trying yet another blogging client…

So I just hopped online to see a friend’s blog and had a sudden “duh” moment: I’ve got a blog, too!

And so I’m doing something about it.

Update on my life:

I now live in Idaho. Ever notice how people from Idaho drive slower than a drunk dead dinosaur? I always thought they just didn’t get out of the state much and, when they did, they forgot how to drive. Yeah, well I was wrong. Idahoans can’t drive in Idaho, either. It’s completely maddening.

My babies are getting bigger! I had to change the “info about me” part to update their ages. So weird–I feel so old!!!

I’m writing a book for NaNoWriMo. I would make that a link to their website or throw one of their buttons on here, but I’d have to look up and figure out how to do that and I just finished convincing myself that I had time to blog regularly because blogging takes up almost no time. All in all, it’s actually a ghost story–kind of a suspense/horror type something, but without the gore and the annoying “boo!” thing too many suspense/horror stories rely on. I can just hear you thinking, “isn’t that what defines that genre?” Maybe, but I think I can write something far scarier than blood and boo without relying on them as a crutch for bad writing/characters/plot development. It might end up just sucking beyond all reason, but at least I’ll get my 50,000 words in!

That’s probably all there is right now. Aren’t I just fascinating? Well, I hope to bore you more later this week or maybe next week. (Or, judging from the date of my last entry, next November…)

And THREE THOUSAND CHEERS FOR OBAMA!!! I can still scarcely believe he actually made it! And I can still scarcely believe that he’s real. Wow, wow, and wow.

I am always leaving one of my three addictions in my pockets and then washing them. (Makes perfect sense, though, doesn’t it? I can’t live without these items in the pockets of any of my pants–even if I’m not actually wearing that particular pair. They’re addictions, I tell you–although I have no intention of breaking any habits.)

That said, I’m never overly surprised, although usually ticked off as all snot, to find chapstick, kleenex, or gum remnants in my dryer. Usually I’m pretty lucky, though, most of the time. The lids have stayed on the chapsticks all time but one (when I had a full batch of mediums that smelled like watermelon LipSmackers for a few washes and never quite lost that pinkish grease spot). And, although the kleenex disintegrating all over everything, most of it ends up in the lint thingie and the rest shakes out okay, And the GUM would really suck, but I rarely have a piece of actual GUM in my pockets. The wrappers, though…

So, tonight, I’m getting Damon in his super-cute glow-in-the-dark footsie dino-jammies (seriously, someone ought to start a charity to make sure that every boy born in this country leaves the hospital with at least one pair of super-cute glow-in-the-dark footsie dino-jammies…anyone looking for a cause?) and there’s something that’s bugging his feet. I reach in there, expecting some lint ball or one of Lydie’s favorite little rocks she found in the gutter. And it’s a Trident wrapper–nice and pokey, even fresh out of the dryer. I tease Damon about how it really does serve him right. If he would just check his pockets before throwing his overalls and onesies in the laundry, this really would not be an issue. He just gets his “Yes! I found TROUBLE!!!” grin–

And then I see them. Mile upon mile of empty gums, with only four little front teeth peeking through. And I realize that there is only one creature in this house who does not chew gum (if we leave it down low enough, even Attie will go through a pack a day) and is the only one who has a gum-wrapper in an extraordinarily uncomfortable place.

Poor fella.

As soon as he has molars, though, I have every intention of showing him how, although he no longer has “mile upon mile” of visible gumline, he can then at least enjoy stick upon stick of chewing gum.

Speaking of chewing gum, I’ve only recently discovered how absolutely divine the Trident fruit flavors are. Highly addicting, highly recommended. Just throw your wrapper in the garbage or some sad little foot is bound to get poked at.

Ready to be bored? Fabulous–keep reading.

So, I had an epiphany today–my computer always seems to run super-slow when the “Page File Usage” thing on the Task Manager is kinda high. So I have this brilliant idea–is there a way to make the page files, whatever they might be, bigger? Well there is. Speed your computer up today. Follow these instructions. Follow all subliminal messages. Give me all your money.

Here’s how to do it for WinXP and WinXPHomeEd. It might work for other versions of Windows, but this is the only one I’ve run in a while, so this is what I’ve got.

1. Right-click on the My Computer icon on your desktop and select Properties. (If you are allergic to “easiest way” of doing things, go to Control Panel>System.)
2. Click the “Advanced” Tab.
3. Click the “Settings” button under the “Performance” heading.
4. Click this newer and much more exciting “Advanced” Tab.
5. Click “Change” under the “Virtual Memory” setting.
6. After looking at the space available on your hard drive, increase the “Initial Size” and “Maximum Size” values. Set them both to the same value to avoid file fragmentation and speed up your sweet little system. (I’ve got over 16,000MB of free space and have a bad habit of running several RAM-hogging programs simultaneously–and I’m impatient–so I set the Page file Sizes both to 2,000MB.)
7. Click the “Set” button.
8. Click the five billion “ok” buttons to get you out of all the dialog boxes.
9. Enjoy your newer, faster system and say goodbye to eating your meals in front of the computer while waiting for your crap to load.

I made the mistake of talking Lydie out of getting “A Bing Crosby Christmas” in favor of “Christmas with the Chipmunks” when we were grocery shopping the other day and saw a display of Christmas music. Although she really does like Bing Crosby (what can I say–I like old movies and so she’s actually had way more exposure to Bing than to the Chipmunks…but she’s never heard of the Chipmunks until Saturday, so I don’t know if that really says anything about her exposure to Bing…) I thought she would like “kid music” more than “grown-up music”.

And she sure likes the Chipmunks’ CD.

Especially the first 5 tracks.

We’ve heard them a good 500 times around here. I get the feeling that I may as well like the Chipmunks while I still can. By Christmas, I’ll probably be ready to murder the omnipresent “Dave”.

Something I saw yesterday I just thought was so funny. I was reading the blog of an single mom who was an atheist and so, of course, was raising her children as atheists. She was explaining that, even though they were atheists, she wanted her children to have an understanding of other religions so that, when people attacked their beliefs (or lack thereof) by saying that they’re only atheists because they don’t know anything about any other religions, they could say that they DO know other religions, but this is what they believe.

And I thought that made pretty good sense.

She went on to explain that she thought it was time for her teenagers to know a little more about Christianity. So, being the logical and sensible person that she is, had them watch “Jesus Christ Superstar.”
Needless to say, my respect for her as an intelligent person was then lost completely. Not only did I laugh out loud (and call my mom just to tell her so she could get a good laugh, too), but I also had to wonder how such an obviously brilliant person might teach her children about other religious mainstreams. Maybe she’ll use Nazi propaganda to teach them all about Judaism. Ooooh-and maybe watch some anti-Arab episodes of Saturday Night Live to teach them all about Islam-Allah forbid that they skim parts of the Quran to get an idea of what they believe-or even the Quran Cliff Notes. I bet they watched Disney’s Hercules to learn all about Greek gods and goddesses. Then they would have such a wonderful understanding of the Greeks that they could become philosophers and publish on the topic of “why Hades has hair made of fire and Zeus doesn’t have hair made of a thunder bolt”.

It’s so nice to know that there are such enlightened people giving their children a true taste of the world’s religions.

Alright, I might never get around to deleting this blog, but I’ve just discovered BlogDesk (a glorious but simple piece of freeware that I think I just might like… a lot… IF it works…). And so I’m going to find out if it works the way I think it’s supposed to. Actually, I’m sure that IT works, I just am testing to see if I can figure out how to use the thing without resorting to desperate measures like *gasp* READING THE INSTRUCTIONS!!! THE HORROR!!!

So, let’s give this a swing.

Didn’t know this was a holiday, did you? Well, it is-International Crap Day-because no matter where I am in the world, September 17th will always suck.

At this exact time three years ago, my day was going along normally. It was a lovely Friday-kind of bland, but okay nonetheless. I had talked to my mom on the phone for a few hours that morning. Oddly enough, we were talking about things that God asks you (or requires of you, without your permission whatsoever) to give up. And how it is always worth it in the end. We agreed and argued and changed an opinion here and there a couple of times, and ended up both feeling very smart and philosophic.

A few hours later, I considered calling my brother, Julian, and harassing him. But it was Friday, not Tuesday. I was still kind of new at the whole SAHM thing and would call him and but him all the time, so I was trying to do him a favor and limit my phone calls to once-a-week. I’d chosen Tuesday because Tuesday has always been my favorite day of the week. And I figured that talking to my favorite brother (not to mention my only brother…) would only make Tuesdays better. Later that day I would realize what a strange idea that was, to call him. Had I called, he probably wouldn’t have gotten any reception because be was in the middle of flippin’ nowhere. Even if he had gotten reception, though, it wouldn’t have made much of a difference-he still wouldn’t have picked up. I would have just assumed that he wasn’t answering because his phone was on “roaming” and he is cheap, like me. But, had I called him, and had he gotten reception out in the middle of nowhere, it would have made a strange picture: A dirt road with an upside-down SUV, a man lying in full sun, with a broken leg and ribs and, over 40 feet away from him, my brother, dead, with his phone singing some corny tune in his pocket.

It was several hours later that someone found them. The man in the sun was life-flighted to the hospital where pulled through surprisingly well from being thrown from a tumbling car doing over 60 mph. They didn’t move Julian as quickly. They put him in a black body bag and left him where he was while they tried to piece together what had happened. When my family got a copy of the police report several days later, I looked through the pictures to the pile of metal scarcely recognizable as ever being anything at all and, when I got to the picture of the body bag, I just kept turning the pages at the same speed, hoping that my “talents” as an extremely…effective…liar would come through for me. Apparently, they did. A few days after looking through the report, my mom complimented me about being able to “keep it together” under the circumstances, mentioning how I was the only one who was “just fine” looking through those photos. I was amazed how, sitting right next to me, she had failed to notice a long, deep breath that didn’t come out for a good long time. I learned from the morning sickness of pregnancy that, no matter how destined I was to throw up, I could at least delay it by holding my breath. Sure enough, I managed to not only hang onto my stomach acid (I hadn’t eaten in days), but somehow look like I had something-anything-”together.”

When I had talked to my dad on the phone the first night that Julian was dead, we said our goodbyes and he hung up. I just sat there and hurt, curled up in the fetal position (or as close as one can get to the fetal position while sitting in an office chair). Less than a year earlier, I had been through natural childbirth, which has a reputation as being the most painful natural process known. But nothing could compare with that hurt of that night. Everything hurt-my eyes, my forehead, my back, my stomach, my feet-if it didn’t hurt, I didn’t have it. I just couldn’t move. When the phone started that loud awful being in my ear, Joel took the phone out of my hand and hung it up. And all I could do was hurt.

The next day (and everyday for a month or two afterwards) I would wake up at 6 a.m.-unrested, uncomfortable, and unable to go back to sleep. I forgot to eat for two or three or four days-I don’t remember how long. And I couldn’t fall asleep until two or three or four in the morning-but would still only sleep until six. I went up two dress sizes LITERALLY over night (which is remarkable considering that I still wasn’t eating then-I know about the whole “starvation mode” thing-but I don’t have a clue where the actual matter came from-I certainly wasn’t eating it). Normally, if Julian had caused me to gain that much weight, I would have killed him, but, since he was already dead, all I could do was hurt.

I’ve always liked September. School starts (I’m a nerd) and it’s not so hot and there aren’t any holidays or family birthdays. Everything is just so routine, but somehow so fresh. Like Tuesdays-special because they’re so un-special. But now every September has Crap Day in it. At least the 17th wasn’t on a Tuesday this year.

People told me that the pain would go away. They were wrong. It’s still here but just different. At first, it was like a thousand paper cuts-hurting with the breeze and stinging every time you so much as think of them. But now it hurts like pregnancy-every day it’s there, every day it gets bigger, and every day you wonder if you’ll actually be able to move the next day. Yes, it changes, but I don’t know if “gets better” is the phrase that I would use. More like “gets different.”

He had cerebral palsy, but it was so slight that people just thought that he walked strange, not actually had a major handicap. When we were younger, kids in school would make fun of him and I would go home, go to me room, and plan how I would murder them in their sleep. Being dead has that advantage-he’s truly safe from their wagging jaws and lagging brains. Nobody seems to care if you make somebody’s life hell, but, for some reason, kicking a guy when he’s dead is just extremely bad manners.

Yes, it’s different now. But I really thought the hurt would go away. Maybe the hurt goes where the memories go. If that’s the case, I’ll keep the hurt. Trading Julian for peace of mind would be…unprofitable.
I was three and he was five when he snuck me down into the basement and asked me if I wanted to learn how to read. I said yes. He said he would teach me, as long as I didn’t tell mom. I asked why. He said that mom wouldn’t teach me how to read until kindergarten and that we’d get in trouble if she found out. And she didn’t find out-until she tried to teach me how to read later and could tell that I already knew how. (My lying “skills” developed later.)

I really thought the pain would go away. Well I guess you learn something new every day.

Even in September.

A quick vent before bed. Okay, so I’m going to this eventish-type thing (long boring explanation) and ended up (also long & boring) having to go with this lady who I really don’t like (not “don’t really like” but “really don’t like”). Isn’t it amazing how that can just take something that you are so so so excited for and make it just…annoying? I used to really like her-a lot. She was like a mentor to me. And now I can hardly stand to be around her. It reminds me of that line from Benny and Joon: “I used to look up to you. But now I can’t look at you at all.”

I am just so frustrated. I guess it wouldn’t be so bad if I was just annoyed with her-but she seems equally annoyed at me. I’m guessing that I’ve just made it more obvious than I intended (which I was hoping that she wouldn’t notice at all, but I was probably just being insanely transparent or something). And, what makes it worse, is that like half the time she opens her mouth, she just reminds me about how annoyed with her I am/have been/whatever.

Let’s call her Maria (obviously changed to protect the guilty). She has a son, Boy (okay, not really, but I’m tired so cut me some slack) and a daughter, (you guessed it) Girl. Maria and her husband waited a while to have children and, since she was older when she had them, really can’t have any more, even though she was hoping for a large family. So Boy and Girl are just her pride and joy-but what decent parent doesn’t feel that way? Boy (age 6) was in my Sunday School class (I know them from church) last year and was, quite honestly, a serious pill. I wasn’t going to be there one week and, as is my habit when finding a sub, asked the mom of the worst kid in the class to teach for me, figuring that she would have an easier time because at least one handful would be taken care of. Well, that mom couldn’t do it. So I asked Maria. She was a dear and said yes. The week after she subbed, I asked how things had gone. She told me that they had gone well, etc, etc-but that one boy in the class, “Evan”, just could not answer the questions well.
Part of this might be that (even though you’re not supposed to have favorites and all that) Evan was my favorite. Really my favorite-he’s a bright, kind, funny, wonderful boy who I just adored-and still do!

Him being my favorite, I asked what she meant because, if he was having some difficulty understanding something or whatever, I wanted to help him. She just said that he kept looking for a “right” answer to all the questions-like “What are you thankful for?” Evan said something like “my family?” as if wondering if that was what she was looking for/asking/whatever. But Boy’s answers were, from her account, SO much superior because they were so “out there”. He was saying stuff like “eyeballs” and “pupils” and “irises”.

At first, I thought I must have misunderstood, I really did. I like giving people the benefit of the doubt-assuming that all people just really want what is best for them and their families and just want to love and be loved. So I kind of probed a little deeper, asking her what the other kids said-but she kept going back to how Evan could hardly answer the questions, as if he was dumb or something.

I walked away in absolute amazement. I have no problem with people criticizing each other for WHAT they think. That’s life, politics, families, etc. But criticizing HOW somebody thinks??? So Boy is a creative thinker and Evan is a logical thinker. There’s nothing wrong with either one-and one is definitely not superior to the other. It takes both kinds of minds to really get mankind anywhere-someone to dream up getting to the moon and someone else to figure out what they’re going to breathe while they’re up there, not to mention inventing rocket fuel.

I just felt like she had made some bigoted comment. Like my first date who (I am so not kidding) told me all about how blacks aren’t like white people because they’re made for physical labor and how the Jews got what they deserved in WWII. I couldn’t believe my ears with Mr. First Date. (I got home and could hardly think-amazed that people still thought that way-people I KNEW thought that way. I chose not to mention to him that my uncle and cousins are black or that one of my best friends is Jewish…I figured that he didn’t deserve to know what wonderful people I have in my life so I didn’t really bother telling him anything after that.) And I couldn’t believe my senses as this woman stood in front of me, IN A CHURCH, telling me that her son was so much superior to Evan because they thought in different ways. Granted, she wasn’t massacring anyone in a church, but it’s CHURCH-everyone should be safe in church.

For the record, I didn’t slug her. I wanted to, but I didn’t. Instead, I went home and felt like crying for the rest of the day. I was around seven months pregnant so, needless to say, she’s lucky to have escaped with her nose.

And every time I’ve been around Maria since, I hear her saying something about how wonderful Boy is. How smart he is, and this perfect little thing he said, and how there couldn’t be anyone so clever in all the world. That doesn’t really bother me, in all honesty. All parents brag about their kids. It’s just that, whenever I hear her say things like that, I can’t help but see myself standing in a church, listening over my not-so-little tummy as she tells me that the way Evan thought-the way he was BORN thinking-was inferior and wrong. I wondered if the son in my waistband was safe, coming into this world, from people disliking or judging him for things that are just part of who he is and can’t (and hopefully, wouldn’t) do anything about.
Of course, I didn’t tell her that I adored Evan, not even caring that he was a logical thinker.
And I didn’t mention that I’m a logical thinker, too.

 I am struggling with a title for this blog.  I’ve come up with several and they all range from bad to disgusting.  A sampling:

• LadyEve’s Blog
• LadyEve Learns to Blog !
• I am Mom. Mom I am. Do you like Mom’s legs and tan?
• Kerplunk (that was my sister’s offering–helpful isn’t she?)

Need I say more?  If you come up with anything fabulous–or even anything not-so-fabulous, I’d love to hear it (as long as it’s not worse than what I’ve already listed…unless it’s a LOT worse…then I’d LOVE to hear it!).  Let me know what you think.