A little background

There are four of us that survived highschool with our friendships intact. The Four Amigos, the Four Horsewomen of the Wine-Induced Apocalypse (Haha, okay, I just made that up now, because I'm an idiot. We've never called ourselves that. But if we did, my highschool grad picture makes it pretty obvious who would be Death). (So many thanks to my friend J for digging that up and posting it on Facebook, where 30-somethings go to compare themselves to people they went to high school with, and subsequently feel inadequate).

Anyway, if you read my other blog at all you've probably already met Force of Nature. She's the kind of person you always want on your side...because you wouldn't want to go up against her. She's a masterminding, event planning, steamrolling mama bear of three. And she's totally in your corner.

The only one of us to escape this little patch of dirt and head for the coast is Politika. I'm calling her that because to me, wishy-washy non-partisan that I am, it seems like everything with her is political. Not in a bad way. Just in a very informed, articulate, exacting, opinionated way. When FoN and Politika get together, you can dry your hair off the whirlwind they create.

The fourth member of our quartet I was going to call Limp Noodle. Conversations with her are often a variation on the, "What do you want to do?" "I dunno, what do YOU want to do?" theme. But I've recently come to realize that she makes things happen just as deliberately as FoN, just without broadcasting. What she IS is an incurable romantic; she's in love with the idea of being in love. Everybody has a friend like her, who is sometimes exasperating because every relationship she is in is The! One!, but who restores your faith at the same time. So she's Valentina, and she's this weeks superhero.

Monday's Muse and Slackfest

Sometimes an artists inspiration is in the tools. This week my Monday Muse is the Bamboo Fun tablet I just bought. So. Cool.

Except it's also the reason my weekly superheroine is going to be a little late. Once you get going with the Bamboo, it's a whole lot faster to digitally ink & colour than with a mouse, but there's a bit of a learning curve. Hopefully she'll show her sassy self later on today.

Catching Up

Since the government only "pays" me for the first year of being a mom, starting next week I have to go back to work. Which is fine, y'know, we're pretty lucky getting a year up here to be stay-at-home moms in our igloos. I'm just not confident I can function as an individual again, and I'll miss my little sidekick.

I'm only going to be in the office part-time, so Da Boss is hooking me up with a laptop so that I can do some work from home. Which is pretty sweet, because when I first started working there (like, back when dinosaurs roamed the earth...velociraptors, even) Da Boss was of the "why would I spend money on NEW equipment when this works fine?" mentality. So he offered it up and my first thought was, "That will be awesome for blogging".

And my second thought was, "I wonder if the video card can handle Warhammer?".

I take my job very seriously, I can assure you.

Sucking Up...

I really really want a new design for the Un Mom, something super-heroey....and not so, um, BLACK. And I'm too busy/incompetent/lazy (okay, mostly lazy) to do one myself. Restored316Designs, who do some awesome cartoony-brightly coloured-whimsical type designs, is having a giveaway contest for one, so I'm sending some love and entering...crossing all fingies, toes, and velociraptor claws...

Which is now on my resume

I could survive for 32 seconds chained to a bunk bed with a velociraptor

And then someone ELSE thought it was actually a good idea

Okay, so, this blog is supposed to be mostly about non-parenting things, and this is something that I wouldn't have found about unless I was a parent. But I maintain that if I did find out somehow without having children, my reaction would have been...pretty much the same.

Diaper cakes. Um, wtf?

I have yet to see an actual diaper cake, so I'm semi-convinced that they're some great big internet hoax. I stumbled across one on ebay while I was pregnant and looking for cloth diapers (because I had yet another grand work-at-home idea about sewing diapers and they'd be ever so popular and in high demand and I'd be making money by the boatload because I would have SO MUCH TIME on my hands to sew diapers *snort*) and I kind of sat back in my chair (okay, I didn't really, because I was already sitting way back to accomodate my girthiness, but you get the idea) and raised my eyebrows. Diaper cakes? Like, it's a cake and somehow garnished with diapers?

How would you even ship that?

No, wait. THERE'S NO ACTUAL CAKE? You're telling me that someone is forming diapers and various accoutrements into the shape of a cake, and then taunting pregnant women with it? Like, here's some chocolate cake for your baby shower - but it's actually just diapers, psych?

Does that seem wise?

You see why I might be thinking it's an internet hoax? Some stoned teenagers were sitting around in their basement trying to come up with the most disgusting combos they could:

"Dude, nachos with spider legs!"
"No, man, hummus with human snot in it!"
"Dude - a cake with poopy diapers in it!"
*high pitched giggling all round*
"Omg - omg - we should totally post that on ebay."
"Omg you're right!"

...and then one of them actually remembered to do it.

Monday's Muse

Maternal Spark has created new meme where every Monday you post something that inspires you - a muse for the week.

So this week it's a two-tiered muse, a mug full of that always-inspiring wonder drug, CAFFEINE. It's also a mug that my good friend J gave me when Xander was born, and X is always inspiring (and ever-tiring). He inspires me to all kinds of creativity, but doesn't leave me enough time to do it. Ah, motherhood.

And yes, thats a sneak peek at next weeks super heroine in the background. Lucky you.

Super Mom saves the day

Todays superheroine is pretty self-explanatory. Doesn't everybody know one of those Super Moms, who can mow the lawn, make nutritious lunches, drop off the kids, take over a Fortune 500 company, reorganize the garage, scrapbook the first 15 years of her familys lives, and make a killing on the stock market, all before noon?

You'll note I said 'those' Super Moms, because I fall squarely into the "lucky if I make it out of pajamas, sprawled on the couch with a hefty glass of shiraz" category of moms. But that doesn't mean I can't give those other chicks the respect they deserve.

I also added archives for the super heroines, for those two people who might have an interest.

Well I gotta post SOMETHING

I just want to give an extra nudge to all you fellow warped-minded heathens out there - go visit the 'blog of the day', Magick Sandwich.

Especially scroll down to the 'Bad Parents Texas Chainsaw Massacre' video, because that is TOTALLY SOMETHING I WOULD DO. I'd link to it myself, but hello? Lazy.

Next you'll tell me the Singapore Sling came out of LA

"Do you know what they're selling at the grocery store already? Mandarin oranges!!"

"Um...so?"

"It's so early! It's the damn Chinese producing them."

"Because they're Mandarin oranges."

"They just have to infiltrate every market, I swear..."

"But....they're Mandarin oranges."

"Well, they never produced them before."

"Who the hell named them 'Mandarin' oranges, then?"

"...I don't know."

So you bring me THIS??

While I'm doing mindless things like having sex walking with my son in the stroller, I like to let my Brain out to wander around. And hopefully dig up some good blog posts. Unfortunately, while searching for good produce in the Garden of Blog Posts, my Brain only seems to pick from the "If THIS happened, you could post THIS" patch. Like the shining nugget of "If you were caught blogging about work at work you could write this" and the juicy goodness of "If Xander slept through the night you could exclaim this". And the rich, drippy-with-irony post "If everybody died from a plague and there was nobody around to read it you could post this" post. And the slightly smelly, "If you were working for Pay Per Post and they asked you to review something totally inappropriate you could write this".

(Actually, it sounds like that last one is totally plausible, all I would have to do is sign up. Which I won't, because I'm lazy).

So I am a little frustrated with this output and I told my Brain so.

"Well that's what you pay me for." replied my Brain.

"I don't pay you. And I don't even think YOU could dream up a way that would work out."

"Figure of speech, dumbass. I'm supposed to be imaginative. I'm imagining."

"Yeah, but those don't work for me. I need something I can post today. Are there other bloggers in the Garden?"

"Of course, all the time. Some of them are gathering wool, for some reason."

"Oooohhh kay. Taking my lousy metaphor a little far."

"Sorry." apologized my Brain. Which is a fairly odd sensation.

"Well, could you just, y'know, club one over the head and take his post?"

"..."

"It's not really plagiarism if he hasn't properly harvested it, right? Just pick a good one."

"...do I even know you?"


Obviously not.

Like being gnawed on by guppies

A while ago Force of Nature's teenage daughter asked me,

"You still draw superheros and villains right? Because my friend and I were thinking, we were just talking, and we thought that wouldn't it funny, you know, if the villain were a lot of little T-Rexes? You know, like thousands of T-Rexes with their little front arms and they were all saying 'Rawr'. You know, just 'rawr'. Wouldn't that be funny? Huh? If the villain were T-Rexes?? Could you draw that for me? Or for my friend? Because she'd think that was funny. Wouldn't that be funny?"

Um...perhaps, if you're a 15 year old girl on crack. Which I seem to remember specifically recommending against.

But for some reason the idea of many tiny T-Rexes appealed (must be the 15 year old girl in me). And I liked the way the drawing turned out.

So, while not exactly a superhero, this week's drawing is for FoN's daughter and her friend, whoever you are. Don't let the T-Rexes get you down.

An addendum to lollygagging

Okay, I had an additional mental seizure thought. What if the atom smasher DOES make a black hole? And the whole planet doesn't get obliterated, but just ends up like the Event Horizon?

We might all go insane and enter into hellish scenes of depravity with blood, people eating their own arms, and barbed wire. (Which, as an aside, I've always had a bit of a problem with. Why do scenes from hell always feature barbed wire? It isn't intrinsically evil. I mean, COWS live with it, and they seem fairly content). And bad acting, and dramatic music that means you should be shocked every time someone opens their eyes and doesn't have any eyeballs, even though that happened just yesterday at coffee, and the day before at the PTA meeting.

Gah. What's the furthest point from the France/Switzerland border? Looks like Fiji.

We're moving to Fiji!

I'm lollygagging

...whatever lollygagging means. What I'm actually doing, is spending so much freakin' time stalking perusing other peoples blogs and not doing any actual blogging MYSELF.

So lets rant talk about what's on everybody's mind, the 10 billion dollar atom smasher in Switzerland and the potential for black-hole suckage.

I mean - if nuclear physicists are a mite concerned, do they really think this is still a good idea? How do you even prepare for the possibility of a black hole - canned goods, bottled water, and every episode of Star Trek on DVD? (Just in case Geordie once encountered such a speedbump, and might have a brilliant technobabble solution). Do we put on the storm windows and name them 'Black Hole Robert' and 'Black Hole Rowena' as the atom smasher churns them out?

Oh, wait, right. We won't BE HERE.

Or maybe we'll be in the second universe that this 'fake Big Bang' creates, that someone will take home in a jar, and we'll just all be a lot smaller. (Newsflash: Physicists Create Smurf Village. No word on Gargamel's whereabouts).

With all that brain power, can't they realize that NOBODY CARES BUT THEM? Really, nuclear physicist guys and gals, unless there is some kind of military application for black holes (which there might be, if we were at war with aliens, which would mean aliens would actually have to think we're worth their time) or the creation of universes-in-a-jar will somehow make porn on the internet better, WE DON'T CARE.

Now go cure cancer, or figure out how to get reality tv banned, or something useful.

Mere decades away from being Johnny Mnemonic - totally can't wait.

So I hooked up with Twitter last night. Because I am a total nerd whore. Facebook, I still love ya, but you just can't do what this new guy does for me. I mean, at 3am when I want to strangle my child, I can tell a bunch of people who could give two shits all about it. From my phone. Because I am also a lazy whore.

But it started me thinking about what things like Facebook and Twitter are doing to the actual, face-to-face conversations we still have (if, indeed, we ever leave the house and HAVE any). You don't really have to ask, "How have you been?". Or, "What have you been up to?". Because you've been getting updates, in real time, and probably more insight into your friends' heads than you've ever had. Sometimes TOO much, actually. So you end up having really creepy conversations that don't even pay lip service to the niceties, but instead jump right to things like, "Oh, hey, I have a bunch of rhubarb to go in that pie you wanted to make.". Meanwhile you're thinking, um, wtf? I haven't seen this person in 6 weeks and they know about my baking habits??

Oh, right. Facebook.

I was at an outdoor gathering a few months ago, one of those things where it seems like every single person you've ever met makes an appearance, and the tagline for the day was: "Except on Facebook.". As in, "How is Brian's new baby?". "Oh, I haven't seen her....except on Facebook.". "How is Ruth doing after her surgery?". "Oh, I haven't talked to her...except on Facebook.". It seemed a little surreal, but nobody else seemed to think it was odd that two years ago, none of them had even heard of Facebook. I mean - what the hell did we do back then? Actually gossip?

And in two years it will probably be, I mean - what the hell did we do back then? Just use Facebook??

This weeks superheroine

Hasn't someone ever said something totally snarky and demeaning to you in front of, like, 20 people? And haven't you wanted to explode and melt their face off with your radioactive omega beams?

But you don't, even though they totally deserve it, because you're a fucking super hero.

The breakup was mutual. Honest.

I decided to walk downtown yesterday in an effort to counteract the half a chocolate cake I had for breakfast (yes! you read that right. Now shut up). I can't just Go For A Walk, I have to have a destination. Which is silly, because I can just Go For A Run (although clearly, not often enough). I have to Walk Around The Lake, or Walk To The Library, or Walk To Dairy Queen.

Which is a bit counterproductive, but at least I'm getting out of the house. Right? Right?

Anyway. Yesterday I Walked Downtown, to take a look at an outside art exhibition that was going on. It was a one-day thing; a city block had been cordoned off, and all the artists had taken a parking space and turned it into an installation. You got a little booklet with 'parking tickets' that described each artwork, and the artist was on hand to 'validate' your parking with their own stamp. It was pretty clever. But on the way there I started thinking...I found out about this exhibit from some friends who are not artists. There was an invitation on Facebook, and I was not invited. Hello? I used to be an art student. I know people who are actually still artists. How did I not know about this??

Art World, why have you forsaken me??

Okay, so I don't come round as often as I should. And for quite a while there I was busy with a much younger man. And frankly, Art World, sometimes you're just full of shit. I became disenchanted.

But to totally reject me like this...

I know, I know, it's a two-way street. I have to put in some effort too. And I know you find it hard to live in this town. But, c'mon! You couldn't even send me a Facebook invite?? How much effort would that have cost you?

I don't know if we can heal this. To be honest I feel like I'm a better matchup with your younger brother, Craft Community. I know, he's not as 'wordly', but at least he's honest about who he is.

Maybe we should take a time-out. That's more or less what we've been doing anyway. But, y'know...I'll call you.

I'll get the jet fuel, gonna need a bigger bonfire

So I have this novel.

I know, right? Everyone has a novel. And now you're thinking, oh, great, another wannabe writer. Well, duh. I wouldn't be here if I didn't wannabe a writer. But I also wannabe an artist, and a dog trainer, and an anthropologist, and a biologist, and a homeopathic healer. And a translator for the UN and a seamstress, and Charlize Theron. I'm pretty sure at some point I've harboured a secret desire to be an astronaut cowboy millionaire.

The difference between most of those things and the writing is that my novel is actually finished. It's just sitting there. It's a little short. Okay, well, quite a bit short. More like a novella. But the point is it's got a beginning, and some semblance of a plot, and some semi-likeable characters, and a conclusion. There are a few things that I know are wrong with it that I could fix, but it would require some major hackage and a lot of rewriting. After that I think it would be marketable. I'm just busy
letting it simmer
too fucking lazy.

The local writers guild offers a service wherein you can submit your script and a professional writer will review & critique it. The fee for my size of manuscript would be $80. It doesn't seem like a lot, but we're kind of broke since I've been on mat leave and that money might be better spent on, oh, say...diapers. Or gas. Or FOOD.

My dilemma is that I'm pretty sure the professional (and they don't exactly go into what the 'professional writers' have for credentials, either. Are they novelists? TV script writers? People who work in the classifieds department at the newspaper?) is just going to tell me what I already know. But then there's the possibility that they might not. That person might see some way to fix it that is WAY EASIER. Or, even if they tell me exactly what I was expecting to hear, it might be the incentive I need to get off my lazy butt and do what I've known I should do for months.

Hm, know thyself. Light that fire under thyself's ass.

Plus, I woke up with ink in my ear

The other night I had a dream about which, upon waking, I thought: "That would make a great blog post" (yeah, I'm not right in the head). After which I thought, "I'll never remember that, I should write it down.". Followed swiftly by, "Of course I'll remember it, it's totally unforgettable. Must go back to sleep now, precious sleep.".

Well, duh. I forgot it.

So the following night I installed a pen and notepad on my nightstand. And the next morning I looked for my nocturnal brilliance to find:

NKOTB - tix!
underwater ninjas
(illegible scrawling)
Momdeath, crying. Bus

...yeah. So, that process needs work.

Someone inform NASA

Science according to 7-year-old boys:

"Did you know that, um, octopusses, um, if you bite one of their tails...."

"Tentacles?"

"Yeah, tentacles, if you bite one off, it grows back, like, right away."

"Right away?"

"Yeah, like, in five seconds." (this time is quoted with authority)

"Really? What if a shark bit them ALL off at once?"

"That would take, um..."

(long pause)

"...NINE seconds."

This is about as deep as I get

In the interest of making this blog more about "me", I've added a weekly Superheroine (see sidebar). I'll post a new one every Monday. My superheroines are just like us, except they fight crime instead of dust bunnies, attend Justice League meetings instead of PTA functions, and look fantastic in spandex.


I feel compelled to point out that I was a comic nerd long before Hollywood ran out of movie plots and began pirating every comic book, video game, and crappy merchandising gimmick available (please, nobody tell me that there is/was/will be a Bratz movie. I'm sure it's true, but to know with utter certainty will force me to perform a murder-suicide and take out my entire family). Ages before everyone else knew who Wolverine was, I had a total crush on "Patch". I sort of blame the A-ha video for making my hobby worse; if I just read enough comics, someone might offer their ink-and-four colour hand and help me into that world.

Don't get me wrong. I'm on board with the cross-pollination of genres. Every first-year art student knows you're supposed to push the borders. And, fangirl that I am, I totally squee when they get it right. I just kind of think some things are best left true to their form. With enough inbreeding, all you produce is mutants, ya know? And not the cool kind that read your mind or shoot lasers out of their eyes. The squalling kind that wear their guts on the outside and should be put out of their misery at birth.

(Okay, that would be kind of cool too.)

That's why I pay you the big bucks!

"Okay, I have two Two-Bite Brownies. That's 4 bites. Four bites doesn't count, right?"

"Shouldn't. But, if you can manage to eat them in ONE bite..."

"Omigod! I could have four Two-Bite Brownies!"

"Right."

"YOU ARE THE BEST DIET CONSULTANT EVER!!!"