Taufling's Big Womb Adventures

BabyCenter.com says that my niece or nephew is at this moment busily growing hair. Taufling should at this point have developed an all-over soft down called "lanugo". That's.... very duckling-like of Taufling, I suppose. More power to you, my little peep.

I hope Taufling has my sister's hair; she's a strawberry blonde, and when she wasn't much older than Taufling, it looked purely red at times. It's worrisome that this should be Taufling's focus right now, as his/her aunt is currently experiencing some very severe Hair Issues. I lopped it all off last month, it looked good for four seconds, and now it's all flat and horrid. I have to do a presentation today for the engineers and literally spent 40 minutes in very intense negotiations with my hair, and by the time I walked out the door it actually looked worse when I first rolled out of bed.

Taufling is also working on his/her muscle tone. I worked my muscles today too, using a resistance band and a VHS tape featuring an inappropriately enthusiastic person named Tony. Taufling doesn't have a Tony to guide him/her through Lawnmower Pulls and Heavy Pants Flys (don't ask) so I have no idea how s/he is pulling this off. Very tiny Bowflex, perhaps.

I made my sister laugh for like four days once after I in all seriousness told her that I would name a baby girl Freedom Marie or Celestia or both. After she told me that she was expecting, I asked if she was going to name Taufling "Freedom Marie" if she was a girl. There was a very long pause, then she said, "But that's your name."

And, says BabyCenter.com, Taufling can now "grasp, squint, frown, and grimace." Clearly, this child is a German.

This just in from Down Under....

FIVE-YEAR BAN FOR DOPE JOCKEY
"NT jockey Phillip Johnson has been banned for five years after he tested positive to drugs and threatened a steward with a telephone."

Let's take this sentence apart, shall we? OK, first of all, we have here a jockey-- an Aussie jockey, granted, but they're still no NBA players down there, they just get on the horses in the other direction-- who was banned for smoking, of all things, pot. How galactically stupid is this guy? "Hey, I have to make weight, let's get out the BONG!" Dumbass. Everybody knows that if you're a jock and you want to have a colossal drug abuse problem, you go for a nice, thinning cocaine addiction. Not pot. Not the drug responsible for 95% of all Pringles sales in the civilized world.

Then we have the second half of it: "... after he tested positive to drugs and threatened a steward with a telephone."

Some thoughts:

1) Thaaaaaaaat's great. Every pothead I know, when threatened, immediately goes for the Motorola.

2) Way to go on the whole steward situation, dude. Since the drug tests weren't problematic enough for you, it's an excellent idea to threaten the sole person who has exclusive power over YOUR ENTIRE CAREER.

3) A telephone? He’s five-two and the first weapon he goes for is a telephone? Honey, if you’re going the office-supply route, always go for the highlighter. It’s pointier.

But Wait There's More:

“Johnson claimed he smoked dope because he was in pain following a haemorrhoid operation.”

(Why do our friends in GB terry-tories give hemorrhoids an extra “a”? Aren’t they un-fun and hard enough to spell already? Freaks.)

Look, I have hemorrhoids. Let’s type that again, just for fun and emphasis: I HAVE HEMORRHOIDS. And this operation isn’t exactly a box lunch by the lake. But… pot? Which will—I just can’t get past this food issue—cause you to crave such colon-friendly foods as salsa and guacamole dip? Did the dog eat your tack, too?

“On the last occasion in 2001, the winner of the 1992 Alice Springs Cup on True Tales claimed unwittingly eating carrot cake laced with marijuana had been the reason for his elevated cannabis level. “

What in hell is going on in Australia? Carrot cake? This guy can’t bake brownies like the rest of planet Earth? Did he just make a drug-cake out of whatever was lying around the barn? (Speaking of… on second thought, maybe carrot cake wasn’t such a bad option.)

“The latest swab on Johnson was taken on September 6 and he was advised by Alice Springs Turf Club chief steward Ross Lennox to be at the track on September 26 where he was to be advised of an irregularity in the swab.“

Given the complication of the whole “haemorrhoid operation”, I’m very grateful that we aren’t told exactly where this swab came from. I wanna be a steward when I grow up!

“On that day Johnson was said to have smashed a tape recorder which he took from the steward's room and that he also raised a telephone over the head of Lennox in a threatening manner.”

What did the police report look like on this one? “F'ing moron perpetrator threatened victim with a telephone as perfectly menacing HP printer sat by unmolested.”

Also: Who owns a tape recorder anymore? Even if it was one of those weensey little micro-mini ones you use for dictation… so what? Destroying one of those is threatening? Those damn things unspool if you breathe on them in the wrong direction. My God, don’t ever let this man in a Radio Shack unattended.

Philosophy of Life

When in doubt, kiss him.

My car pees on me.

We are constantly battling over this, my car and I. I don't think the Millennium Bellemobile does it of her own accord, poor girl; I blame the dealership, Toyota, and, for obvious reasons, God. The dink who sold her--used-- failed to inform me that her wheels and her sunroof were custom-installed. And so when I was in an accident last year, the wheels and the sunroof were damaged (don't ask) and there was nothing any of the dealerships within a 9000 mile radius could do about it since they weren't Toyota-installed. (I'm going to enjoy my Honda Civic when it's finally time for the Bellemobile to go-- and you are NOT ALLOWED to tell her that I'm even thinking about it, or she'll start dropping parts where she's parked.) But the sunroof doesn't seal properly (let's not even discuss the CD player that quit on me on the way home from the dealership) and so when I am subjected to the type of Florida storm we had last night-- the kind where you gather your small dogs and children and call Jesse Jackson to come rescue you--all this water collects along the seal, and when we turn a corner I get peed on. You try mopping and driving during rush hour. The Millennium Bellemobile is almost five years old... toilet training really should not be an issue with a Corolla by now.

Congratulations, California!

Enjoy your new First Lady, Skeletor.

Also: Does anybody else find it hilarious that Arnold is pro-gun control when in one of his movies his, like, ENTIRE ARM was fashioned out of a fully functioning AK-47? Or is it just me?

Sucks to be a Californian today.

You've got a loser, a freak, a racist, and a moron for your frontrunners and a pornographer, a midget, a drug addict, and a slut for the also rans. Good luck with that.

Hearing Things

The song that Jimmy Buffett wrote with the full knowledge I was about to be born-- "Changes in Lattitudes, Changes in Attitudes"-- cued up on the radio this morning as I drove into the Graph Paper Paradise today. (One of the cool things about living in Flordia; they actually play Jimmy Buffett on the radio out here.) I was coming in at a very weird time, 10 AM, so of course I had to turn it up and just about cry and take it as A Sign.

I dream about Denver when I'm home, horses-

I wish I could jump on a plane.

So many nights I sit and dream of the mountains

God I wish I were riding again

Oh, yesterdays are over my shoulder

So I can't look back for too long

There's just too much to see waiting in front of me

And I know that I just can't go wrong.

I Am So Totally Famous

I am famous. Well, within a 12,000-radius readership of a Florida newspaper, anyway. I participated in a reading this week (not, as one of my coworkers asked, a "tarot card reading") at a local college and my picture wound up splashed all over the features section of the paper. I look fairly stupid. I'm waving one hand in the air as if I'm taking oath of office, which I frankly don't remember doing, and I'm not completely sure but I think my ass looks enormous. The calves look fantastic, though. That's the important thing. Also the photographer was hot. I totally showed him leg when he asked me how to spell my last name.

It was an interesting night, and thrilling be back in my own context. Fey Goateed Art Guy was there, as well as Tori Amos Lesbian Girl. The whole bit. I was thrilled to be doing public speaking again, which I sorely miss.

I had to leave early because it was a long drive back to the Blonde Bachelorette Pad, and outside were a couple of students grabbing a smoke, and as I went by they were all, "Look, look, there she is!" and they told me that I was the best, funniest person there. So I threw my arms around them and complimented their excellent taste.

I sent my mom the picture and she said, "You've come a long way since your fourth grade Living Book Report."

Oh, good times, good times! This was my glorious debut as a public speaker. I'd done a lot of readings before at class Masses, but this was the big time. We had our own assembly in the auditorium and everything. It was truly a big deal. It was a tradition back at St. Jude's: You dressed up as a character from the book and told the story and every single person ended with "And if you want to know what happens next, read...."

My book was The Little Gymnast, that modern classic, and I pranced around in this replica Mary Lou Retton uniform and generally did not want to get off the stage. I rocked, baby. I was money.

I feel great about the reading, but it also left me pacing. It served as another confirmation that this is what I need to be doing, writing and doing readings and lectures, which is a good thing seeing as I'm completely inept in anything else I have ever attempted.

But in the meantime: The engineers. Booooooooooooooo.