Tuesday, August 31, 2004

So, technically, what does it take to make one a Whore??


Lyle Lovett is playing at the Luther Burbank Center for the Performing Arts on Monday, Sept. 20, 2004. Someone just called to let me know that her Dad has offered to secure tickets for me should I decide I want them. [ed. note: I REALLY, REALLY want them!] Details as to what exactly I'd have to do in terms of irrevocably wedding myself to the Devil are no doubt forthcoming...! Sigh.

Monday, August 30, 2004

Second Grade!


My Boo is in the second grade! I know this because today was her first day of school and we assembled on the other side of the circle from the kindergarteners and first-graders! Also, her new classroom is on the second floor! I am so excited about all of this I can really not even stand it. Her class is essentially made up of some of the kids she had in the first grade plus some kids she knows from kindergarten so it was all smiles and "hello"s! and "Yay! I didn't know you were in my class!" all round! Very adorable actually. Psycho mom and AgroChild are not a part of her class this year which is a relief but the unfortunate flip-side to that is that now I have to interact with PM (Perfect Mother of Perfect Child who cannot stand the Psycho family and always manages to pull strings to get her daughter in the other class) ... Ah well. Such is the way of life sometimes...

Friday, August 27, 2004

in short...


I've got the kid here today and I've got a ton to do so I'm going to give you all the news by bullit points.

  • Kid = GREAT! She's being patient and wonderful and I love having her here! (an addendum to that would be that M. -- the bookwrangler here, is also GREAT becuase she is keeping Boo entertained/allowing herself to be consulted on all manner of subjects and I am eternally grateful!)
  • Minor scary issue wherein Director of Ed department didn't think I should take the classes I'm signed up for (since I missed the pre-requisite classes to them that were given over the summer - for understandable reasons but still...) BUT Advisor rocks, Mills Ed Dept. rocks and most importantly Ed. Dir. rocks and Im getting a special dispensation to take one class and my Advisor is ammending a class she's teaching so I can take it as a special study! Yay!
  • CP is being annoying. I don't like her right now.
  • Home visit with Spark's new caseworker went fine. Most of house still a sty but since I'm hip to Social workers and their wily ways, I did clean the livingroom and sure enough, she settled in on the comfy couch and stayed put the entire time!
  • Mistah L-L has invited us all to an fancy-schmancy Pool party tomorrow at his new digs which will be fun, fun, fun!
  • I'm tired.
  • Wednesday, August 25, 2004

    Splain to me why it is that the new social worker who will henceforth be handling our Fost/Adopt for Santa Clara County is stopping by TOMORROW afternoon -- information that is actually funny given that 1) the house is a sty and 2) I, being at school this eve, will not have time to rush home and disinfect everything??! Just wondering....

    Yay!


    School starts for me tonight (A very nice young lez-bean who will henceforth be reffered to as Kid Care/KC and who is attending Mills, is going to watch the Spark for me while I'm in class. In return I am going to listen to her ramble on about Philosophy and "thinking about things" -- apparently it is very important that we do. Think about things, I mean. -- and pay her alot of money. In cash. At the end of each session. Anyways...) I just managed to talk my beautiful Prof. K. into being my "Directed Reading" coach! Whoo Hoo! She rocks! Now, granted I'm sure I'd be just as excited to have her on-board as it were, were she not quite so stunning (cause, let's face it, she's also brillant!) but still and all, it never hurts to have something nice to lok at as you discuss "policy implementation and integration." My other class is "Qualitative Analysis" which I'm sure will be THRILLING... K. back to work. Just felt like being excited for a minute at chall.

    Monday, August 23, 2004

    Still tired after all these years...


    School is starting this week for me. I think I have to check in tonight but since I am LAME I haven't really looked into it and so have NO idea where I'm supposed to go or who my professor is going to be. Nice.


    Week end was nice. I got to have an adult evening including "dinner and a movie" with my now favorite partner in crime, Travelin' Man, due to the fan-tabulous kid-sitting skills of Spark's "grandma" (Yay, San Jose peeps!), in addition to which (super-mondo added bonus) I got to visit the B's! Yay! I heart the B family. I really do. Did not get to see my BBQ which is my fault entirely and for which I should be severely reprimanded, (or at least slapped around a little) but what with hanging out on awfully comfortable B couch and chatting with muchly-tattooed pregnant gals, the time jest slipped by! I also learned this week-end that I hate sharing my kids. I just don't see the point really. (I mean, obviously I do or else I wouldn't do it but still...) It just makes us cranky and missing each other and throws the ever-elusive "schedule" completely out of whack. Anyway. It's all good. Part of the price one pays for being a social animal I suppose...

    Yesterday, we all went Boo school supply/clothes shopping which was really fun and which resulted in some of the cutest "outfits" I think I've ever seen (I also learned that a key component of an "outfit" is that it "match" -- see what paying attention can get cha!)

    Also chatted with Miss Tail for awhile last night which was GREAT! She's such a cutie and such a keeper and I'm thrilled she's returned from her travels and is now once again available 24/7 for me to hound with my ishoos! Yay! {sigh} K. I need to get stuff done now. More later.

    Friday, August 20, 2004

    The problem with Craig's List...


    Is that if you're checking out the personals, it's pretty much inevitable that you'll answer the one placed by a friend of yours and by the time you figure it out pretty much the only thing you can feel about it is that on the one hand it's really kind of cool/funny/interesting/ironic and just makes you love them all the more -- on the other, it's also kind of sad.

    Testing time!


    Well the honeymoon is officially over! That's right folks, the Spark is settled in, she's comfortable with us as her new familial peeps, she understands the rules of the house and now... it's all about testing! Yay! It's cute actually. She'll look to see where I am and if I'm looking at her before she throws her cheerios all over the place. Then (anticipating that I'm going to stomp over and grab her tiny little hands and hold them "Firmly but gently" for five seconds while re-iterating that "We don't throw food!") she'll get herself all tensed up so when I do grab her hands she's in a perfect position for maximum squirmage. Today in the car she even started crying before I put her hands down. No worries though. I guess it's a good thing in ye olde grand scheme and all of that. Annoying though.



    I like Green Eyes very much. She's good people.



    Lunch today with Traveling Man! Yay! Haven't seen him in a coon's age so it'll be nice to reconnect as it were.



    Shout out to the Bee family who are all spending some quality "day-care-provider-has-the-audacity-to-think-she's-allowed-to-go-on-vacation" time at home together. Hope the days are filled with love and light and lots of fun crafts projects!



    K. no more posting. Must get actual work done....!

    Thursday, August 19, 2004

    Still tired.


    I think the baby's getting some new teeth. Lots of low-grade temperature/general crankiness/middle of the night screaming going on. Big kid is sick too. Last night CP and I had the following conversation:

    CP: So, your kid's still sick.
    Me: Awwww! Poor baby!
    CP: Yeah. Poor little one. {long pause} So.... if she's still sick tomorrow what are we going to do?
    Me: Whaddaya mean.
    CP: Well, my boss is out tomorrow and she asked me to definitely be a work to cover Thursday and Friday. So, what do you think?
    Me: About you working or about the Boo?
    CP: The Boo. If she's sick.
    Me: Um. I guess if you HAVE to work and she's sick and needs to come home I'll go get her. I guess.
    CP: o.k.

    Now, I could list all the ways in which this is annoying and do a graphical chart delimiting the breakdown of actual physical time CP has spent with Boo in the last week and a half vs. the amount of time kid has been sick/in my care with a special line item representing sheer "behind-ness" I am falling at work because I've essentially not been there for the last three days... but I won't. I won't because I do not in any way want to be read as bitching about "having" to watch Boo. I love Boo. I will rearrange anything in my life that needs rearranging to ensure that she is looked after, secure and happy. I just sort of resent the fact that that sometimes means I have to rearrange to accomodate CP whom, unfortunately doesn't necessarily deserve the same treatment. Ah well. Moving on.



    Time with mom was exhausting. I'm glad she came out. i'm glad she exists but my GAWD that woman is cynical. I get that she basically grew up feeling no love whatso ever but it's hard dealing with the single most bitter person on the planet 24/7. {sigh}She just needs a lot of love is all and I'm just not equipped to deliver right this second. We got into a fairly heated argument about schools and accountability right before she left which I think made her feel bad because she called me three times after she got home. I've yet to call her back because I suck. Plus I need to just kind of breathe for a minute.



    I got the speech from Pretty Boy last night. You know the speech. "You're so great and wonderful and attractive! I can't imagine a scenario where you'd be alone for the rest of your life..." speech. Which I'm always giving and which is annoying to hear so I'm thinking I'll stop throwing it around quite so much...

    K. I'm done. Work needs to be worked and I'm not really interested in thinking about anything in depth right now so I'm out!

    Wednesday, August 18, 2004

    Too tired to blog.


    Will check in tomorrow. Promise.

    Monday, August 16, 2004

    Looks like I've got the Boo all week though which is nice...

    Whew.


    Mom=gone. Finally. Serious deadline fast approaching. No actual time to work on anything. Kids are sick. One all-day trip to San Jose/two Dr. appointments for the Baby with the Big kid in tow (did I mention she's sick too?) planned for tomorrow. We need to be down there at 8:30am meaning --- we leave the house at 7:00 --- need to be awake at --- let's see --- 5:30! Nice. Somebody explain to me how people do this, again...

    Thursday, August 12, 2004

    And did I forget to mention...?



    My mom's going to be here tomorrow. She's only staying for a bit (leaving Monday) so it should be fine. My place, however, is a sty and I'm getting no sleep these days so I'm kind of cranky. Ah well. We shall see what we see, eh..

    Arrrrrrgggggg!


    I was doing so well! I was fine. I was happy. I had the whole situation under control. And now she's back from vacation and I CANNOT believe how incredibly sexily, stupidly attractive she still is! Fuck.


    K. in other news. I have been informed that I am not in fact "lucky", what I am is "Serendipitious."

    This from Dirty Boy who has nothing better to do with his time than analyse me and my life:

    "So, the thing is, you're always going around saying you're 'lucky' and acting like you as a person have nothing to do with whatever it is but the thing is you're not just lucky. Shit happen to you that happens to everybody you just make the most of it. Look, I was reading this article that sums you up 'Chance is socially organized and certain contexts favor both the novel observation and the capacity to make it matter.' I know how crazy you are about 'accurately describing things' so stop saying you're lucky. You're not."

    Got it. Thank you. I will endeavor to be more precise in my emoting from this point forward. Can we work on your issues now?

    Wednesday, August 11, 2004

    Teaser


    K. This is just real quick but I have to say, I chatted with my man, Pretty Boy last night and I just so have to give him major props. He's one of the few people I know who actually seemed to have accurately assessed the parts of his personality/patterns that were giving him problems, spent an enormous amount of time actually working on them and then come out on the other side! PB is fixed, people and I couldn't be more proud of him! Oh sure, He may not be perfect (well, to me he is but my standards are more fluid than other peoples') but he's whole and healthy and happy (although right this second he's admittedly pretty wrecked) and has a fairly good handle on his motivations and reactions and is working on dealing with them in a normal, self-loving manner (heh, heh, I just said "self-loving!"). I am soooooo impressed with him right now I just want to buy him lots of pretty things and kiss him all over his face, neck and ears! Anyway... just needed to put that out there. More later on people who've suddenly contacted me who I haven't spoken to in 7 years....

    Tuesday, August 10, 2004

    Whew!


    Sorry I'm being all incommunicato, folks. I'm running up against some issues/deadlines here (at work and in the life) that are all conspiring to kick my a**! No worries though. I'm thinking I'm going to get the best of them in just a little bit and then I will be back and chatty and able/willing to entertain!

    Friday, August 06, 2004

    Tiny brothels...


    Feeling a little like I'm running a miniature house of ill repute. I've invited one of Boo's friends over for a sleep over and they're not allowed in Boo's room (since Spark also sleeps in there and she goes to bed at 7:00pm -- I thought I could keep them entertained with videos and cookies but I was sadly mistaken...!) so, they're playing dress-up and in doing so have raided MY closet which basically means I have two tiny people trotting around in velvet slip dresses with cut-out designs, short satin kimonos and 5-inch red strappy sandles! I am simultaneously horrified, captivated and not just a little curious about the fact that the seven year old can maneuver in those things better than I can!

    Clarity doesn't necessarily make it better...


    So, a good friend of mine just got dumped by thier siggie and I think that sucks. I think it sucks for a whole variety of reasons not just because the GFOM is a GREAT person who soooo doesn't enter into this kind of crap lightly and even moresooooo doesn't deserve getting in any way made to feel miserable about anything (ever!) but also because it occurred to me (in analyzing this -- as is my wont with things that really are none of my business) that even had this person been clear about their feelings and/or lack thereof my friend probably still would have gotten hurt. That bugs me. I want people to take it upon themselves to be clear in their intentions but I also want it to be enough that when a person is clear, that the other person picks up on the warning signals contained therein and scales thier emotional response accordingly (this is all theorhetical BTW -- I have no idea what actually happened within the confines of my Buddy's relationship...) But then I think "Is that even/ever possible?" Is it desirable. In the first place, noone is ever able to be really clear about anything because noone knows what the hell they really want. In the second place, I've had people tell me flat out that they don't want me (never have, never will) and rather than taking that bit of info like the well-meant "back-off" it is intended to be, it just makes me want them more. So, I guess what I'm really saying is not that I want the world to be more forthcoming with/responsive to "clarity" in all it's incarnations -- I guess, I really just want a way to make it so the people I care about don't get hurt all the time. I'm also somehow guessing that finding and beating up all the transgressors is also pretty much out of the question...




    In other news, the Boo told me an off-color joke last night which she learned from a friend of hers who is seven. The joke involved a foreigner and his English teacher, an airport, a zoo and an infant. The punchline of this masterpiece was: "Take off ze-bra, Baby!" which she explained to me was funny because it was French. {shakes head} I was and am, quite honestly at a loss.

    Wednesday, August 04, 2004

    While at the same time...


    Very much loving my cute little Spark and her Frankenstein-esque toddler-about-the-house self!

    I miss my kid...


    That's it really. Too much work. Too little sleep. Missing my Boo.

    Tuesday, August 03, 2004

    tired and old



    Me=both. I just got through creating a profile just for the Boo on my laptop and I'm realizing that once I moved all her software and favorites off my partition and onto hers, all I had left was the boring crap...!

    Shout out to Mistah Lovah-Lovah who is FINALLY back from whatever god-forsaken clime he was off to and who spent the last 48 hours flitting about like the society photographer he is taking "snaps" for some movie that's maybe going to be at Sundance. Yes, folks, he's THAT talented -- it helps that he's also very accomodating and extraordinarily reasonable, price-wise! I'm going to have to get him to sign all the stuff he's given me quick before all the fame goes to his head!

    La, la,la! BBQ's back!


    The Children have returned as well but since we're apparently not speaking to each other (petulant little brats!) I am not as excited about their newly re-established presence in mine life! Yay, yay, yay -- BBQ is back!