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Nov. 27th, 2009 @ 07:05 pm
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The most amazing thing happened the other day. I actually felt like writing again!
I don't know why I ever stopped. (Okay, I do - it was a combination of pregnancy hormones and thinking that the story I was working on was too sucky to be salvaged.) But anyway! I've been writing and writing and writing! Hooray!
I put something like five thousand words down today. That's awesome. Also, I've come up with three new story ideas in the past week, which is almost entirely unprecedented in my own personal history. Nothing says 'good day' like sore hands from typing. Also, my brain is a little flabbidy-doo from all the thinking, thus the slight incoherentness.
Oh! In other big news, Thanksgiving marked the first time Jonathan sat in a high chair, and the first time he ate rice cereal. Yeah, he dribbled some down his front (he was leaning too far forward) but he liked it. He was actually sucking on the spoon sometimes, which was adorable. He's four months old! Yay!
We hosted Thanksgiving this year. It went well, I think. There were no fires, unlike the last time we hosted a major family get-together, and everyone seemed to have a good time. The cats even behaved themselves! (They love their new self-cleaning litter box. They run downstairs to watch it every time it goes off! Hilarious.)
I wish I had someone to talk to. |
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Hey! Look at this!
It's Jonathan being eaten by a bat! Yay! (It was his Halloween costume. Well, the 'bat' part, not so much the eating bit.)
www.headinjurytheater.com is the best. |
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Nov. 3rd, 2009 @ 04:49 pm
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Nov. 1st, 2009 @ 01:50 pm
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I'm so uninteresting that even Facebook won't listen to me.
(Seriously - the chat function is broken, the double feed thing is just weird, and now the button that lets me post things is totally nonfunctional. Why does everyone love that site again?) |
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257 trick-or-treaters!
Yay for Halloween!
Oct. 31st, 2009 @ 09:29 pm
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I love Halloween. A lot. In fact, I love it so much that I spent two years as a 'scare-acter' at King's Island, scaring the hell out of everyone that passed by.
Well, almost everyone. My one, iron-clad rule was this: NO ARMED COPS. Something about leaping out at a dude who is highly trained at shooting people doesn't seem like a good idea to me.
This guy should have thought the same. http://www.dreamindemon.com/2009/10/27/leatherface-almost-shot-by-drunken-off-duty-police-officer/
Really, this cop is like every jerkface person we had through our maze, all rolled up into a bundle of stupid. I'm so happy to see that they're pressing charges. Yay!
Oct. 28th, 2009 @ 10:24 am
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| » Who loves Halloween? ME ME ME! |
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My neighbor has a bunch of tombstones in his yard, along with some spiderwebs and a dangling corpse.
Boooring!
This year, I decided to do something weird. And by 'weird', I mean...
( Think pink! )
I love Halloween so much. So much!
Oct. 27th, 2009 @ 05:36 pm
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| » telegram of sneakiness |
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baby will not allow me to put him down. i think he's got the cold i had. stop.
starving to death. craving beef lo mein (damn and thank you captain for getting me addicted with your fiendishly delicious lai lai). stop.
thank heavens for the interwebs and sa to keep me occupied and stationary and silent. stop.
Oct. 22nd, 2009 @ 04:46 pm
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Get-together with friends this weekend? Check!
Throat that feels like a sack of hedgehogs?...check.
*sigh*
Oh well. I can party quietly!
Oct. 15th, 2009 @ 10:46 am
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I bought pants yesterday! Lots and lots of pants! (Goodwill rocks.)
On the same topic - pants! Why do women's pants sizes vary so wildly? I mean, I fit into one brand's 12 and I'm too big for the other's 16. If I were Queen of the Pants, my first decree would be measurement-based sizes for all!
Screw vanity sizing. I want convenience!
Oct. 13th, 2009 @ 08:38 am
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I spent yesterday sitting outside in the Des Moines snow, watching a marching band competition. (Ben's little brother is one of the drum majors for our high school's band this year!) After a three-hour car ride home, all I wanted to do was sleep.
Nope. First, the baby needed tending. Okay, understandable. Tend the baby, put him to bed.
Ten minutes later...more crying. Okay, new diaper. Haul self out of bed, change diaper half-asleep, go back to bed.
Wake up from nightmare. Eventually go back to sleep.
Wake up from weird dream. Back to sleep.
BABY MONITOR STARTS BEEPING OH GOD BABY'S NOT BREATHING...oh, the battery in the main unit is dying. Why would that be?...oh, good, the power's off and the house is freezing cold. De-adrenaline and wait for furnace to kick back on. It does, monitors start functioning again, panic is subdued, go to sleep...AGAIN.
Wake up from nightmare about coyote chewing on cat's head (cat's head that I accidentally severed with the deck door). Try valiantly to get back to sleep. Sleep happens for a blissfully short while and -
BABY!
So, in short, I'm cranky, sleep-deprived, still cold (never will be warm again, it seems) and freaked out by my brain. Yay. To top it all off, I still keep waking up in the night thinking that the baby's a) in bed with us and b) dead. So that's always fun. There's nothing like waking up to a dead baby every night, only to realize that you're an idiot. At least the cat still has his head.
I'd take a nap, but people are due here for breakfast at any moment and there are dishes EVERYWHERE from the apple-grinding. (We have an apple tree. Free apples = apple alcohol at some point, courtesy of Ben.)
Oh, and I've got the most awesome idea for Halloween decorations this year. The decorating is half-done (waiting for other parts to arrive in the mail) and when it's all together, it's going to look bizarrely nifty. Pictures at that point!
People are here. Must dash!
Oct. 11th, 2009 @ 11:00 am
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Only an hour or two until my sis gets here! Yaaaaay!
And...it's raining. Boo.
So. Costumes! This Halloween, I've considered a bunch of costumes. I really want to do a me-and-kidlet theme costume. I could go the cheap and easy way and be Poison Ivy and make him my little Batman ('cheap' of course being relative, since the costume in question cost me oodles of money and tons of time, but it doesn't require any FURTHER cash, and his Bat-outfit would be as simple as slapping a symbol on a onesie). If he was a girl, I'd totally re-enact that Gotham Girls bit with Ivy and baby Harley running amok in the wax museum. (If I had the time, he could be mini-Riddler and I could be a henchgirl. Oooo...ideas!)
I could go the Morticia/Pubert route, though I'm not quite sure how one climbs stairs in that clingy of a dress. I also considered doing a Sarah/Toby pair (from Labyrinth) but I don't know if I could be that whiny all night. 'It's not FAAAAIR!' Plus, no David Bowie? Sadness. Lois Griffin and Stewie? If the kidlet was a pair of black twins, I could be Uncle/Aunt Arlene from the Holly-hop universe.
Decisions, decisions...
I'm so excited for Halloween! It's weird to not be spending my weekends leaping out and scaring people to the ground. I miss the sound of fear-crazed screams ringing through the night. (On the other hand, I haven't had to deal with a single drunken jerk lately!) Still, this neighborhood gets about a billion trick or treaters, so I predict a lot of nifty things this October. (I can't wait to start decorating!)
Oct. 2nd, 2009 @ 02:04 pm
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Headaches and babies do not mix. Nevertheless, I've been playing Batman: Arkham Asylum and ABSOLUTELY LOVING IT, regardless of how much it makes me dizzy-sick. I haven't finished it yet (aside from feeling yucky, I've actually been unpacking boxes and doing dishes/laundry - shocking!) but I've got to be close to the end. It has that almost-over feel to it, anyway. There are parts I didn't like, of course, because I'm a picky little bastard, but overall it rocks so far.
Speaking of media...I've developed a horrible addiction to reality television. Not Big Brother, or any "game"-based show (minus the Biggest Loser, but that's really more about watching people lose amazing amounts of weight). No, my obsession is firmly pointed at shows about how low humanity can sink. There's the 'bad-kid' shows - Nanny 911, Supernanny - and the filth shows - How Clean is Your House, Hoarders - and documentaries about hyper-obesity and drug addiction and crime, and when I get really desperate for entertainment, there's always...*sigh*...Cops. The only defense I have is that after watching someone haul 1,400 boxes of clutter out of one home (not counting the trash!) I really, really want to clean out my own place. In fact, I just got done unpacking two boxes and adding to my Goodwill pile! Consider me inspired. (Also, ten minutes of watching a 450 pound woman struggling to move will really make you question whether you need that dessert with dinner.) I suppose it's kind of like the treatment from the Clockwork Orange, minus the pretty music. Honestly, I'd rather be reading, but it's extremely difficult to read and pat a baby's back at the same time. TV is effortless.
Finally, Kris Straub is nifty keen.
Sep. 23rd, 2009 @ 10:16 am
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| » Hey Tim Burton fans! |
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You've seen the trailer for Alice in Wonderland, right?
No?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DeWsZ2b_pK4
And me? Do you know what I think?
NO. Just, plain and simply, NO.
Now, I don't mind Tim Burton. Some people just love him (hi, Earl!) but I enjoy his movies. Some of them, anyway. When he did Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, I was okay with it. After all, his version did stick much closer to the book than the Gene Wilder version, with the exception of Wonka himself. And his Batman movies were good (yes I like Keaton as Batman, yes I think he did a better Bat than Bale, yes you may not agree with my opinion but you can't change it so phhhbt.) Beetlejuice? Adored it. Pee-Wee's Big Adventure? Awesome.
The story of Alice-the-teenager going back to Wonderland? Nope. Not interested. Even though he's tried to lure me in with little things like the Tweedles getting attacked by a crow (and that BETTER have been a crow and not a vulture, mister) I have no interest in half-naked Alice traipsing about with Johnny Depp! (Depp AGAIN? Where's Helena Bonham Carter?...oh, right, she's the Red Queen. How silly of me.)
Y'know what REALLY gets to me, though? IMDB's synopsis. Particularly this bit, which I've lovingly snipped for you:
"The traditional tale has been freshened with a blast of girl power, courtesy of writer Linda Woolverton (Beauty and the Beast). Alice, 17, attends a party at a Victorian estate only to find she is about to be proposed to in front of hundreds of snooty society types. Off she runs, following a white rabbit into a hole and ending up in Wonderland, a place she visited 10 years before yet doesn't remember.
...Zanuck assures most kids can handle it. "The book itself is pretty dark," he notes. "This is for little people and people who read it when they were little 50 years ago."
No, because NO ONE read this book fifty years ago. This isn't Alice in Wonderland, nor Through the Looking Glass. This is some kind of half-breed offspring of those books and god knows what else.
Also, girl power? Alice is not one to sit and be a passive little thing. She's off having adventures! How much more power does she need, anyway?
I will never understand what possesses people to take classics, stories that have stood the test of time and prevailed, and think that they can make them BETTER by changing everything that everyone loves about them.
Don't even get me started on the current Batverse, by the way. Bruce Wayne isn't dead/lost in time/whatever because I say he isn't. Bruce is Batman and Damien ISN'T Robin and Talia can go die in a fire. I feel better now.
Sep. 22nd, 2009 @ 02:33 pm
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| » An update (because I love and miss you) |
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Baby is napping. Yay!
At this point, having a baby is like having a brand new game: Stop the Screaming. You are equipped with bottles of milk, diapers, blankets, an assortment of sleeping surfaces and a variety of pacifiers. Your goal: make the horrendous AAAAAAAAAAH sound stop before you a) go deaf b) go crazy c) get a note from your homeowner's association chastising you for owning an air-raid siren. However, I think I've found the key sequence (diaper, food, blanket-covered snuggles for a bit, then carefully transfer him to a bouncy chair/crib/swing) so I've actually got free time for once.
The kid is still a shark. Not so much with the biting, though...more with the FOOD NOW OH GOD GONNA DIE WITHOUT A BOTTLE NOW NOW NOW every hour and a half or so. My eight-week-old can drink eight ounces, which means he'll probably have a fabulous future in either speed-eating competitions or frat-boy drinking contests. (Or maybe he'll end up on the Biggest Loser. Yay, or not.) Most of the time, he's happy with 4-6 ounces, but still...that's a ton. Everyone keeps telling me that he absolutely should not be eating that much ever, so I consulted my friendly neighborhood spider-pediatrician. She said that yeah, that's a lot...but he's probably making up for being starved/going through a growth spurt/making up for not eating anything at night, and that we'll keep an eye on him. If he starts looking like the Michelin Man or bazooka-barfing, we'll re-evaluate things.
I have a copy of Batman: Arkham Asylum waiting for me on the countertop. Eeeee! I don't want to be interrupted mid-game for bottle/diaper time, so as soon as Ben gets home to mind the kidlet, it's Gotham time for me! For now, I'm reading Something Awful and listening to Worm Quartet in defiant celebration of anti-productivity, and soon I will eat...um...something. I know we've got food that isn't formula somewhere in this house...
Also, I really miss the days of LJ. Everyone's off Facebooking and Twittering, and while that's fine, it's not what I want to read. I am a voracious, compulsive reader, and I want to know DETAILS, dammit! The most detail I ever get from some people on Facebook is that they're a level 57 Awesome Farm-Dude or whatever, and I'd kind of like to know what they're up to in real life.
Finally, happily, I'm no longer sleep-deprived (since he sleeps so nicely from 9:00 PM - 6:30 AM) and I can actually feel my brain waking back up. It's neat! I'm remembering esoteric vocabulary and remembering where I put things and EVERYTHING! Yay!
Sep. 16th, 2009 @ 11:39 am
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| » An update on the cat's alimentary canal |
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Here's a lesson for you, free of charge.
Cats should not eat the ends off of pacifiers. If they do, it might (will) result in a few days of repetitive un-eating until the end of the pacifier comes back up.
Ready for another lesson? Never scare a cat while he's throwing up, as they tend to dribble for ten feet and then go puke on the kitchen rug as opposed to leaving one neat little pile.
On the brighter side of things, the kidlet's sleeping in his crib, in his room, alone, without fussing. Of course, during the day he insists upon being held over my left shoulder. Oh well.
I'm very tired of vomit. Good night.
Sep. 9th, 2009 @ 10:20 pm
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There's nothing quite like waking up to a hardwood floor coated liberally with a pile of cat vomit.
Unless, of course, it's waking up to TWO piles of vomit.
I think we'll be switching them back to their old food now, because all this cannot have come from one cat.
Of course, this might also be because SOMEONE small, grey and furry ate the end off of one of the baby's pacifiers and we still haven't found it. It might be lodged in someone's digestive tract! Hooray.
Sep. 8th, 2009 @ 07:56 am
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| » squee |
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I'm not at DragonCon. I'm not at DiscworldCon, which means I'm not meeting Terry Pratchett (*sob*).
However, I have a happy baby:
so that makes up for it.
Sep. 4th, 2009 @ 09:45 am
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So.
TIRED.
Babies eat time. Did you know that? You can sit with a baby, and the clock will madly spin onward at four thousand times its normal speed. On the other hand, you can sleep while the baby sleeps, and it will always feel like it's only been ten minutes even when it's been hours and this is a bad thing. And screaming? Screaming STOPS THE CLOCK.
My brain's kinda wibbly from the fussfest that happened tonight. I got a phone call and this meant OH MY GOD THE WORLD IS ENDING AAAAAAAAGH scream-whinge-whimper-baby for a few hours because he had been nicely asleep till the phone woke him up. Yay.
Also: never swim in a 60 degree pool. I swore I was going to go in today, because I'm finally allowed to do things like that again (yeeha!) but the water was icy cold and the sun was behind clouds and it ended up being more like a quick wading session than actual swimming. Still: pools are awesome, and having someone to watch your kid while you do other things is also awesome.
sleep now.
Sep. 3rd, 2009 @ 08:50 pm
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