Surreal Selfies And Schweddy Balls

Hey there! How are you? Me? Just busy throwing up all over the Internet. Words here, words there, words everywhere! Also a videographer type dude was at our house pointing his camera at me for some fun stuff I can't wait to show you. In the mix of all of this organized chaos Serge and I continue our slutty streak of couples dating. Last weekend, yesterday and today and more weekend stuff ahead. And then the Jersey Shore with friends in two weeks. It's almost like we're a normal sociable couple!

Anyway, would sir or madam care for my aforementioned Internet throw-ups? Couple things I did over on Babble this past week: this Not Just A Girl thing (photo above) was something I stumbled across on Facebook and loved. Contacted the mom who did it and got permission to use her photos on Babble. Click here to see the whole series featuring her daughter and then show it to your daughter.

I have kinda sorta fallen in love with a 14-year-old, but in the nicest possible way. His name is Zev and I found him on Flickr. He takes photographs and his best ones are of himself. I know what you're thinking: why would I want to look at a 14-year-old's selfies? Here's why:





I had this fantastic email correspondence with Zev, which felt a whole lot more like I was talking to an adult because the kid is just beyond... Anyway, you can check out a ton more of Zev's surreal selfies by clicking here.

Over on MamaPop I wrote about my undying love for Alec Baldwin no matter what he does and am interested in hearing who you consider to be your Alec Baldwin. Oh and then there's the little ditty about all the word grenades Violet's been lobbing at innocent bystanders:


H-E-L-P! She is on a mad tear!

What's the most embarrassing thing your kid has ever said to someone? Hit me up in the MamaPop comments after reading them yourself. There be funny shit there. Oh and hey. More and more I'm getting a lot of writing ideas from cool parenting related links you guys send my way on Facebook or Twitter. If you see something you like (photos, blog post, article, funny meme, whatever!) or think it's cool, send it my way so I can write about it on Babble.

P.S. - Next time you see a silly selfie just add spaghetti! You'll never look at selfies the same way again...

Weekend Warriors

Last weekend the couple I mention over here as "The Ones" came with their three kids for another visit. We're going to the Jersey Shore in June with them for a week (we have separate condos) so we are totally taking our dating relationship up a notch. Vacation. Could make or break us. But if the past weekend was any indicator, we're going to have a great time.

Thrill Hill

It was one of the few times I saw my mom how she must've looked before the four of us slipped from her body, robbing her youth like thieves in the night. How she must have looked to those who knew her before she knew us.

Carefree.

Happy.

Mischievous.

Moms have a way of settling their features into Mom Face when their children are around. But have you ever glimpsed your mom when she didn't know you were watching? The mask of motherhood slips away revealing eyes like oceans, the raw expression of the woman she was before you came along, forcing her to rearrange her features into your expectations.

But my mom was Elaine long before I came around. She is Elaine. A girl/woman with hopes and dreams and fears and a whole constellation of thoughts and feelings I'll probably never know about because that's just how it goes with moms; they're mom first and themselves second.

At seven I wasn't capable of seeing the person behind the mom. Not only that but the person behind the mom was currently being body slammed by a life that, at 28, had brought single motherhood of four kids under the age of eight. From your parents home to you husband's home and then BAM! Single mom with four young kids including a newborn, full-time work, full-time school, full-time anxiety.

The Thrill Hill. That's what she called it, anyway. I was a teenager before it dawned on me that Thrill Hill wasn't its official name. The great swoop of roadway stretched across a deep gully in a neighborhood a few miles from our house. An upside down asphalt rainbow. If you picked up enough speed on the straightaway before the road dropped down into the gulch your stomach danced a little jig of delight. If mom went whole hog (she usually did) and managed to keep her foot off the brake as our little car climbed the other side butterflies knocked around your innards again as we crested the top. I swear we even caught air a few times, the five of us crammed into that rusty old Volkswagen Rabbit.

He was sky blue and we called him Roger. When he was feeling sick or cranky, choking on his own exhaust like an old man battling Emphysema, one or the other of us kids would gently stroke his dashboard and give him a pep talk. "You can do it, Roger. I know you can do it. Come on, Roger!"

It would usually be a Sunday. We always took drives on Sundays. Inevitably, our route would meander toward The Thrill Hill, all of us shifting around excitedly because we knew what was coming. Or we hoped for what was coming, anyway. Sometimes she wouldn't be in the mood. We'd near the road leading to The Thrill Hill and we'd all hold our breath but then she'd motor past the turn-off as if it didn't even exist and our spirits would plummet. But other times, just when we'd think she was going to pass it by, she'd crank the steering wheel onto the road and stop the car, the motor coughing quietly while she turned to look at each of us.

And that's when I saw her. Not Mom. ELAINE. Her features would transform from sagging, heavy-lidded exhaustion after long shifts at the State Mental Hospital into an expression not unlike the one that would cross my features years later while cruising with my girlfriend after stealing her dad's car: mischievous delight.

"Should we do it?" Elaine would ask, already knowing the answer. There was no question we'd do it. The only question was how fast would we go? How fast would she take us?

My big brother, occupying the front passenger seat as was his right as the oldest and able to pound any who dared trespass on his territory, would brace himself against the dashboard in excitement. My two younger brothers and I, sardined into the backseat, would quit our neverending game of "Got Ya Last!" which involved smacking each other repeatedly and lapse into a deliciously terrified silence.

Sometimes she'd rev Roger's engine for effect, sometimes she'd just slam the pedal to the metal and off we'd go in the yellow afternoon light, a sky blue streak of delight.

Thanks for all the thrills, Elaine, my sweet mama. Happy Mother's Day.


_{Thrill Hill junkies.}

Consuming Consumption

I never drink before five o'clock, never more than four beers, never have a hangover and yet my consumption of alcohol consumes me. Not that I'm constantly thinking about drinking, what I mean is I'm constantly wondering whether I'm drinking too much. Which means, I guess, that yes, I'm constantly thinking about drinking.

The constant worry affects my life infinitely more than the actual drinking. The drinking is two or three hours of nice and then bed. But the worry, the anxiety, it's always there. A backpack full of enormous college textbooks strapped to my body weighing me down and wouldn't it just be easier to take off the fucker?

Probably. But can I not enjoy this one damn thing or does my brain have to constantly analyze causes and effects and whys and why nots? My whole life is an over-analysis of my whole life. Look at this blog. A manifesto of over-analyzation. I cannot escape. Analyzation is as much a part of my being as breathing. So, give me this, dammit. Let me have this, my three beers at night. Because, GOD, I'm not drowning any sorrows in the amber stuff, not masking any pain...Okay, maybe a little pain but not big pain, just the usual scraped knees and paper cuts of life. Maybe a couple wounds here and there that required stitches, but they're healing nicely, mostly no big deal!

The beer stealthily sands the sharp, jagged edges of the day into smooth, graceful lines. Isn't it ever so nice to run fingertips across silky smooth banisters instead of having to stop and dig out slivers? The days are filled with slivers. And the beer, it slows the analysis. He takes a Xanax for his anxiety, she takes a Valium for her thing, why can't I have three beers for my thing? What's wrong with that? And yet even just rhetorically posing the question here is the starting gun that prompts a million voices in my head to trip over themselves in their anxious effort to answer... That's how it starts. That's denial talking. If you have to ask you already know the answer.

But I don't! I don't know the answer! It's three silly beers. Sometimes four. And besides, it was a rhetorical fucking question, you asshole.

And then I'm stuck right back where I was when I wrote this post. I went back and read all the excellent comments again today and one really stood out for me:

Personally, if I were spending my day watching the clock, waiting for the drink to be officially OKAY, and then spending the next two hours fretting about the drink I just had, that would be a problem FOR ME.

I don't clockwatch but usually glance up and it's nearly five or after five or whatever and I'm like, All right! Time for a drink! Yes, that's an exclamation point. Two exclamation points! I put them there to demonstrate that beer time makes me excited. It does. What is that you're doing? Is that a pencil? Are you taking notes? Did you add the exclamation points to the list of things that point to alcoholism?

So the part of her comment that really stood out for me is where she says spending all that time fretting about having a drink would ruin it for her. Because that's kind of what's happening here. I enjoy my drinks and we go to bed and then I wake up in the morning and I'm all, you're so silly. You don't need to drink. It's just extra money and extra calories and a whole lotta extra stress.

I maintain that party line for the rest of the day, mostly. But, just like the morning mist slowly evaporating as the sun climbs a ladder of clouds into the sky, so does my You Don't Need To Drink sentiment. I don't need to drink but I want to.

And so what?

I write my stuff and shuttle kids to and fro, maybe go to the park, deal with a tantrum or two, put the kids in their rooms - rolling the dice on some afternoon quiet time to finish up some more writing and then, before I know it, Dinner Hour is once again making my acquaintance, his twin brother Cocktail Hour in tow, and the whole thing starts all over again.

And really I just want to annihilate the part of my brain that engages in this fucking square dance because can I not enjoy myself for two fucking hours at night if I'm dotting all my I's and crossing all my T's the other 22 hours a day? Life is short, man. But maybe that entire thought process is the last bastion between me being a functioning human being or the star of the next episode of Intervention? See. There it goes again...

Round and around and around we go...

Afternoon Siesta

After a particularly harrowing park visit during which Henry refused to leave and delivered a tantrum that would make Christian Bale blush, we all came home and retired to our separate quarters before shit got physical: thrown toys and books, knocked over chairs...The kids can get violent too so it was best to just call a family time out.

An hour later I found Violet cuddling with Dad. The dog humping Serge leads me to believe he must've already been asleep when she crept into his room and kicked off what looks to be a pretty hardcore animal orgy.