Christmas Musings

If you're a really bad girl Santa will bring you one of Celine Dion's new fragrances.

Question - How do you smell like an anorexic?

Have you seen that god-awful coffee table book of photos of her and her baby by Anne Geddes. (She's the one that takes all those "cute" pictures of babies dressed up as flowers and vegetables and shit.) I'm visualizing a sadistic Santa forcing naughty children to view the book strapped to a chair with their eyes forced open like Malcolm McDowell in A Clockwork Orange.

Stressed and Depressed

There’s just no avoiding it. I’m stressed out and mildly depressed. The reasons for this are multifold and I’m not going to go into them all in-depth at this time. (Aren’t you sad?)

The upshot of it all is that I’m over it. I’m tired of feeling like I’m not in control of my own life and that I have to bend to the whim of others. I’m going to get it together one way or another starting immediately.

My New Year’s resolution is starting early.

I’ll write more when I’m feeling more upbeat and can see some humor in all of this.

I’m ready for Christmas to be over, done with, kaput.

'Tis the season mother fucker. Fa-la-la-la-la la-la-la-la

I’m kind of in a blah mood today. This is my sixth day in a row to work and I’m ready for a day off. Thankfully I have the next ~two~ free!

Speaking of free, we were baby-free for a few days as Steven’s parents had the girls. However, he decided that he wanted to go ahead and pick them up last night instead of waiting till today. Though he didn’t say so, I’m sure the main motivation in getting them last night was that he didn’t have to make the drive by himself. As usual I drove the whole way there and the whole way back. I got to listen to my latest audio book though (The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck) and he didn’t bitch. The narration of the audio books sooth him (or perhaps bore him) and he naps, so he usually tells me to put them on.

I wish that I’d kept a list of all the books that I’ve ever read. It would be really interesting to look over it and see all the variety and the trends I’ve gone through. Like when I was really young (10-12 yrs old) I loved horror books. I’d read those really trashy ones with names like Demon Orgy or something that had a fucking hologram on the cover. I remember some of the worst (which I of course loved) were printed by Zebra. They also published really trashy romance books where the pirate’s cock is practically jutting out of his trousers on the cover and the young maiden’s boobs are uncovered right to the tip-top of the nipples.

Anyway, after my horror fad I went through a couple of years where I was deep into cheesy medieval fantasy. I played Dungeons & Dragons with my cousin and I read the Dragon Lance Chronicles, which I think were novels put out by the same company that made the D&D games. Hey, I can be forgiven! I was like 12 or 13 at the time.

As I became an older teen I discovered the off-beat writings of Vonnegut and then went through a wannabe intellectual period where I read a lot of contemporary classics. I was a big queen too though because I peppered this with lots of trashy Hollywood bios.

I hope my girls like to read. My friend Tracey has two kids and her son loves to read but her daughter isn’t that into it. I hope both my girls do though but if I had to bet on it right now I’d say that Emily will be the reader. She’s very laid back and doesn’t have a problem entertaining herself when left alone, whereas Alize is so demanding of attention and more easily bored.

I’m currently reading Ask Dr. Mueller, a collection of writings by John Waters’ actress Cookie Mueller. Gini gave it to me for Christmas. It’s great! I’m always amazed at people that can have such a free lifestyle and just pick up and go. She traveled all over the world with her young son on little to no money. I admire that type of spirit but I just don’t possess it myself. I like my creature comforts and sense of security too much.

I mentioned John Waters. He has a compilation out of his favorite Christmas songs right now that I’d really like to get. I called around for it the other day but the only place in town that carried it was sold out. I’d order it online but I keep trying to think of some DVDs to order for Steven’s parents to give them for Christmas and I can’t think of any. I hate to order just one thing because the shipping is always so high. It just doesn’t seem worth it unless I’m ordering multiple items. I’m gonna go see my mom in the next couple of days though and I’m sure I can pick it up at some shop down in Fort Worth, so I’ll just wait.

Oh yeah. I talked to my mom the other night and she was acting kind of weird. She always listens to conversations closely and usually hangs on what I’m saying because she lives through other people since she basically refuses to have any kind of life of her own outside her house now. Anyway, I was telling her about our new dog Jack and how he seems to be pretty much housebroken and it only took him a couple of days of watching Holly to figure out how to use the doggy door. I had no sooner said this than my mom asks me if he’s housebroken and if he’s learned how to use the doggy door. Steven was in the room with me and heard me repeat it back to my mom and shot me a look like, “What’s up?” Then later I was telling her about the parrot we’re “babysitting” and that its name is Ezzie (sp?). Right afterwards she asks me what the bird’s name is.

After I hung up Steven started talking about how she may have had a mini-stroke! Great. Just what I want to hear. I’m gonna go down and check her out in person and see if there is something up. Now I called her kind of late the other night and she might have been asleep when I rang and just didn’t want to say anything. Maybe she was just groggy.

I called my sister today to find out if she’d noticed anything. She said she hadn’t but that she has her own health problems instead. Then she tells me that according to some recent medical tests she’s had done it looks like she’s already suffered a series of mini-strokes. Fantastic.

I feel so fucking cheerful. Well, ‘tis the season after all. (cue theme to M*A*S*H - Suicide Is Painless)

Anyway, it’s no wonder that I’m in a blah mood as of late. Christmas is such a high-pressure time. “You will be happy and make great memories goddamn it!!!” I guess that I’m not exactly ready for Christmas to be over. I just want it to hurry up and get here.

Music To Get You In The Holiday Spirt

I pulled out my disco Christmas albums recently and that got me to thinking about other potential seasonal albums that we might see at some point. What do you think?

• Salt-n-Pepa: Jesus Is The Reason For The Seasoning

• Depeche Mode: Black Christmas

• Bob Dylan: Jesus Was A Jew

• Tupac: He Has Risen...Again (the 16th posthumous release)

• Lil' Kim: Ho-Ho-Ho's In The Hood

• Screwdriver: White Christmas

• R.E.M.: Losing My Religion But Finding The Holiday Spirit

• Sting & David Byrne: A World Christmas (Politically Correct Music For Boring Middle-Aged Pseudo-Intellectuals)

• Michael Jackson: Have You Been A Good Little Boy This Year?

• Michael Jackson: Sitting On Santa's Lap

• Michael Jackson: Michael Stuffs Your Stocking

• Michael Jackson: Fruitcakes & Jesus Juice

• Michael Jackson: Every Day Can Be Christmas...If You Don't Tell

If I think of any other titles I'll update the list. Merry fucking Christmas to each and every one of us!!! (Goddamn it.)

Slow As Shit Saturday

I don't have a whole lot to say but in an effort to not let this blog thang slide into oblivion I'm posting for the fuck of it.

I'm at work today and it's rather slow. There's really no good reason to be here today but I'm not gonna bitch because it's good pay without much stress, so I'll look on the bright side.

I've been feeling a low level of anxiety recently. I think it's several things combined but I think the main issue is that Christmas is drawing ever nearer. I'm sort of looking forward to it, primarily because of the girls, but I also just want to get it over with too. Know what I mean?

In addition to mundane seasonal anxiety there are some other things as well. I have had no energy at all in the last couple of months and could lie down and sleep at almost any given moment, which is totally abnormal for me as I usually can't get to sleep. Well, I went in for my bi-annual visit with the endocrinologist this past week and the test results came back showing that I have almost no testosterone, even though I've been taking the maximum dosage of my medicine. Brilliant. I also have gained a whopping 44 pounds since my visit last year. Charming. We have zilch as far as money goes and bills out the wazoo! No wonder I just want to get Christmas over with.

Besides the above stuff, there have been a lot of changes and back-and-forth type things going on. After fucking with it for a couple of months we finally let the house in the country thing go. It was just too big of a headache and not worth the stress. The mortgage guy kept promising us the moon but then nothing seemed to be happening. We were at the point where we were about to have to put all this money into the property to bring it up to code for an FHA loan and decided to just back out while we could.

We were supposed to be refinancing our current home too so that the payments would come down but I don't know what's happened to that. I called the mortgage guy on Thursday, after not having heard from him in a couple of weeks, and he started telling me some bullshit about a mix-up with a credit report that sounded like a lie to cover his goofing off too me, so I just hung up on him. I'll find someone else if I want to refinance the house instead of dicking around.

There's been good stuff going on but it's all cloaked in this veil of chaos. I mean, it's like a giant hassle to get shit done.

We ~had~ to get pictures of the girls taken since it's our first Christmas together but Steven blew off the originally scheduled appointment. If I'd done that he would never let me live it down. (I hate that double-standard!) Well, I rescheduled and it seemed like it would work out better because I made an appointment for a weekday afternoon on my day off. We got there and had to dress the girls in the parking lot because we didn't want them to mess up their dresses that Grandma had bought them just for the occasion. However, when we got inside to the photo place (at a god-forsaken Wal-mart) there was a woman with her kid in front of us. They took photo after photo after photo while we waited and waited. I told Steven that I bet the woman didn't even buy half the pictures taken and, sure enough, I was right. When it came time to pick and pay she just wanted the value pack or whatever. That's the thing about those discount store pictures. They lure you in with a mega-cheap deal but then take all these other pics knowing most people are going to upgrade their package. That bitch didn’t though! She just wasted our time. It was almost an hour after our scheduled appointment time before we got the girls in front of the camera.

Alize had physical therapy the morning of the Christmas photos and that put her in a sour mood. She wasn't crying or anything but she just wasn't that happy. (She loves speech therapy but hates physical therapy with a passion.) Usually she's very photogenic and it's Emily that's blank but it was reversed that day. We finally, after several attempts, coaxed a half-smile out of Alize but she was looking kind of off or down when the pic was taken. I'd rather her be looking away smiling though than looking at the camera and not smiling.

After the photos we ate lunch and then we went to Dallas to see a poodle at a rescue organization. It turned out that it was just at these people's house and they must have bred dogs because they had 56 fucking poodles at their house!!! Now we didn't see all these dogs. We went to the front door and were greeted from within by an enormous cacophony of barking but only one poodle came to the window by the door to check us out. I could see stacks of dog kennels along the wall inside but I couldn't tell if there were dogs in them or not. There were certainly some dogs inside the house somewhere though. I have never heard so many dogs barking at once, even at a pound!!

The woman that ran the rescue was out but her husband helped us. He came out through the garage and met us on the porch because it was too much trouble to go to the door, let alone have people inside. (Can you imagine living like that?) They only had one rescue dog at the time, a little miniature they were calling Lionel. (All I could think of was the son on the Jeffersons.) He brought the dog out and we all played in the yard together. We had brought the girls and Holly with us and everyone seemed to be getting along great, so naturally we took the dog.

Holly is the reason why we decided to get yet another pooch. She found herself for the first time without any other canine companions after Petey died and she seemed to be pretty blue about it. We gave her extra attention trying to make up for her solitude but it was just making her spoiled. She started sneaking food off the table and running outside every time the door was opened.

The new dog seems like a gem so far! He’s great. We’ve named him Jack, after first considering the names Jolly and Bam-Bam. Jack’s about the same size as Holly but doesn’t weigh as much. He is just beautiful too. His fur is pure white and his shape is superb. We don’t know how old he is and the guess is pretty broad (for a dog). The paperwork estimated between seven to eleven months. He was found roaming the streets in Amarillo and brought to the rescue by a college student over the Thanksgiving holidays, I believe. He is so pretty that I would expect him to be pedigreed but he must not have been because his tail wasn’t bobbed, although Steven says that’s becoming more and more the trend because any sort of clipping of tails or ears is considered inhumane.

The rescue group had his tail clipped when they had him neutered though. It’s probably easier to get poodles adopted out if their tails are bobbed because they just look weird otherwise, since that’s the way we’re used to seeing them. The rescue group also has microchips put in all the dogs, so if they ever get lost it’s more likely they’ll be safely returned. The adoption fee was a lot higher than it is at most shelters and rescue organizations but most don’t put a microchip in the damn dog either. It cost us $200 to get him. That’s a lot cheaper than buying a pedigreed dog though! And he promises to be a fantastic pet.

Though we bought him for Holly I think Steven is the one getting the most benefit from the new guy. He’s really had a hole in his heart since Pebbles died and I’m hoping that Jack can help with that. He’s a very loving dog and loves to be held. He fell asleep in Steven’s arms on the way home and slept with us the first night no questions asked like he’s belonged there his whole life.

As if we don’t have enough animals in the house Steven “borrowed” this big green parrot from Jeannette. I don’t know what kind it is but she’s got it and a grey one too. She keeps them penned up in cages in her laundry room and Steven has been having a fit for the longest time to let the bird stay with us. When I got home yesterday he had brought the bird home, cage and all. I do think the bird is happier at our place than it was before. We have it out in the living room in front of a window and there’s lots of activity for it to trip on. Whenever I’ve been over to Jeannette’s before the bird would always be yelling stuff loudly and now I think that was a ploy for attention since it was stuck in a tiny windowless room and could never see what was going on. It talks and squawks at our place but its demeanor seems more relaxed, though that may just be my imagination.

Sophie is digging it and spends much of her time on top of the new bird’s cage. We can’t let it out though because if it attacked anybody it could really hurt them. It could easily bite a finger off so I won’t take any chances with the babies. Hell, Sophie’s bad enough. She always bites Emily’s fingers when she’s on my shoulder and I pick up Emily and she bit the shit out of Alize’s arm last week. (I don’t know what the story was with that because I wasn’t home but now Alize doesn’t trust the bird and is very wary of it when I’m holding her and Sophie flies onto my shoulder.)

Today we took the girls to a foster family event that was themed as Breakfast With Santa. They served pancakes, eggs, sausage, fruit, muffins and juice. However, they had it at 10 in the morning! That’s not breakfast. That’s brunch. I didn’t eat but Steven said the food was kind of shitty. However, they had a very authentic looking Santa with a real beard that all the kids got to go across a stage and sit with momentarily. The kids got stockings stuffed with age-appropriate gifts and then after visiting with Santa we were led into a room with various toys and gifts and each kid got to pick one thing. The gifts were very nice too. I’d kind of expect the gifts to be half-assed since it was a charitable event but it was all name brand stuff and not cheap either. I’d say most of the toys were worth at least $10 and some stuff was probably more like $25. Then after leaving the toy room all the kids got a really adorable stuffed teddy bear.

They took Polaroids of all the kids with Santa. I wish now I’d given the woman my own digital camera and had her use that instead. I’ll scan the Polaroid but a digital pic would have been much better. I took plenty of video though so that’ll work.

Well, for not much going on I sure did wind up writing a lot. It’s not the scintillating humor I’d like to be recording but whatever. It’s real, man. Mighty real. It just ain’t gonna score me a book deal anytime soon, I’m sure.

Toodles for now from the shining buckle of the bible belt.

(After the election I saw cartoons referring to all the red states combined as Jesusland. That sounds like a theme park to me. If so, I want off the mother fucking ride pronto!!! Can I get a refund?)

Mystic Crystal Revelations Regarding Bullshit

OK. I’m gonna try this blog thang for a while but I’m afraid that after a while I’ll just drop it. Who knows though? Maybe it’ll be addictive.

I had a minor revelation last night. Frighteningly enough it was because of something said on that tv show Frasier. (A show that generally irritates me. Isn’t Kelsey Grammer a big Repubelickin?) It was just on in the background while we were getting the girls to bed and the Frasier character was saying that he was going to make an effort to spend more time with his son because he’d realized that he was almost completely defining his self-identity solely on his career. That statement totally fits some of the people I work with, especially Crappy! We’ve always bitched about how she has no life but I had never put it in that perspective. It’s not just that she doesn’t have a life. The woman defines herself based only on her job position.

That really gets on my tits. There are a lot of managers up here at work (where I’m at presently) that are oh-so-professional…now! They’ve somehow severed their lives and deny their pasts instead of embracing their prior experiences as stepping stones leading up to the present. The head honcho up here supposedly used to sell t-shirts at rock-n-roll concerts with an ex-boyfriend or ex-husband. Could someone survive that sort of lifestyle ~without~ consuming some illicit drugs? Now she’s a power hungry über-bitch with a Martha Stewart wardrobe. I heard last week that Crappy used to live in a fucking commune for Krist’s sake!! Now she lives her life as if it’s dictated by government manual 31a66.9b, subsection 29. (She has a tiny tattoo under her left eye. A left-over reminder of her commune days? I understand that it used to be a star but with age it’s just become a dark blob that looks like a misplaced artificial beauty mark.)

I’m sure I’ll sound like a chauvinist but all the upper-management here are women and they create a strange dynamic. I don’t think it’s because they’re women, per se. I think it’s a generational thing because of their age. Several started their careers in the 80’s and, despite the ideal of women as wives, mothers and professionals, they all apparently felt like they had to choose. The coolest of the bunch are the ones that had kids and have a strong family life. They’re all a bit older than the other women that didn’t. They were probably housewives first before getting into the working world. The managers that are slightly younger (including the head honcho) apparently chose their careers over families. They’ve all been divorced and have no children. So now they’re middle-aged and all they’ve got going is their job.

Don't get me wrong. I do not believe that having a husband and kids is a prerequisite to a woman's happiness. It's just that the managers that do self-identify in roles other than that of their job position are cooler. However, several of the managers up here seem to be working for no other purpose than to define themselves as superior to others and apparently now have a total disconnect from their less-than-professional pasts. Please strangle me until I lose control of my bowels if I reach middle-age and turn out to be such a bitch.

That’s all I feel like writing now. Next post I’ll try to be a little more upbeat. Work isn’t getting on my nerves ~nearly~ as much as it was a while back so I’m not quite sure where the above venting came from.

I've Never Done The Before (Tee-Hee)

I read a quote somewhere yesterday that said blogs are the bell-bottoms of the internet age. Thought I'd better jump aboard the bandwagon before the ride's over.