but -- OMFG. Read, writhe, puke, laugh.

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*Which college, I'm sure, has the exact same degree-granting power as Schlotzky's Deli.**
     **I stole that from somebody long ago -- Jon Stewart maybe? but can no longer remember from whom.

Bill exhaled a small sigh of relief as he dropped the yellow legal pad onto the kitchen table. After hours of adding, subtracting, budgeting, and projecting, he had obtained clear-cut numerical evidence that his daughter Kelly would be attending State University in the fall. It was a less expensive option than the Christian college four states away where she was hoping to enroll.
Kelly sat down with Bill and looked at the numbers. The College Board reported in October of 2009 that tuition and fees at private colleges average $26,273, while the cost at public four-year institutions was $7,020. Bill was not made of money and, over the next four years, the numbers were not likely to turn in his favor. The National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education reported that, between 1984 and 2008, college tuition and fees rose 439 percent, while median family income rose only 147 percent.
Kelly would be eligible for a considerable amount of financial aid at the Christian college, but State U. would still be less expensive. She looked at the numbers, sadly nodded agreement, then threw on her coat and walked out the front door to catch a ride to the church’s monthly youth group activity.
As the door closed behind her, Bill looked at his notes again, wondering if he had missed anything.
Sadly, he had.
Lower price tag, higher costYes, secular colleges have a lower price tag. But, what might that decision really cost your family?
The cost of sending a young person to a state university will, in many cases, be a life marked by ambivalence toward spiritual things, regrettable lifestyle choices, or a complete disregard of the principles Christian parents had attempted to pass on to their children.
At least two recent studies have indicated that the educational environment plays a very large part in the future spiritual direction a young adult’s life will take.
The Henderson studyThe most visible study of this concept was explored in 2002 by Dr. Steve Henderson, President of Christian Consulting for Colleges and Ministries. Henderson was Vice President for Recruitment Consultation at Noel Levitz Center for Enrollment Management at that time and is the former Director of Admissions for the University of Arkansas.
Henderson’s study of 16,000 students attending 133 different secular colleges showed that 52 percent of those students had left Christianity behind by graduation. Yes, more than half of students who classified themselves as “born-again Christians” upon entering a non-Christian college no longer identified themselves that way, or had not attended church services in the past year, by the time they were seniors.
Another way to view those statistics is that approximately 65,000 high school seniors will strengthen their faith at Christian colleges this fall—but 148,000 will lose theirs at secular colleges. UCLA/HERI studyThe Higher Education Research Institute at UCLA launched a multiyear study that is exploring spiritual trends among college students and how their experiences affect their spiritual development. The survey was taken by more than 112,000 incoming freshmen in 2004. In the spring of 2007, 15,000 of those freshmen at 136 colleges took a follow-up survey.
The UCLA research showed a significant increase in the percentage of students supporting legalized abortion (52 percent to 60 percent) and legal marital status for gay couples (54 percent to 66 percent) over that span.
The percentage of students who never attend religious services nearly doubled over three years, to 37.5 percent. Only 7 percent said they attended services more frequently than they did in high school. The percentage of those who agreed with the statement, “It doesn’t matter what I believe as long as I lead a moral life” grew from 51 percent to 58 percent.
Faculty members have an impactYoung adults are influenced by the moral and political leanings of both their professors and their peers. In the case of students enrolled in public colleges, that is not such a good thing.
Students who took the UCLA study said only 20 percent of their professors frequently encouraged “questions of meaning and purpose” and 28 percent never encouraged it. Those students also said 60 percent of their professors never encouraged religious discussions.
Those professors who do encourage such discussions are likely to offer input and guidance that directly opposes what Christian young people have been taught at home.
Professors lean to the leftA Washington Post article on March 29, 2005, cited a survey of 1,643 faculty members at 183 four-year colleges. The report found 72 percent of those professors consider themselves “liberal,” only 15 percent “conservative.” In a 1984 survey by the Carnegie Foundation, only 39 percent of professors identified themselves as liberal.
Nearly two-thirds believe homosexuality is acceptable and 84 percent are strongly or somewhat in favor of abortion rights.
At “elite” schools (highly ranked liberal arts colleges and research universities that grant PhDs), nearly 87 percent of faculty members are liberal. The three researchers for the Randolph Foundation survey in 2005 found that conservatives, women, and more religious professors are less likely to land positions at the “elite” colleges.
Only 5 percent of faculty in English literature, philosophy, political science, and religious studies call themselves conservative.
“That’s why you need diversity, not just of race and gender, but also, maybe especially, of ideas and perspective,” George Mason University faculty member and co-author Robert Lichter told the Post.Lifestyle choicesChristian parents who have not set foot on a college campus in a while might be surprised at what they find.
State universities have been offering coed dormitories for many years. While some dorms have designated floors for male and female students, others put them on the same floor—boys on one side of the hall, girls on the other—or in the same rooms, if they choose.
While not every student will embrace a sexually active lifestyle, many colleges promote “promiscuity made easy.” In fact, a 2007 report in the Journal of American College Health says students in coed dorms are more likely to binge drink every week, to have more sexual partners, and to view pornography.
Most of the world today sees sexual experimentation and excessive drinking as part of the “normal” college experience, and the students’ behavior certainly lends support to that notion.
More than 100,000 students between ages 18 and 24 reported in a 2002 survey to having been too intoxicated to remember whether or not they had consented to having sex. The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, citing a 2008 article by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, reports that 83 percent of college students drink and 41 percent admitted to five or more drinks on at least one occasion within the two weeks preceding the survey.
Drugs are also readily available from fellow students on most secular college campuses. A 2007 USA Today article, citing a study by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University, said 23 percent of the 2,000 students met the medical definition for drug or alcohol use or dependence. More than 8 percent of students reported having used illegal drugs other than marijuana.
My kid is differentOf course, not every Christian young person who attends a state university will turn their back on their faith. There are Bible studies and outreach programs available, although many have an interfaith emphasis that parents and students may find uncomfortable.
But, please consider for a moment just what your young person will be facing every day:

• Peers with a view of faith and morality that is ambivalent at best, antagonistic at worst.

• Professors who decry Christianity as “intolerant” and intellectually bankrupt.

• Fellow students who will question, and often ridicule, those with conservative lifestyle standards.

• A dormitory where they will be forced to share a bathroom, floor, or even their room with someone of the opposite sex.

• A social atmosphere where drinking, drug abuse, and immorality are encouraged and even expected.

While your son or daughter may enjoy a supportive home and a solid church, the constant bombardment of negative influences may eventually prove too much to overcome. That could result in poor decisions that will affect their relationship to God, and your family, for the rest of their lives.
The price tag is certainly a factor when deciding on a college. But, is it the only factor? Haven’t you taught your children that many things, including our walk with Christ, are more important than money?
When the time for a decision comes, be sure to pray for wisdom. The cost for your young adult to attend a public college may be much higher than you could ever have imagined.

OK, guys -- guys -- one thing, hey: Just remember, when you're being inundated with all this Bicentennial brouhaha this summer, don't forget that what you're really celebrating is a bunch of aristocratic slave-owning white males who didn't wanna pay their taxes!

Thing the first: You might be spending a little too much time reading your political tumblrs if you have full-scale Technicolor dreams about Standing with Wendy.

Thing the second: I have started to see my increasingly-frequent trips to the Lucky supermarket in my neighborhood as a form of time travel. This place, y'all -- it's in a shopping strip built in the late '60s or early '70s, it's like ... I don't know, like where the goddamn Brady Bunch would get their 20 pounds of ground chuck. It's HUGE, the aisles are wide enough for three gigantic old-school shopping carts to pass each other with room to say howdy, they have everything (including a florist, a half-acre of breakfast cereal, canning/preserving supplies, buttermilk, Little Debbies, and about a quarter-mile-long wine & liquor aisle), there's a gigantic bakery/deli section with (I think) actual butchers in-house,* the milk is all in the cooler at the back which does not have doors, and I am getting to love this place. It's like I'm Ramona Quimby's mom, doing the marketing.** I buy things that are on special (they have specials!), I compare pasta brands, I order children's birthday cakes ... It is, no kidding around, pretty awesome. And then I go outside, put it all in the back of my hybrid vehicle, and drive back to the twenty-teens, where things are sleeker and better-lit but not necessarily quite as much fun. 

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*I mean, that cut up meats -- cold cuts, chops, ribeyes, what have you -- not kill and render them; most grocery stores these days don't want to pay and train and certify anyone to use the slicers and such, which is why at like Safeway you can't get them to slice you some turkey fresh, you have to take a wad of it from the big pre-sliced pile in the case, which is why I never ever buy cold cuts at Safeway O GOD I MISS NEW YORK SO BAD SOMETIMES. 

**in the second book, written in 1968; y'all ever notice the Ramona books are set in whichever year they were written, that although the family's life progresses normally with aging and whatnot, they don't all stay in the 1950s like when the first book came out? 

     ***OMFG Beverly Cleary is still alive! And she lives about two hours' drive from me! aaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh! Total Stalkerazzi Time! 

Sounds major.

An excerpt from A Student's Handbook to The History of  [Cowburg] County: EVERYTHING you need to know!, by Winona Louise Gleemonex, Mrs. L's Fourth Grade Class, c. 1984.

VII. Social Life - and - Amusement
The early settlers were always hospitable and friendly to visitors and neighbors, as was their custom. Cowboys were always, always welcome.

Horseracing was very popular. [Cowburg] County had many tracks, on which very famous horses raced. 

Barbecues were held, and dance contests and singings. In other words they were very social and friendly people. 

And if you're into food porn, Farmer Boy is the best book in the history of ever.

Some Thoughts on Re-Reading, Out of Sequence and For About the Hundredth Time, the Entire Little House Series

--Goddamn, did people back then do a lot of work. I mean -- every damn thing was so. much. work. Pa had to make his own bullets. You don't get butter all winter long because you can only have butter if the cow makes enough (and fatty enough) milk. Time to get dressed! See you in about a half hour. Would you like some lace on that dress? Get yourself some silk thread and knit the damn lace, then sew it on with a needle and thread in your "spare time." Want some mashed potatoes? Here's some seed potats. Go plant them in the sod and try to keep the varmints out of them and dig up whatever you manage to save sometime next year, then peel them, mash them, and eat them (minus butter, because see above).

--Garth Williams could have spent a few more days at the ol' drafting table working on his human figure drawing. I mean, sometimes he nails it, but sometimes ... well, there are a few in there that look like they might've inspired the Fraggles.

--That family was laid low by scarlet fever. You'll never read such a piteous description of a family as the one that begins By the Shores of Silver Lake.

--Various parts of all the books, but especially Little House in the Big Woods, are so process-heavy that they'd be handy to have around if/when The Shit goes down. Might need to know how to butcher a pig, make a straw hat, and render your own soap when the pipeline stops, ya dig?

--Lots of times, while the work of the house is going on, it's somebody's job to corral the youngest kid and keep her from danger and/or obstruction of stuff, which just proves that that kind of thing is universal.

--I really, really appreciate shit like Gore-Tex and insulation and moisture-wicking fabrics. Because DAMN.

--These books are so well-written and so beautiful -- it really is just such a pleasure to read them, and I'm sorry for anyone whose idea of the books is based on or significantly colored by that stupid hokey 70s teevee show -- y'all are missing out.

You wish to APPEAR in this spectacle?

So I'm enjoying The Amazing Race last Sunday night, as I do. There's this team of two guys who were Olympic snowboarders. One of them looks like David Soul, and the other like Bjorn Borg. They have run a good race so far, making good decisions, roshambo-ing to figure out who does what challenge (cracks me up), taking at least a little time to appreciate where they are, that kind of thing. They're pretty hilarious, and had become my favorite team so far.

Until ... [sad trombone] ... it comes out that they're Jesus-jumpers. And just like that, I'm completely off of them. I don't hate them or anything; it's just that what I took for general enthusiasm for adventure and whatnot is suddenly revealed to be religio-based, and therefore (to me) less organic, more deliberate, and therefore inauthentic and suddenly annoying. Why? And what does that say about me? Ugh.

But even worse, they were one of several teams who had misgivings about one of the challenges -- they had to disassemble this Buddhist model shriney thing, take it to another location, and reassemble it (basic memory/stress challenge). But the Christianists among the group (which I swear was half of them, gaah), all expressed -- on camera -- their feelings that what they were doing was bad or wrong or ... something, with the clear inference that they thought that putting their hands on, and moving around, the tchotchkes and knickknacks of another religion would somehow infect them with that religion, leading them astray (and doubtless into hellfire and eternal damnation yada yada yada). And while they're all whining about this, I'm thinking, "If you're so sure of your god, why would this stuff be any more than JUST STUFF to you? How little power does your god have, that touching another god's trinkets & gewgaws would be able to interfere?" Still don't get it.

And on that note, about religious people and reality shows: I have long thought that Survivor ought to do an Atheists v. Christians season -- you wanna juice the ratings, that'd do it. I'd go to the CBS website and buy the stupid buff for THAT shit. Of course, you'd have to endure death threats, possible firebombings of regional network ad sales offices, those Westboro asslinings, and endless condemnatory bullshittery from Repuglican presidential "candidates," but like I said: Think of the ratings!

Woke up quick at about noon / just thought that I had ta be in Compton soon

Tuesday Goulash

Things that have been said to me by my boss via email in recent days:
--You are passive.
--You need to really own [this stupid fucking assignment that means nothing to no one but him]
--This is not CC’ing anyone else or BC’ing anyone else, FYI
--Anyhow, all this falls into the “bold conversations” reference, as we need to have these.
--This is a critical tool for us, and I know we can all do better around it.

TV right now:
--The Middle makes me laugh so hard that I have to mash the heel of my hand on my belly button to keep it from sproinging off across the room. A couple of times I've thought I might be on the verge of a stroke, unable to catch my breath -- Christ, it's funny! Except when I'm dying of sympathetic cringery for Sue. Oh, Sue. [virtual hug]
--Boardwalk Empire: Shit is gettin REAL up in here. It took all of last season to really find its footing, but now it's one of my favorite things on the teevee.
--The Walking Dead: Hoofaaah, this is some intense olde-tyme horror show stuff. Love it.

Late-Pregnancy UltraVivid Nonstop All-Nite Technicolor SurroundSound Dream Theatre feature from last night: Me and Tina Fey were getting shitty on some cocktail she kept mixing up (which had a vodka base, plus NyQuil and Coco Loco and some other stuff) at her house. My sister came by with some super-buzzkill fundamentalist evangelical xtian friend of hers, who kept trying to evangelize us but thought he was being real subtle. He even asked for a Scotch, to prove how Down he was. Me and Tina just slumped behind the wet bar, giggling, and drank some more FeyBombs while he droned on and on. (NB: This was a much funner dream than the one the other night which ran five times, back to back, in which I went into labor four weeks early and had to keep waking myself up to check whether this was, in fact, happening. It wasn't.)

I got the best one, honey -- it's Nathan Junior. I think.

So I'm out with the kid for breakfast -- sometimes that's the only thing to do when you're rousted out of bed at the ass-crack of dawn on a Sunday morning, amirite? -- and the place is mostly empty except for some old couples (the male half of one of which was droning on about Obama in a very Fox-"News"-influenced way while the wife ignored him) and two other family groups. One of the fams had four boys under the age of four -- the middle two looked like twins -- and the other had five kids -- three girls, about 12, 11, and 9, and two boys, about 7 and 6.

Now. Here's the thing. Everybody was well-behaved, it wasn't that. It was just ... OMG. Four boys under four. I'm betting the last one was either unplanned or a "Surely -- SURELY -- this'n'll be a girl. What are the odds???" sort of thing. And the other fam -- those two preteen girls were all made up and extremely carefully outfitted, and you could just feel the waves of preteen self-consciousness radiating off of them. It squoze my heart just to look in their direction, especially knowing my kid will be right there in about 8-9 years.

And both fams reminded me of how, back in the long long ago, I thought I'd like to have five kids. My fantasy about this was heavily informed, if not lifted wholesale, from the family in A Ring of Endless Light. You know -- living by the sea in a converted stable, everyone loves everyone, there are dolphins and books and shit. (BTW, that's a great book, which I only realized is actually pretty Godbaggy on re-reading about five years ago -- God stuff and sex stuff generally just flew right past me when I was a kid, the former because I was immersed in it anyway so who noticed a bucketload more here or there, and the latter because I had No Idea What Anyone Was Talking About, Ever, for real).

So but -- five. Yeahhh ... I'm gonna have to give you a no on that one (even if I weren't old as fuck already, so it's too late and a moot point besides). Four's waaay too many for me. Three would be ... well, in other circumstances, like if I could stay at home, I might possibly consider it, but it would be a completely different world, requiring complex and fraught mental and emotional adjustments of a sort that I am not currently up for. I was only able to think of two without reaching for the Glenlivet in the last year or so. I love being a mom, and I'm looking forward to this next one in a pretty profound way -- but after that, I'm done -- and my god FOUR OR FIVE? Holy shit.

This post brought to you by the fact that I am lazy, selfish, and risk-averse. Huzzah!

Omar comin', yo!

Couple things real quick:

1) Public service announcement: "We" are not pregnant. "We" may be expecting, but "we" are not pregnant (unless "we" are two or more females who both are currently gestating at least one fetus each in her own uterus).

2) Public service announcement #2: Fuck candles or books or even wine -- you know what is a really, super, ace host/ess gift for when you have stayed in someone's home for more than a couple of days? Cleaning the shower before you leave. Including, you know, the drain area.

A most fascinating post for all of you, I'm sure.

And but so the thing is, I am maybe beginning to understand about why all the damn black maternity clothing from last time around. It's because THERE ISN'T ANYTHING ELSE. At least not anything else that doesn't scoop almost to the band of my super-attractive Pregnant Lady Bras, that is -- and listen. I have big tatas during the normal unpregnant years. I have learned a thing or seven about what deep scoop neck and V-neck blouses look like on me, as compared to what they look like on your A's, B's, and even C's -- I look like I am about to ask you if you're lookin for a date, honey? is what. And this is in stuff from, like, Lands' End. Forget the younger, trendier stuff. I do not want the gals up and out there like Lisa Goddamn Cuddy wears em, for chrissake. It is not a work-appropriate display, the top half of your ginormous rack. It is distracting and unprofessional and frankly quite chilly in the modern air-conditioned office environment. And nobody -- NOBODY -- sells a tank or tee that kind of goes straight across the chest -- like, say, a boatneck or relaxed crew -- instead of dipping down to show off Nature's Great Abundance And the Miracle Of Life. Except the ones I've already got ... which are black. So yeah, lotta black this time around too.

I'm'a stick to Holmes Magazine. All he cares about is you do the job right.

Hey SHAPE magazine: I had this whole thing all written in my head, all thoughtful and philosophical and a little bit deep, but you know what? It all really boils down to this:

Nobody would ever tell a man to BYO saltless butterless air-popped popcorn to a fucking movie with his friends so he doesn't pork out on movie popcorn, least of all as part of a bigger strategy composed of other sad, depressing little "tricks" (put seltzer in your "faux-mosa" at brunch with the gals! don't meet up in Starbucks for a scone -- go for a brisk walk!) to keep from porking out in general all weekend long thus ruining the effects of a week of "Spartan lunches" and "rigorous workouts."

Nobody. Would EVER. Tell a man that.

Fuck all y'all.

Dot says these're gettin too big to cuddle.

Teen Mom, 16 and Pregnant, who needs all that.

They oughtta make a show called 37 and Pregnant. It'd just be old lady Gleemonex shufflin around the house, findin reasons to do without whatever it was she left upstairs instead of going up to get it, deciding on impulse to go to a Red Lobster for the first time in at least 15 years because OMG CHEESY BISCUITS, falling asleep on the couch in front of Treme at like 8:40 p.m., diggin through the plastic bin of stuff from four years ago and wondering why every item is black (daaaamn girl where's the colors? did you think you could hide it last time or what?), "running" three hilarious/pathetic 12:30 miles around the neighborhood. Hot stuff, I tellya. Where's my teevee money?

Or so the Germans would have us believe.

Me and Acting, or: There Are So So SO Many Reasons I Am Not A Star of Stage and/or Screen, You Don't Even KNOW.

So because I cannot stop myself (decade-long girlcrush), I am re-reading Bossypants in bits and pieces before I turn in for the night. And I'm thinking about Acting, and how for me, that's such burned, scorched territory, never to be traversed.

I did some THEATRE back in the day -- compulsory, in the case of church xmas plays and elementary-school pageanty thingies, but everybody did that stuff.

What astounds me in thinking on it is the times I did it voluntarily in high school, never mind the fact that I am A)spectacularly terrible at it, and B)hate it like I hate group projects, quarterly check-ins with the grandboss, and the thought of actual jail.

Unlike Ms. Fey and others who do this for a living, I did THEATRE not because I actually wanted to, but because in my mind, it was what Alternative kids did. In my defense, there weren't a lot of options in Cowburg High School that had even a whiff of Alternative about them -- Mr. Gleemonex loves to just die laughing at the clubs in my HS yearbook, what with Fellowship of Christian Athletes, Future Farmers of America, Auto Shop, etc.

But I'm still kind of at a loss to explain why I was so sure that Drama Club and One-Act Play and taking Theatre as an elective were so important to me (at least 9th & part of 10th grade, after which I outgrew that particular flavor of horseshit and sampled a few others). I never understood what was fun about it -- it was a lot of extra-hours work, you didn't really control anything (least of all your fellow actors), the word "thespian" is stupid, I certainly didn't "become" Becky Thatcher in my disastrous stint in the role, and hot calzone-fucking SHATNER did I hate the actual performances. I still remember the dread, the angst, the pure distilled loathing of the event ... I didn't even want my family to come to the shows, because I knew I was terrible and I hated everything and its ASS FACE.

And there weren't even any cameras or stagehands and such. If I had to do any acting -- like, say, it was a demand made by people who had kidnapped a family member -- I'd probably end up getting murdered by the crew or my co-stars for gumming up the works. Y'all, I can't even take a normal snapshot -- I stand there all frozen-smiling, trying not to blink, wondering if my chin looks weird, dying to brush that single strand of hair out of my eye, adjusting my stance so I don't look like I have lunch-lady arms, waiting for somebody to TAKE THE FUCKING GODDAMN PICTURE ALREADY, CHRIST IT'S DIGITAL, TAKE FOUR HUNDRED OF THEM TO GET ONE THAT WORKS OR ELSE JUST KILL ME NOW.

So anyway. Actors: My hat is off to you, sirs and madames. I reserve the right to bag on you freely in this here blog, but I'll never not give you credit for doing the impossible.

Giving up, and giving in / put on your Mom Jeans!

Welllll ... yeah, but no.

Here’s the thing -- I get what you’re saying, but I think you picked the wrong target. Yes, my biggest girlcrush of the past decade, Tina Fey, is quite pretty, and boy, can she glam up real nice.

But I don’t think she’s playing when she runs down her own looks, or breaks out exactly what happens on photo shoots (one of my favorite and most cringey parts of Bossypants, incidentally) to make normal people look like Stars, or puts her characters into purposely unattractive positions. I really don’t think it’s “false modesty and humblebraggin’” in this case, at all.

I think that for most of us, our idea of what we look like gets fixed in resin when we’re about thirteen. We make that into a brooch, and we pin it inside our jackets, and it’s always there against our hearts, no matter what else happens in our lives, how we grow, who we become, what we actually see in the mirror in the present day. Famous doesn’t fix that. Sometimes it takes horrible turns -- have y’all seen that pathetic ghoul Heidi something-or-other, who got 23 plastic surgeries in one day, and turned from a very very pretty young woman into something just desperately hard to look at? Shatner only knows what she’s carrying around inside her own head.

But mostly it takes the more common form -- your old pal Gleemonex’s brooch, for instance, shows a soft-bellied, freckle-faced, weird-toothed loud girl who never, ever knows what to wear and will never ever have a boyfriend EVER. No matter that I grew up, that I’m 37 and more confident of my body and my looks than I’ve ever been, that I eventually got plenty of male attention, etc. etc. etc. That girl is still in there somewhere. My great good luck is that I’m not in an industry in which my ability to make a living is dependent upon my looks, and I don’t compete for my living against genuinely incredibly attractive people, the 20s on a scale of 1 to 10. Tina Fey does.

It’s a defense, this first-strike “I’m such an awkward-o” thing, but I would be willing to bet cash money that she earned it cleanly, and I don’t think she owes it to anybody to let it go. I don’t think it’s a “bit” for her. I think the snapshot immortalized on her own brooch (belabor! belabor! it’s what I do) is a lot like those kinda mortifying pictures she included in her book -- even I don’t have photos as awkward as those, poor kid. I imagine they’d make a pretty powerful mental impression on a person, particularly when that person spends her entire professional life in front of a camera, and even the compliments that she normally gets are of the “kinda cute, for a writer/comedian” backhanded bullshit variety.

So anyway. That just stuck in my craw all weekend long, and now it’s out. Tina, if you stumble across this, Shatner forbid -- sorry for the rando-internets analysis. Whatever you’re doing, it rules, and I love you. Super-hard. But not in a weird way.

Honey badger don't care.

So I'm in Whole Foods the other day, facing this vast wall of yogurt options. I'm starting to realize that yogurt, which I have discussed here previously, is in the same family of Stuff Rich White Liberals Like as yoga -- time-consuming, expensive, somewhat pointless, requiring special equipment or specialized stores, that kind of thing. But I can eat them on the train when I miss First Breakfast at home due to I have to get up pretty goddamn early to make the train, which waits for no man. And Whole Foods has the biggest selection I've ever seen, with barely a Dannon or a Yoplait anywhere. It's all this crazy shit with total BS benefits ascribed thereunto, but I need some variety because YOGURT, UGH. Anyway so I'm standing in front of it, my kid going nuts with desire to hit another samples table, I'm scanning labels and suffering choice paralysis.

I see one that looks interesting -- calm white label, nice illustrations of fruit, "Icelandic-style" something or other. No hormones, preservatives, additives. Non-fat, 100 calories, trace amount of sugar, no aspartame, MSG, Red #5, motor oil, what have you. It's two dollars per, but hey, cheap if it's your whole meal, and it can be, because hot damn, FOURTEEN grams of protein. I get a couple: Grapefruit, Orange-Ginger.

Days later, starving on the train, I bust out the Orange-Ginger. I'm instantly sorry, with the first spoonful. It tastes like ... a cleaning product. Iceland, you're on notice.

Homesteading

Random Thoughts on Our First Few Weeks In the Far Burbs

Feeling guilty about the increase in my carbon footprint. Gotta drive everywhere (and oh wretched SHATNER do I hate driving), the city doesn't do compost (so we're back to throwing out food scraps as garbage, which feels like a terrible step backward, until we can get our own compost thing going), I've had to buy a bunch of new plastic-wrapped stuff to get the house set up. On the plus side, the driving adds up to less than what Mr. Gleemonex alone was doing before, so that's actually a net reduction (just feels like more to me personally).

I fear that we have stumbled into a nest of Republicans. Our neighborhood is beautiful, lots of "mature" (meaning built in the early 70s) houses, extremely well-maintained, with aggressively manicured lawns (my kid calls this one neighbor's topiary'd trees "head trees"). And we like the pretty. But ... instead of four (4) Priuses on one block like our old shambly street, everyone here has Trucks. Big Trucks. Our neighbors across the street have two Suburbans and one shiny pickup. I think two people live there. It's weird. And EVERYTHING was closed on Easter Sunday -- even Banana Republic, which I know for a fact is open on Christmas Eve and Thanksgiving Day. The only store in the metropolis that was open was Gucci (which clearly favors making a buck over honoring the Risen Christ, and bully for them). I just ... I get the feeling our Obama signage next summer may stand alone on our street, dig?

We have so far been invited to church thrice, by three different neighbor persons, and have been brought baked goods by one. (My reactions: No, No, No, and Awesome, thank you!) Everyone has been super nice so far -- that's pretty cool. We lived at our old place for seven years, and only ever spoke to the people from one house. Oh, and Mr. Gleemonex talked cars with the creepy psycho-killer from the other end of the street once. But here, we've already met people.

You can make protected left turns and U-turns ALL OVER THE DAMN PLACE here. Now THAT'S being organized for the automobile. I don't like it, the car-orientation, on a philosophical and moral level -- but, you guys: LEGAL U-TURNS. If you gotta drive, best you get to U-turn like a mothafucka, am I right?

I love my commute. I don't love getting up at 6:00 sharp, and it's a bit of an ass-pain to get to the train, but once I get there ... there's this beautiful station, built in 1935, with immense high ceilings, wooden benches golden with age, inlaid floors, old signage and murals, a tiny snack bar nook that smells of fresh coffee in the morning and absolutely heavenly fresh-popped popcorn in the evening. Passing through it is a high, every time (and so much better than that hideous depressing ugly windswept pigeon-shitted Soviet-bloc-looking BART station in the cold that I used to have to use). And my fellow riders -- Caltrain patrons are Commuters, man. No Krazy there. It reminds me of the LIRR, which I will continue to love till the End of Days, and it's an hour each way that I get to sit and write the book that will eventually make me too goddamn rich and famous to need to commute anymore ... but I'll still do it from time to time just for fun.

I love our palm trees, our pool, the view, the space, the feeling that this is ours. It's been exhausting, this move, and there's no end in sight ... but we are home, y'all.