web in front

Which page to turn to

One of the nice things about not working at the paper anymore is that I like reading again.  I mean, I've always enjoyed reading, but after spending 9 (or 10, or 11) hours a day reading tons of copy and e-mails, I didn't particularly want to read when I got home.  I don't have that problem anymore, and I've gotten back into books.  I'm really devouring them this year. 

The problem is, I'm devouring them thanks to the library.  We have a fabulous library within walking distance, and it's the bane of my existence.  Don't get me wrong; I think the whole concept of a library is innovative and great.  But when you have as many books as we have, you should be paying attention to what you own, not what you can borrow for a short time.  At the top of our stairs, there is a three-shelf bookcase devoted solely to books I have purchased that I haven't read yet.  And there are books piled on top of books and books stacked in front of books and books piled up next to the shelf, too.  Books are in danger of covering the hall light switch.  And that's just the books I haven't read that are on THAT bookcase.  But I can't resist the lure of the library.  Its siren song of new books pulls me in (I only like to buy paperbacks, so I have to wait for new books).  Plus, the walk to the library is a beautiful one.  One block to the west of us is a busy interstate.  But one block to the south of us is this lovely walking path that follows and crosses a run.  We see all kinds of birds and ducks on every walk, we regularly see turtles, and we've seen herons and beavers.  (Harper says don't forget the squirrels, including the extremely tame one that likes to climb up into her stroller and eat stray snacks.)  Who can resist a walk to the library like that?

So here are the library books I've read since late February; I'm excluding the ones of my own I squeezed in.  And I'll show how the evil library has forced -- FORCED -- me to add to my collection:

1)  "Not Enough Indians" by Harry Shearer
2)  "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy (I had the great foresight to read this both before it won the Pulitzer and before Oprah named it as one of her books, which guaranteed that no one else who wants to read it for pure pleasure will be able to get their hands on it for months.)
3)  "Truck: A Love Story" by Michael Perry
4)  "Nature Girl" by Carl Hiaasen
5)  "Housekeeping vs. the Dirt" by Nick Hornby -- This is the book that did me in.  This book, and "The Polysyllabic Spree," are compilations of Hornby's columns for The Believer magazine.  In his column, he makes a monthly list of books he's bought, books he's read (these two lists are rarely the same), and why.  It may sound boring, but in his hands it isn't, and it's deadly catnip for other people who behave the same way.  God knows how many books I bought thanks to Spree.  This book made me buy "Oh the Glory of It All" by Sean Wilsey, "Citizen Vince" by Jess Walter, and two of the graphic novels by Marjane Satrapi, plus I intend to get "Early Bird" by Rodney Rothman, and "Then We Came to the End" by Joshua Ferris once it comes out in paperback.  Luckily I got Wilsey and Walter at a steep discount, and a percentage off on Satrapi, but still.  This is the absolute worst damage the library can do -- keep me from reading my own collection, plus add to it.  Evil!
5)  "A Spot of Bother" by Mark Haddon
6)  "Baltimore Noir" edited by Laura Lippman
7)  "Finn" by Jon Clinch (I'll definitely be buying this)
8)  "Love Is a Mix Tape" by Rob Sheffield (checked out for Sean, but I also read it)
9)  "Kockroach" by Tyler Knox

I also checked out "Apex Hides the Hurt" by Colson Whitehead sometime in the winter, and I ran out and bought it soon after I read it.  The damage the library has done!  Anyway, I enjoyed all the books listed above.  I know a lot of you are readers, too, so I highly recommend "The Road" (oh yeah, go out on a limb and recommend a Pulitzer winner -- thanks, Sharon), "A Spot of Bother," "Finn," "Kockroach" and "Apex Hides the Hurt."

I'm going to take a break from the library a bit and try to read a few of my own books.  I feel super-guilty when I see books on the library's new-release shelves that I've bought and haven't read yet (like "Absurdistan" by Gary Shteyngart, althought I should probably read his earlier "The Russian Debutante's Handbook" before that, gah).  I think I'll get a handle on all this sometime before 2092.   

"You think she's an open book / But you don't know which page to turn to, do you?" -- "Open Book" by Cake.  I tell everyone I hate Cake, but that's mostly because I hate "The Distance" so much that I refuse to listen to the rest of their work.  I liked "Short Skirt/Long Jacket" when it was playing on the radio, so maybe I'm not giving them enough credit.

Wandering

In a few days, we'll be heading to the beach for a short bit, and a few weeks after that we'll be heading to Maine.  So now would be a good time to mention our last adventure, which was MerleFest.  Except in our circles it's Merlesfest.  Funny how the genesis of one extra letter can be a looong story, so I'm not going to explain myself.  That's what you get for not being in our Merlesfest circle. 

So, end of April we headed down to the wilds of Carolina for Merlesfest.  I'm not going to go into two tons of story, except to say that it was our first Merlesfest with Harper and it went better than I was hoping for.  She danced to the music, she ate hardily, she slept quite a bit more than I dared to hope for.  She also was the asshole the first morning and woke everyone up at 6:45, but everyone claimed that they were about to get up anyway.  Our Merlesfest friends are good peeps.

I'm going to post two pics from the fest.  The first picture is for Uncle Geoffrey.  We wanted to get a pic of Harper chowing down on a turkey leg for Geoffrey, but it wasn't meant to be.  However, her scarfing down a corn dog should suffice:

   

Ha!  That baby loves corn dogs.  This is her second one.  The first one was at a Sonic (Uncle Geoffrey will again approve).  She was pretty damn happy, standing in the footwell of the car's back seat and chowing down on the dog.  Now I have a powerful weapon of happiness.  Anyway, picture No. 2.  I love No. 2 (giggle), mainly because I kept singing to Harper that she needed to drink up because it's important to stay hydrated when out in the sun all day.  Then I thought, you're such an asshole, she doesn't know what you're saying.  However, I forgot the baby is highly intelligent and on her way to a Nobel Prize (hopefully in literature, because I'd find talking to economics prize winners boooring).  This next picture proves she heard everything I said about hydration:

Or maybe she's taunting Ernie, since there's no water in the bottle.  She does have an evil streak.

These pics don't show her swallow tat or her "Are we at Merlesfest, Daddy?" shirt very well, but you can't have everything.  What they do show is a sweaty, dirty baby who seemed to really enjoy Merlefest (and Carlton, her new best friend).  We are much relieved, because we love Merlesfest.  And if I don't go to Merlesfest, how is Yee-Haw going to pay the rent?  Duties, people -- I have duties.   

A hard time to be a Hokie

On Saturday, I got a Virginia Tech magazine in the mail that included real estate advertising targeting alumni.  This ad wanted alumni to buy a new condo to have available just for home-game weekends.  I was making fun of the expense of this concept to Sean until I saw the prices -- $99K for a one-bedroom condo, $199K for a four-bedroom condo.  Since a 2-bedroom condo can easily go for $400K here, the low prices staggered us.  "Maybe we should move to Blacksburg," Sean said.

On Monday, he changed his mind.

My time in Blacksburg was so safe.  I thought nothing of wandering around alone there, and my last semester there I thought nothing of wandering around after dark a little, well, impaired.  I can't just say it was the times -- right after graduation I moved back to Northern Virginia and regularly had to be concerned for my safety.  No, it was Blacksburg, a sweet, bucolic little town.  Sometimes the college kids got a little rowdy after a game, and that was the extent of deviant behavior.  I had to interview the town sheriff for an article for one of my journalism classes, and the big event of his career had been a domestic shooting about a decade earlier.  Now, in the course of nine months, the town and university have had to deal with a manhunt in August for an escaped prisoner who shot two, some bomb threats last week, and the worst mass shooting in U.S. history.  Virginia Tech's current students won't have the luxury of thinking back on the town and campus quite the way I do. 

These things often happen in little towns you don't know, haven't heard of.  You watch in horror and sympathy for a day, you read a few articles, you forget about it after a week.  You get to remove yourself from the situation -- this happened in my country, but in a backwoods place where there are obviously problems.  It's not supposed to happen in the dorm you lived in.  That's one of the things that is rattling me.  You go to certain parts of D.C., Prince George's County at night, you know you're not safe from drive-bys or random shootings.  On a grander scale, working in downtown D.C. or the financial district of New York City or in the Sears Tower in Chicago is no longer worry-free, the big "what if it happens again?" looming over your head.  But on the flip side, you get to feel safe in remote places, say a good college in a little town in the gentle, rolling mountains of Virginia.  That's the way things are supposed to work.  That is where the balance of the universe is.  Once that balance is taken away, what are you left with?  The knowledge that you aren't safe anywhere, at any time.  Anywhere.  At any time. 

Maybe I should have known that by now, but can I be blamed?  Who really wants to live in a world where you know that?  I was OK with giving up large urban centers in order to have peace and quiet in small towns.  I'm not OK with giving a place like Blacksburg up.  I hope the school and town will be able to preserve some of its previous sanity in the coming months.  What I loved about Tech was that it only looked like a fortress.  Inside its walls, I was as free as I have ever been.  It'd be nice if some other kids got to feel that way.

The good times are killing me

Oh, hey, hi!  Are you still looking for posts here?  Silly you.  It's that weird time of year where life shouldn't be busy at all yet somehow it is.  I know it's the same for you, because I read your blog and you ain't posting either. 

I don't even know where to start.  Maybe going to the beach in February.  Hey, we went to the beach in February.  Yeah, I know, and shut the hell up.  We like going to the beach in February.  No one's around and sometimes you get a warm day.  And then sometimes your kid catches some norovirus-like bug and vomits the whole way home and then you catch it, and then she catches it again from you, and then you catch it again twice from her or possibly from yourself.  It was awful.  I'm not big on sanitizing the hell out of everything the way some people are, but by the end of that first week I was washing anything we breathed on and hosing down the counters with Fantastik three times a day.

That's when the craziness started.  There was sickness, then the drama of buying a new computer because our old one crashed hideously, and then cleaning up before my mother-in-law visited, then said mother-in-law visited, and then there was other company, and now there is a little downtime before dashing off again to Merlefest for a couple days at the end of the month.  Oh, and there are all the teeny little matters to try to cram in, like having to replace a speaker in the car and needing to find a hard-core but not-expensive umbrella stroller before Merlefest.  You know, the crap that is minor but builds up to the point that you think, "Where the hell did the week go?"

I have managed to get some good stuff in.  Like:

1)  Shopping.  My first excellent score was finding an old lightbox fair-vendor sign that says "HOT SOFT PRETZELS" at a Virginia Beach antique store.  (To my eternal shame, I made time to stop and get it while the baby was sick.  But as you now know, she got her revenge.)  It's big, but it just fits in the pass-through between our kitchen and dining room.  The cord is still attached, but it isn't lighting up.  When I have a little time (now scheduled for 2015), I'm going to take it apart and see what's up.  Maybe it just needs a new bulb.  My second excellent score is super-cute red floral Burberry mules that originally were $295.  I got them for $35.  I loves you, C-Mart!      

2)  Harper.  With better weather (sometimes), we're getting to the playground more.  And the little harpy is making time with boys already.  She embraced one boy when she went to the playground with her Grandma Moores, and got kissy with yet another boy a week or two later.  Granted, the second boy put the moves on her first, but she kissed back.  We are so having The Talk this weekend.  On the plus side, I'm going to have a sweet tan by June.

3)  New computer.  Yeah, we had to sell Sean's soul to afford it, but we got a new computer.  Our lemon HP finally bit the big one and lost ALL of our stuff.  It's partially our own fault -- the only thing we backed up were Harper's photos -- but excuse us if we thought we'd get more than a couple years out of it.  So we kicked HP to the curb and got a Dell.  Here's why:  I like the music in their ads, and Sean got a (teeny) discount through work.  Hey, I've bought things for worse reasons.  And it worked out OK, because we love the new computer.  That's because for once I rejected my miserly Olson ways and souped up the speed and size and hey, whaddya know, the computer goes fast and holds all our shit.  Novel!  But of course that meant getting new speakers, because our old ones didn't work with Vista, and getting a new printer because our old one didn't work with Vista and only had a parallel port.  So far I like Vista, but let's face it, I don't even tap into what the computer is capable of.  Sean's getting all full of the computer's power and turning his vinyl into MP3 files and crazy techie stuff like that, but I'm sticking with looking at blogs for now.  Someday I'll get all crazy and try to print a picture out with our fancy multi-function printer.

So that's what's been going on here.  I think there will be a little lull in May, but I probably just jinxed it by typing that.  No matter -- I promise another post before September!

"Got dirt, got air, got water and I know you can carry on / The good times are killing me / Enough hair of the dog to make myself an entire rug / The good times are killing me" -- "The Good Times Are Killing Me" by Modest Mouse.  Why quote from the new Modest Mouse album when you can quote from the old one?  Also, I've only listened to the new album once.  And I haven't listened to the new Arcade Fire at all.  That's because I'm obsessed with the new Amy Winehouse.  OBSESSED.  So obsessed that the baby doesn't even dance to it anymore; she just looks at me like, "This shit again?"  Screw you, baby.  I have to listen to the Elmo's World theme song almost every damn day, so you can listen to "Rehab" once or twice.  Little brat.

My mind on my money and my money on my mind

It's funny how, right when things seem a little too tight, you find a little extra money in your pocket.  That always happens.  Well, actually, maybe it doesn't happen to you, only to me, and right about now you wish I would choke on a fucking twenty and die so you can laugh as you yank it out of my cold, dead mouth and then go use it to splurge on burgers at Five Guys. 

Dude, sorry.  But I'm a little charmed when it comes to the ching.  (I have to say "ching"; I'm quoting old-school Snoop.  It's '90s Throwback Post!)  Things seem to work out right when I need them to.  Not in a dramatic fashion -- I've never won the lottery on the day that I have to make a last-ditch mortgage payment or the bank will foreclose on the family farm.  No, I mean in a nice, quiet kind of way that doesn't make me feel so freaked out about our monetary situation now that I've stopped working.

Case in point:  I have been waiting for the car-insurance shoe to drop ever since I had an accident in September.  I caused the wreck, both cars needed a lot of work, and I was sure I was going to take an insurance beating.  (I had a sign.  One of my beloved xenon headlights had to be replaced, and it cost exactly $666 -- Satan's number!  I knew I was fucked.)  Last week, the insurance company let me know they've finished reviewing our policy.  And the verdict:  They're actually dropping -- dropping! -- our rate by hundreds of dollars because I've been with them almost 20 years and they've never given me a long-standing customer discount.  It took me several minutes to comprehend this.  Once I did, I laughed and thought, of course!  I'm monetarily charmed!  Then I instantly felt guilty for thinking that because, c'mon, they're an insurance company.  They probably screwed over some Katrina victim so I could save hundreds of dollars.

Before the Katrina victim gets really pissed off at me, I should mention that we are going to have to move sometime this year.  We cannot afford to keep living in this place on one salary.  This area's just too expensive.  And the situation is not an easy "well, let's just pick up and move to the cheap apartment complex" one.  There are too many things to consider.  For example, Maryland is cheaper, but I am a Virginia girl and even thinking about moving there feels really odd.  There's a rivalry between the states, you know, and I don't want to cross the line.  My sister did, but let's face it, she's kinda weird; she likes broccoli and runs marathons for fun.  So do we cross the state line?  Do we keep renting?  Or do we try to find a house, and if so, do we get a real run-down fixer-upper that is a decent commute from downtown or do we move way the hell out and get someplace nicer but force Sean into the Commute From Hell?  Or do we even stay in this area?  Is it time to move to some bucolic area so Harper can grow up running across fields of flowers like she's in some damn "Little House on the Prairie" episode?

It's all too much for me.  It's just so ADULT, the whole dilemma.  Finances and home ownership and good school districts -- gah.  So I prefer not to think about it.  I sit around and think about other things, like:  How weird is it that the headlight cost exactly $666?

"Rollin in the street, smokin indo, sippin on gin and juice / Laid back (with my mind on my money and my money on my mind)" -- "Gin and Juice" by Snoop Dogg.  Such a crude, crude song.  The above lyrics are the only non-dirty part of the song.  Yeah, there's drinking and dope, but whatever.  The Gourds have a funny remake of this song.  When they played at Merlefest, everyone tried to get them to do it, but they refused -- they said there were too many kids around.  Then, after much begging and pleading, they ended up playing it, even though the kids were still there.  I like that.  Screw the kids!  The world is not about you, you brats.  You're going to listen to our abusive, highly sexual music and you're going to pay off our damn deficit and if you don't like it you can move to Canada and pay a shitload for gas, you damn ungrateful kids.  That's what you get for taking the perfectly good grilled cheese that I made you and throwing it on the floor.  Not that I'm talking about any specific kid or any specific incident.  No no, not at all.

The soundtrack of 2006

As you probably know, two tons of music pours into the Moores household every year.  And if you don't know, Sean's a big music fan.  Big.  REAL BIG.  So we hear a lot of new music every year.  Right now, the HickoryWind Top 10 Albums of the Year is taking up Sean's time, so I figured it's only proper that I put down my albums of the year.  I don't do Top 10, though.  This is just a list of the stuff I've listened to the most this year, in no particular order:

Jenny Lewis with the Watson Twins  "Rabbit Fur Coat" -- I wanted to hate it because it's so very trendy to like Jenny right now.  But I couldn't help it; it's that good.  Plus the remake of "Handle With Care" reminded me that I really liked The Traveling Wilburys.  (But girl, let's talk about the twins.  Two words:  Fucking creepy.)
Yeah Yeah Yeahs "Show Your Bones" -- This should surprise no one.  I have a love for Karen O that possibly eclipses my love for Courtney Love.  (Speaking of: I really, really hope the tentatively titled "How Dirty Girls Get Clean" is on this list come December 2007.)  "No Mysteries" was my "Maps" for 2006.  And anyone who says, "But those two songs aren't at all alike" doesn't understand music at all.  Asswipe. 
The Black Keys  "Chulahoma" -- This tribute EP to Junior Kimbrough makes up for the lackluster "Magic Potion" (see below).  Their muddy style of bluesy rock meshes perfectly with Kimbrough's tunes.   
Gnarls Barkley  "St. Elsewhere" -- Yeah, OK, this was trendier than even Jenny Lewis.  But that's because insanity never sounded so good.
Corinne Bailey Rae -- Sean gave this to me, saying, "From what I've read and listened to, I think you'll like it."  Right once again.  "Put Your Records On" was kind of a summer anthem, but I like "Trouble Sleeping" even better.  It's just beautiful.
Sarah Harmer  "I'm a Mountain" -- I probably listened to this album more than any other one this year.  Or it's a very close second (see below).  I was a Harmer fan prior to this year thanks to Stacy, but this album just transcends all of Harmer's previous work.  And all her other work is great, so I guess that makes this album fabulous.  (Which instantly makes me think of the SNL ad for Homocil, where the little boy shakes the sequined tank top he made and says, "Isn't it fabulous!")
KT Tunstall  "Eye to the Telescope" -- Of course "Black Horse and the Cherry Tree" got me into this album, but there are songs on it that I think I like even better.  And even if you got sick of "Black Horse," you gotta admire that she wrote it in about 5 minutes.  Bitch.
James Hunter  "People Gonna Talk" --  This is a Sean album.  A Sean album mainly stays in his possession and on his rotation.  However, sometimes I can't friggin' shake one, and it becomes an Our album.  The title song is wonderful.
Bruce Springsteen  "We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions" -- Another Sean album, but I've always been a big "Old Dan Tucker" fan.  And the Boss' version ROCKS.  I like "John Henry," too, despite the ridiculous lyrics.  It's not Bruce's fault that the song claims a little baby picked up a hammer and a piece of steel and said, "Hammer's gonna be the death of me, lord lord."  It is correct that a baby would drop the article "the," but it is more likely the baby said, "Hammer bang!" and then threw the hammer down on his mother's foot, the little snotty brat.

These next two albums came out in 2006, but I just got them and I'm not real familiar with them yet.  However, after just one or two listens, I'm pretty sure they're going to be faves:

Shawn Colvin  "These Four Walls" -- "Fill Me Up" might be the best catchy song Shawn Colvin's ever done.  And that's saying something.
John Legend  "Once Again" -- This is old-school baby-making music.  Not that I need any baby-making music right now, as Harper currently is pulling every single sock I own out of the drawer and flinging them across the room.  But sometimes you just want a cool groove.

Now, a special little section for 2006 music.  The following albums are albums that I should really like.  Critics I often agree with like them, or they're by musicians I really like, or friends with similar music taste like them.  But I'm having trouble getting into them.  In a couple cases, I'm just not in the mood to listen to them much; in other cases, I seem to hate them.  Whatever the deal, here's the shit list:

The Raconteurs  "Broken Boy Soldiers"  -- I really like the single "Steady, As She Goes."  But for some reason I can't bring myself to put the disc in the stereo.  At all.  I don't know what's wrong with me.  Maybe I have mental problems.  Maybe I'm having trouble breaking away from "My Doorbell" on "Get Behind Me Satan."  (And all of you who write and say the Raconteurs are more than Jack White, yeah, they are.  But not much.)
The Strokes  "First Impressions of Earth" -- I recall it being not bad.  I just haven't been interested in re-listening to it to see if I was right.  Too much "really good" around to waste time with "not bad."
Paul Simon  "Surprise" -- There are a few good songs, but that's what iTunes is for.
The Black Keys  "Magic Potion" -- It's not a bad album.  But it's not a great album.  There's no "10 A.M. Automatic" on it.  And I couldn't imagine paying $20 to see them play this stuff in concert.  Very sad.  I guess they put all their energy into "Chulahoma."
Beck  "The Information" -- I had fun making my own album cover, but that's been the extent of the enjoyment.  I actually liked most of the album, but that last song just killed any enthusiasm I had for the rest of the disc.  Killed it DEAD.  That's how much I hate the last song.
Arctic Monkeys  "Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not" -- Eh.  Everyone keeps putting it on their Top 10 lists, but I ain't seeing it.  They're like 200 other rock bands out there right now. 
Cat Power  "The Greatest" -- It hasn't left any impression on me.  I want to say that there's a song I like on the album, but I can't think of what its name is or what it sounds like.  I put it on the car stereo to listen to, but I find myself instantly ignoring it as I think about what I need to do, what book to read next, is the baby asleep yet, etc.
Be Your Own Pet -- I might like this.  But Harper starts acting up every time I put it on, so I haven't listened to the whole thing.  She either hates it or it's turning her into a little punk.

Here's stuff I've been listening to a lot this year that didn't come out this year.  Some of it came out a long time ago; some of it came out in late 2005 but I didn't get it until 2006.  I was a little busy pushing a kid outta my bajingo.  (Haha, nice mental image!)  The old-school fun:

John Mayer Trio  "Try!" -- Mayer was always "that jerk-off pop boy who plays 'Your Body's A Wonderland' " to me.  But then we saw him on either "Austin City Limits" or "Soundstage," and he was totally ripping the shit out of his guitar along with Buddy Guy.  I was like, "Dude, if the guy can play so damn well, why doesn't he?"  I tried to tell people he was talented, but no one would listen.  Then he went on "Chappelle's Show" and came out with "Try!" and it is OK to admit you like him.  It is!  Really! 
Clifford Brown -- I have to thank The Washington Post for this one.  They did an article on Clifford Brown, whom I hadn't heard of.  I thought Sean would find it interesting, and he did -- which meant he instantly had to go out and get some "Brownie."  He got his jazz friend to make album recommendations, and we've been enjoying the man ever since.
Eddie Hinton -- Sean was on a Hinton re-listen kick last year, which got me into him.  I had never heard of him before.  I'm not embarrassed to say that, since 99% of the world has never heard of him.
Neko Case  "The Tigers Have Spoken" -- Yeah, "Fox Confessor Brings the Flood" is great, blah blah.  I haven't bothered to find out, because I'm still busy being obsessed with this album.  It just sounds so damn great.  The title song makes me bawl.
Jack Johnson  "Sing-A-Longs & Lullabies from the Film Curious George" -- Thank you, Jack Johnson, for making a mom's life bearable.  I have fun listening to it, the music is good, and it can put the baby to sleep.  It's quite possible that this beat Sarah Harmer as most-listened-to album of the year.
"Jazz for Kids: Sing, Clap, Wiggle and Shake" -- Ella!  Lionel Hampton!  Louis Jordan!  Blossom Dearie!  Louis Prima!  A tolerable version of Old MacDonald!  God bless you, Verve.

And that's it for me.  If you like Americana music, you should check out HickoryWind (link at right), where there is Top 10 goodness going on for the next week or two.  And Sean says he might even post some music lists on his own blog.  Yeah, I know -- we'll believe it when we see it.      

Simply having a wonderful Christmastime

Never mind all the Christmas Day rain that made toting a child around a pain in the ass.  Never mind that the house reeked from what I am referring to as "Harper's Christmas Shit-tacular."  Never mind that traffic has been a mess because we live next to a mall that is deserted 11 months out of the year but somehow springs to overpopulated life in December.  Never mind that a family friend bought Harper a huge, unsanctioned, extremely noisy car.  Just looking at her in that dress -- and seeing her channel a young Marlon Brando while posing with the car -- made for a wonderful Christmastime.

"We're here tonight / And that's enough / Simply having a wonderful Christmastime / Simply having a wonderful Christmastime" -- "Wonderful Christmastime" by Paul McCartney (possibly with the Wings, I dunno).

It's Christmas all over again

Dude, didn't we just have Christmas a couple of months ago?  It feels like it.  That's quite possibly because I was high on extremely strong painkillers last year, and those days were kind of a blur.  The baby and I had only been home for a few days and everything was so new and there was little sleep happening.

So you'd think I'd be all into Christmas this year as a result, and I kinda am.  I thought it'd be fun to share Xmas rituals with the kid.  I thought that all the manic trappings of the season would be easier because at least I wasn't trying to balance them with work.  But they're only slightly easier when you're not working.  Because let's face it, you ARE working.  Your work is going to the grocery store 800 times for forgotten things and you HAAAATE the grocery store with a passion so it's rough on you and whaddya know, your child has inherited that hate so the sweet little girl that has folks in every other store going "Is she always so good?" spends the entire grocery store trip seeing how loud she can shriek.  So it's kinda like a budget meeting at my old job.  Except at my new job I can't verbally abuse the person who is annoying me or everyone will think I'm a baby beater, and at my old job I could say, "For fuck's sake, will you guys shut up already?!"

As you can see, I'm a little frazzled.  But I can't entirely blame it on Christmas.  Both Sean and Harper have birthdays right before the holidays.  Sean tries to make his low maintenance, but you know I had to have a party for the baby.  No kids -- I'm not ready for the headache of other people's kids yet -- but a lot of family lives in the area.  So we had a shindig and tried to keep it fairly low-key.  However, I had to indulge Harper a little.  She loves Elmo, so I made an Elmo cake.  Yeah, it took a lot of time and she'll never remember it, but it was worth it to see her point at the cake.  And as you can see, she enjoyed it thoroughly.  It's also great showing the picture of her without mentioning that she was eating Elmo cake; it looks like a bloodbath.

 

"I hope you have a good one / I hope Momma gets her shoppin' done / And it's Christmas all over again" -- "Christmas All Over Again" by Tom Petty.  Sean's a big fan of the spoken part as the song fades out, where Petty's going, "Now let's see ... I want a new Rickenbacker guitar, two Fender bass-mans, Chuck Berry songbooks ... ."  I think it's safe to say Sean would be OK with it if he got everything on Mr. Petty's Christmas list.  Never mind that he HAS a Rickenbacker already.

Ride daddy ride

For a couple of weeks in November, we were in possession of all of my parents' cars, and my parents were in possession of all of our vehicles.  This is the good and the bad of having relatives live nearby.  Good:  You can borrow their stuff and occasionally get a free meal.  Bad:  They can borrow your stuff and occasionally demand to be invited over for a free meal, even though Dad seems somewhat uncomfortable and apparently believes for some reason that you will not have that day's newspaper or beer and brings his own of each.  But I digress.

In early October, my old man borrowed Sean's truck.  He had gotten fed up with constantly repairing his truck -- an antique older than me -- and sold it on eBay, but then was truck-less for leaf and acorn season.  (My parents live in a section of NoVa where they still believe in leaving trees up and building houses in between them.  Novel!)  He told Sean he wanted the truck to haul all the plant debris off to the dump.  He said he'd need it for a couple weeks so he could build sides for the bed.  No problem, Sean said, knowing my father would swap cars with him.

But, you know, Sean is a Man.  And a Man needs his Manly vehicle.  Which is not what my father possesses.  My father dreams of owning certain vehicles, but in reality he's content to drive around whatever falls in his lap.  That currently is a Mercury Grand Marquis, my grandparents' old car.  Try and get a mental picture of Sean driving a Grand Marquis.  Ha!  (I can laugh; my torture is coming.)  He mostly drives to Metro and back, but still.  Week after week he waited for his truck to return.  And waited.  A month went by.  And more weeks.  We began to think that maybe Dad had stolen Sean's truck.

Then it was time to head to Maine for Thanksgiving and one thing became painfully obvious:  With tons of baby crap and Christmas presents and a big cooler for venison and cold-weather gear, the Maxima was going to be bursting at the seams.  I was bummed, because I knew it meant borrowing my mother's minivan.  I am NOT a minivan person.  I'm a Corvette person.  I'm a Mustang person.  Getting a four-door sedan was a concession to impending parenthood.  I also think my parents' minivan, a Toyota Sienna, is a hulking monstrosity.  I was not looking forward to it being my car for two weeks.

But then it had all these neat little things about it.  And it had a pretty good stereo for a minivan (and for a vehicle owned by my parents).  And it had fairly decent pickup for a van.  And I kinda enjoyed being up high and lording over that goddam Miata that kept driving like a dick until I loomed up in his rearview and he meekly got over.  And it had EZPass, which is a sweet way to drive up the East Coast, land of the $6 toll (fuck you, Jersey).  And it had SO MUCH space.  So as my time with the van drew to a close, I found I was going to miss it a little bit.

I wasn't the only person who enjoyed the vehicle swap.  My mother is notorious for instantly hating any car that isn't hers and being pretty vocal about that hate, so I was sure she'd dislike the Maxima and I'd get an earful.  But after 20+ years of driving minivans, she needed a little taste of big engine and tight handling.  (That sounds SO dirty.)  When I asked her how bad her time with the Maxima was, she got a little Mona Lisa smile and said, "I actually enjoyed zipping around in it."  Dad crowed, "I was waiting for her to complain about it for days, and nothing!"  I think he's imagining a Maxima in his future.  And do we have a minivan in our future?  I don't know.  You can see I've grown, because the old me would have said, "Jesus, no fucking way!"  But I'm still enough of the old me to pretend I am growing and becoming enlightened, not getting old.

Oh, and in case you were wondering:  When we returned from Maine and pulled up to the house, the Mercury was gone and the big red truck was back.  Sean didn't dance a jig, because you know a Man doesn't dance, but he did come up with some lame excuse to go out that night and drive it around.  I think it's safe to say there will NOT be a Mercury Grand Marquis in our future.

"Ride daddy ride / ride out the tide / I'd rather die / than hear goodbye / and watch you go / Go go go go" -- "Cold Light" by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.  I'm still enough of the old me to preen over the fact that I knew about the YYYs before most people.  That's thanks to Sean, but still.  I knew about "Maps" long before you, you goddam teens!                  

The Commonwealth of Bigotry

There's a lot of hoopla surrounding the national election results, but all I can think is this:  One day, people will be ashamed of the bigoted things they did.  When a state already has two (stupid) laws that make same-sex marriages illegal, is it really necessary to pass a constitutional amendment that bans them?  Is the Threat of Gayness Sweeping the Nation and Possibly Diddling You On Your Naughties that great?  Does Sam and Paul getting married really affect you in any way, shape, or form if you're not Sam or Paul? 

I especially love how many stories I've read in the paper that quote someone saying, "I have some great friends who are homosexuals and I love them, but I think marriage should be between a man and a woman, period."  Never once does it occur to them that what they're really saying is, "I love you, gay friend, but I think you're a sick, immoral fuck."  They are so obtuse as to how bigoted their statement is, they have no problem with it being printed in the paper.  These people always say that same-sex marriage is threatening "the sanctity of marriage," but none of them can ever articulate what exactly that is.  (And, hey, in a country where there is a 50% divorce rate, there isn't much sanctity of marriage to begin with.)   

I'd like to think that some day these people will realize they're behaving in an appalling manner.  But in the civil rights movement, it was the younger, more open-minded generation growing up and moving into power that helped the cause; the older generation that had been in power and oppressed blacks merely got too old to continue controlling the law.  Some days, I don't feel we've gotten very far there, either.  Sacha Baron Cohen is currently making an assload of money by pointing out that the U.S. is full of racist, anti-Semitic and, yes, homophobic people.  But we're doing better than we were 50 years ago, so I'm holding out hope.  I'll keep voting "No" to discrimination.