pretzels are tenfold

Lucian has been a bit mean lately. He harasses his sister, which, I'm assuming is natural. My brother was a relentless little prick. But that's a family thing. Today, I watched my son, my innocent little son, kick a kid just for the hell of it, while the kid was sacked out on the ground after a slide tackle gone horribly awry. So, after soccer was over, after I loaded the kids in the car (which tends to stink up quickly because they both have some badass B.O. after these little games), I tried to explain to Lucian about karma and its very surprising visitation on wrongdoers.
He didn't get it.
"What's tenfold mean?" he asked, pinching his sister's arm to watch her freak out.
"It means that whatever you do, especially the mean stuff, will come back really strong on you."
He giggled. "Does it buy toys for you if you're nice?"
"Um, no."
After several more minutes of him torturing Anna in the backseat and me screaming at him in tones that I swear were audible in Paris, I took him by his little pipe cleaner arm and dragged him into the kitchen. I grabbed a pretzel out of the cupboard.
"See this pretzel?"
"Yes"
"This is the mean thing that you did to Anna. Get it?"
"Yes."
"Ok." I put the pretzel on the floor and with my giant, mens' biker boot, I pulverized the thing.
Of course the pretzel became a pile of dust, 90 times larger than when it was an actual pretzel."
"See that pile of pretzel shit?"
"Yes."
"That's what will happen to you when you do something bad to someone else. It's always gonna be worse for you."
He turned very pale, no doubt clicking on the files in his head in which his demonic behavior caused someone else pain.
"That's not good."
"No, buddy, it's not good."
Off he went. I think he got it, but we'll see. I also made him clean up the pretzel with the dustpan.

timing is everything

I am moving into a small cottage in the middle of nowhere. I do mean nowhere, it's going to take days for the gas guy to come and hook up the propane so I can actually cook something. Until then, it looks like I'll be heating up soup over a gasoline drum. Great. They are turning on the power there today, of course, before they do, I had to go down into the Blair Witch Project basement with a child-sized flashlight so I could turn off the main power switch. That was fun. I think I ate a brown recluse spider, so we'll see what happens with that. Did I mention that I destroyed my head on the way back up the stairs that actually look like a ladder more than steps?
Yeah, so, things are looking a bit grim. It's raining outside, I do have to see the doctor about my ear, I wasn't going to until they asked me if I "wanted my eardrum to rupture over the weekend?"
Um, what the fuck do you think, no. That'll be fun. I'll get the blast-o antibiotic that would kill a wrestler, then I will shit for days because my body is already in emergency mode due to life circumstances and the death of love as I know it. YAY!
On a positive note, which I must remind myself there are many, Anna has mastered the art of omlette-making. I'm very proud of this because she is only 8. Also, I forsee a few Saturday mornings where I don't have to get up at the asscrack of dawn to feed the ravenous cavern that is her stomach. That IS pretty exciting!
For food, French Onion Soup, broiled with bread and cheese on top. I know I shouldn't have dairy, but I just couldn't go without. I'm french!!!

on hearing and other luxuries

I've been harboring an ear infection for about two weeks now. I can feel the popping, but no relief. It's actually nice because the world seems bubbly and the noises the kids make aren't so fucking annoying and piercing. In fact they were trying to destroy eachother with pencils last night while I played "Moonlight Sonata" at full blast on the piano. Didn't hear a thing except the angry, gorgeous bass notes of Beethoven's syphillis infused masterpiece.
I also had a snifter of brandy. Suddenly, life was VERY good.
I did gain my hearing back for a second at about 3 am when Anna came in and was standing over me, waiting for me to wake up. I'm not sure how long she'd been standing there, but when I opened my eyes there was a giant, afro-headed demon glaring at me. I'm blind, so all I could see was the sinister outline. Did I mention that I have a heart condition? Yeah, well, I do, and waking out of a dead (albeit almost drunken) sleep to someone who is not the person you were just dreaming about ('cause that person in your dream was just about to rip your shirt off while you are laying on some beach in Cadiz) is a little surprising, to say the least. I think I scared her more, though.
"Jeezus! Anna, you scared the shit out of me!!!"
"I'm sorry, waaaa, I'm sorry!"
Then comes the bad mommy placating broken-hearted child bit, which I am an expert at.
"It's cool, it's cool, it's just that, you know, you were just standing there." And mommy was having a VERY NICE dream in which she was being ravished and...
"Can I sleep with you?"
"Huh, um, sure, yeah, of course." I patted the sheets, she tried to crawl over me and succeeded in smashing my bladder with her heal and then kicking me in the chin.
"Um, ow."
"Sorry." I could hear her breathing steady out, like a furnace hum, and then, between the pitch black of my thoughts and hers, "Wow the bed is really warm!"
"I know." The dream, of course, dramatically switched gears and suddenly I was sitting on a stone wall, waiting for my life to begin as the sun dropped, an orange-y purple ball in the horizon.
For food, mini-burritos with scrambled eggs, refried beans, tomatoes, lettuce, cheese, and a giant splooge of hot sauce for me. The kids ate two each...

maturation

I'm having an internal argument with myself. The question; Should I go out to the bus stop with the kids in the driving rain in my revolting, 900-year-old menswear that I now call pajamas? Clearly I should not, at least, that's what my selfish gut tells me. It was mildly pathetic watching their little silhouettes slouched against the giant drops, but they have raincoats, boots, an umbrella and YOUTH on their side. They don't know any better, and I envy this in children. When I discover it in myself, it usually is in a career-ending ignorance that sets me back for months. Take yesterday for instance. Oh yesterday....
I am trying VERY HARD to get some more freelance work. I'm editing now, two manuscripts, one is a book of very sad, very sexy poetry. The other is, well, I'm not sure what it is yet, that's where I come in, but I think it has something to do with racism in Alabama (we definitely need to work on chapter titles for this one). So, I'm piecing work together, trying to make ends say "hi" to eachother, let's face it, they aren't going to meet right now, so I'll be happy with them having a good wave, maybe blowing eachother a kiss...whatever.
So, this prestigious magazine in our area linked one of my stories to their website. I WAS DELIGHTED!!! Granted, it was a story about lingerie, but who gives a fuck, it was my story, and I've been trying to see what my angle could be with this magazine. So, I sent out a tentative email to the editor, "hey, saw you linked my story, really like your magazine, need any freelancers" blah, blah. He says he'd be interested in some pitches if I had any.
This is where you are supposed to envision a giant pile of feces being chucked at the propellor of a plane.
I'd been on the phone with an old high school friend for about an hour, I'm supposed to be interviewing him for a play review, but instead, we are being totally ridiculous, practicing for our big break into HBO comedy. The conversation actually ended with us comtemplating how we could send to Israel for all of the missing foreskins of American men, who now want them back. We determined that this was an impossible request because the Israeli government had already sewn a giant fish tapestry with all of the "missing pieces", each one representing a scale....
You can see where this is going, I hope...
So after this conversation, I got an ice pack for my face and stomach (from the laughing), and here's where the ERRONEOUS ERROR comes in, I checked my email one last time. I sent out a note to the editor of said cool magazine offering to do a play review. I'd been noticing that their website has always included reviews.
Then, I got a reply. "Our magazine has never done play reviews. Maybe you should review the publication, get an idea as to what stories we do and come up with some thoughtful pitches."
Yup, thoughtful pitches. The translation of this email is: You dumb bitch, you're playing with the big boys now, how old are you, like 5, read the fucking magazine and maybe, just maybe, I'll do you the service of rejecting your idea. Lucky you."
Thoughtful pitches......right. Got it.
Not a good feeling, of course, I was laughing hysterically when I went to bed. There may have been a tear or two. I'm visiting the magazine rack today.
Oh, and dinner, two slices of pizza wolfed down while sitting at my folks' computer trying to print out yet another application for Ghetto services to offset my growing hole of a bank account.

Purgatory for dummies

I have determined, already, that I am going to hell. This is a fact. The one bright spot in all this is that I will be with friends, family, and bitches I hate so that I can torture them as they wonder why they are there. Hell is my kind of territory, so, clearly I'm not worried. Also, I will know what to wear when I do get there, unlike the applique sweater wearers of the world who actually thought they were going to heaven because they have an angel crocheted on to their body. Not so.
So, I will know what to wear and I will be among people I like, excellent.
My mother will also be in hell with me, this, again, was determined a long time ago. We do have self-righteous moments where there is the brief mention of "goodness" and "doing what is right" but these moments are almost immediately cancelled out by conversations that no human being would dare think, let alone have. Take last night for instance; the topic: Extreme Makeover Home Edition.
"What the fuck is up with that show? It seems like all the losers win the houses!"

"Seriously, they don't even know about decorating. They don't know that it's a big deal to have a BRAND NEW Viking stove. I mean, jesus!"

"I need a Viking stove! Shit, I need jeans that fit my kid. It just seems like they take these pathetic families who take like 9 HIV-positive kids and stuff them into a fuckin' trailer the size of a sardine can, 'cause that's really responsible."

My mom paused, "Yeah, now that you mention it, what the hell is wrong with DSS letting those kids live there in the first place. I mean, who the hell would let a kid, let alone 12, live in those conditions?!"

"Yeah, and we're supposed to get all teary-eyed 'cause they have a house. They're rolling on the ground like friggin' puppies, one kid's wheezing through his oxygen tank..."

"Dont forget, there's at least two black kids."

"Right, two black kids with Hepatitis C..."

"And the kid with the twisted leg, and don't forget to throw in a cleft palette."

"Oh yeah, you're good, I totally forgot about the lip going up into the noise thing, yeah, gotta have one of those. Come to think of it, the only reason I cry when I watch that show is because you know that house is gonna be a shithole in six months."

"Yup, instead of being arrested for neglect, they get a new house, it just doesn't seem fair."

So, you see why we're going to hell, I think I've made that pretty clear. Don't worry, I am raising the kids in the same vein so we can all be togther in the afterlife. Why stop now?
For dinner, baked potatoes gutted, cheesed, stuffed and rebaked, and shell your own soybeans. Not bad, except that Lucian discovered that he could squeeze the beans out of the shell in the manner of a gun, so the meal was "dotted" with soybean fire from his end of the table until Anna lost her shit and took her potato into the living room where she would not be shot at.

Bach for breakfast

Sorry I've been away, folks, I was on Lake Champlain with my drunken father trying to catch "Champ" the lake monster.
Needless to say, we did not catch him. In fact, we didn't catch anything, except that I might now have pneumonia (spelling on that one?) from being out on the lake and at the front of the tiny, aluminum boat as water spilled in on both sides. Did I mention that it poured the whole time we were out there? So, between the fog, the rain, and the lake, I think I deserve some kind of award for being an "honorary Irishman".
I won't get it, but it'd be nice.
So, while I was up in the north country trying not to puke in the gondola that took us up to the top of Whiteface mountain (I wasn't sick because of the heights, it was the hangover from the brandy and my father's subsequent reaction to Bratwurst WHILE we were in the gondola) I had many thoughts. Death (we really were way up there), grief (my domestic situation is not looking so good right now), longing (someone I barely know has instilled this in me, it's awful), and euphoria, just for being witness to a vista that I could not create, not even with my vivid, techinicolor imagination.
I don't mind the rollercoaster. In fact, the rollercoaster, the dipping down low and being hung up with nervous diarrhea (I have horrible genetics) and the waving up high is a reminder, albeit a "raw" one, that I can still feel something, anything, to its utmost power. I thought that that part of me was gone with the part that played the piano 7 hours a day, the part that fucked around with charcoal sticks and made gorgeous, dusty portraits, the part that didn't mind being broke, so long as there was coffee, a cigarette, and a funny friend nearby (preferably a hot, funny friend, but, whatever). So, I'm back on the track, I'll probably hit the free fall part of the ride, bump my head a few times, but, man, I'll feel every bruise and see every cloud until it pushes down again.
I didn't eat much this weekend, so I don't have any recipes to hand out. I did have a diner cheeseburger, it seemed to be the thing that saved my life. I was pretty low until that cheeseburger!

diamonds are a girl's best friend

I have a foul mouth, probably to match my mind. Some of the kinder people in my life call it my honesty, my no bullshit attitude, my strength, ha!!! It's cute, it really is. I do get a sick rush of mischievious joy when people wince at my jokes, but then they smile this weird, Vaseline-y (yes, I used Vaseline-y on purpose) smile and make like everything's cool. But it's not, of course. They'll go home and over their kitchen sinks while they finish up the night's dishes they'll say something like "let's not hang out with her again" or "does she know how offensive that was?"
Prudes. They're clearly not getting laid properly and so, the Vaseline thing works on all counts.
So anyway, my own children, whose budding senses of humor are nothing short of impressive, have begun to recognize my facial preparation for inappropriate language and conversation.
I was doing the dishes tonite (I f***ing hate doing dishes, hate it, hate it) and I dropped a mug back into the sink. Lucian looked up from his G.I. Joe action figure (yes, I let my kid play with war toys. You think giving your kid a wooden Waldorf toy is actually going to stop him from turning it into a gun or a battering ram, think again, man). He looked up, pointed his finger at me and said, "Don't do it, Mom!"
"Do what?" I asked innocently.
"Don't say f**k."
"How do you know I was going to say anything?" Again, innocently.
"Because I can see those little diamonds in your eyes," he replied.
Then he shot off the little plastic bazooka and chased the artillery into the hallway.
Little diamonds in my eyes. I wonder what I look like when I'm about to, you know.....
Sparkle, sparkle.
Oh yes, the meal, leftover pasta (night three), water, applesauce.
I am eating popcorn for dinner, to be chased by an iron supplement.