Through The Looking Glass

My mother had been in labor for about 24 hours, and would be for another nine. (I was born at 9:53 a.m. in New York City.) I was posterior and stubborn about it, just like a certain redhead I know.

It is still evening here on the west coast, but in the city of my birth it is already my birthday.

We have begun celebrating. Will and Sam gave me fancy sock yarn (koigu kpppm in the most amazing Halloween colors) and a yummy cheesecake. We didn’t quite eat the whole thing but we gave it our all.

Though it’s technically not here yet, I think I like 30.

Old Navy @ Beverly Connection

As if it weren’t bad enough that you are in a mall. As if it weren’t bad enough that said mall is in Beverly Hills. As if the parking situation isn’t totally fucking miserable, necessitating my walking approximately three miles from my car to your store…

Do you have to hire nothing but rude asshole morons?

Idiot #1 answered the phone yesterday and COULD NOT UNDERSTAND the concept of giving out store hours.

Idiot #2 YELLED at me when I tried to inquire when your store opened, while standing IN THE OPEN DOOR. I can see that you’re not open, I just want to know WHEN YOU WILL BE.

Like I really want to wear cheap-ass sweatshop clothing. But I have $16 left on a gift card and it’s the only way I can think of to have a cute top to wear to my birthday dinner tomorrow.

Steve & Barry’s

All I can say is that your customers get what they pay for at $8.98 (or less!) because everything you sell is UNBELIEVABLY UGLY.

Cars behind me at the bank

Hello, RED CAR BACKING UP. You MUST have seen me. Is it really smart to go behind me anyway? I should have hit you.

Woman walking down the sidewalk in front of my building

OK, let me repeat back what happened and you tell me if you are a total fucking cunt or not.

You are walking toward my driveway, which I want to pull into. You have the right of way so I stop my car. You stop walking and stare at me like you can’t figure out which way is up. Eventually I pull into the driveway and open the garage door. You stand and stare at the opening door. There is plenty of room for you to enter but you do not. Finally the door is open wide enough for me to drive through. This is when you decide to walk forward. As you are entirely to my right, I also advance. As soon as my car has some momentum going you TRY TO WALK IN FRONT OF IT. Lady, that driveway is a really severe downhill grade. Do you really think it’s smart to walk in front of a car that CAN’T FUCKING STOP? Of course not, it’s totally idiotic. So when I kept going and you had to wait, was there really any reason to get so huffy? NO, YOU ARE A CUNT.

New shoes

All right fine, this one is my own fault for not wearing socks, but did you have to make my poor ankles bleed?

Yesterday I drove past billboards for Tropic Thunder and Hellboy II: the Golden Army about half a block apart. And I was HORRIFIED.

A good tagline tells you enough about the movie to intrigue you, and is clever in some way.

For instance: Hellboy II carries the tagline “Believe it or not, he’s the good guy.” This is EVERYTHING you need to know about the movie, and it makes you want to go see it IMMEDIATELY because holy crap, the big red monster is the GOOD guy.

Slightly less fantastic but still good is the tagline for Hancock: “Not your average superhero.” I think this one would be a bit more effective if you could really see that Hancock is a homeless schmo, but the greying stubble, sunglasses, and watchcap do create a less than superhero-y look.

Some billboards that are up right now don’t have taglines at all. Journey to the Center of the Earth merely tells us that it is in 3D, but good grief the title tells us nearly everything we could ever need to know about it (and the picture of Brendan Frasier covers the rest) so that is just fine. Likewise The Dark Knight only proclaims that it will be released in I-MAX, but you either want to see the new Batman movie or you don’t, so that’s fine too.

And then there is Tropic Thunder. Here’s the poster, which is the same as the billboard I saw yesterday (but has the credits at the bottom as well):

“Get Some.”

SERIOUSLY? WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN? I’ll tell you: It means NOTHING. It is not intriguing. In fact, the most intriguing thing about it is the claim that Robert Downey, Jr., is in the picture. Which no one who is driving past will have time to register. (Hint: he is there.) I suppose it’s easy enough to infer that it’s a war comedy, given the cast. But holy crap is that ever the worst tagline. (I have seen posters that say “Shit blows up,” which is much, much better. But those are not in current rotation.)

I’ve read the script, so I want to see the movie. But if I’d only seen the billboard, you would have to PAY me to watch it.

I’m thinking I probably would have had better luck keeping the television off today if I hadn’t started narrating the coffee-making process to the tune of the kites’ song in The Jungle Book.

And don’t ask me how I know this, but the Lego Mini-Fig magnets? Let’s just say that Darth Vader and Chewbacca can very easily get stuck in compromising positions when you are palming them so your kid doesn’t see that you are taking them downstairs.

Here is a photo of me, about seven weeks old, with my Poppy:

and here is one of me holding Sammy at about the same age:

Because it is the Summer of Socks, I am naturally thinking of all the non-sock projects I want to work on.

1. Blanket for niece/nephew. This is the one I made for big brother Jackson:

He has recently become very attached to it, even taking it with him when he attempted a jail break from his crib (he kicked out one of the slats–kid is hardcore), so I have to make a blanket for their baby-to-be. I am thinking of either a basketweave with seed stitch borders (like this) or a pinwheel (here). I will probably use the same yarn as the first blanket, in pale green. Optionally, I can stripe it with white. (If they still make the yarn. It may be discontinued, ack.)

Vote for your favorite! Or complicate matters by suggesting a different pattern. THAT’S FINE. I don’t confuse easily or anything.

2. Sammy’s Fall Sweater.

I have about 500 yards of this gorgeous oatmeal-y tweed yarn. I believe it is this stuff, in the first color (called oatmeal, appropriately).

My plan has been to make a child’s size version of the Cobblestone Pullover (left), like Earthchick did here. But I also want to make the Organic Guernsey (right); obviously I could do both (once I get some more yarn), but today I took three coconut buttons off one of Will’s Hawaiian shirts (it requires six buttons and has lost some) and they would look really good with the tweed…

Vote! But if you love me at all, do not suggest other patterns. Trust me, I have ideas in reserve.

3. A skirt for me. I might actually do this immediately-ish, since I have no clothes that fit me. Let’s not talk about how much weight I’ve put back on. We’ll just say that I am hoping I didn’t get rid of everything from last year when I became way too skinny for it, because I don’t think I am anymore.

These are the two skirts I am thinking of:

I will use Hempathy for either one. If I do the solid skirt, I’ll do it in green or maybe dark brown; if I do the stripey one I was thinking I’d do the colors as shown, but I might go crazy and do brown-lilac-navy with one lighter color.

Vote!

Will is inviting folks to a sort of last-minute birthday thing for me. Sort of a surprise party, where the surprise is for the guests: “Surprise! In five days you are having tacos with us!”

I am suffering from the same panic I went through while planning Sam’s birthday party. The What if I forget to invite someone? insecurity. I don’t know how I can be such a self-doubter while at the same time telling him to remove that nonsense on the invite about not giving me presents. I guess selfish is just one of my many neuroses. But seriously, if you are local and don’t get an email from Will today, it is my fault and you should feel free to hate me forever.

(FIVE DAYS. It isn’t the birthday that is so astonishing to me as the fact that it snuck up like this. What the heck? How is 2008 half over already? And isn’t it appropriate that Hump Day for the year falls on a Tuesday when this is a four-day work week? It’s Double Hump Day!)

In other news, I left a banana upstairs for Sammy and now there is just the peel, but I don’t entirely trust that he ate it all. Any bets on where I am going to find it?

Annika: Excuse me, I have to negotiate with a very short terrorist.

Onion: Good luck! Even if you are violating national security procedures…

Annika: Why, President Bush himself would be powerless against the charms of this half-naked buckaroo. (I am trying to negotiate him into a diaper, having successfully gotten him out of a dirty one. THIS IS MY LIFE.)

Onion: Not wearing a diaper is his right as an American, dangit. Damn liberal nanny state.

Annika: And what of my right to not be peed on? This isn’t Nazi Germany, you know.

Onion: …touche. Although if my understanding is correct, Germany is all about being peed on.

Annika: Those Nazis loooooove to be peed on! And worse.

Onion: Oh, Germany… Although Austria’s putting up a good fight for Most Fucked Up Country.

Annika: Well, Austria was occupied by the Nazis for some time.

Onion: So in the end, all the worst sexual perversions go back to WWII?

Annika: Pretty much; a few can be traced back to WWI.

Onion: Such as? …I suppose amputee fetishes, but I’d trace that back to like, the Civil War.

Annika: Well, mostly the fetish euphemistically referred to as fox-holing.

Onion: Excuse me while I consult urban dictionary.

Annika: Do tell me if it’s in there; I made it up on the spot.

Cindy pointed out that all this blogging about writing and birthdays and soforth has meant very little Sam on this here website. It just so happens that I have been sitting on a truly adorable Sam story for a couple months, so now seems a good time to share it.

Sam has been terrified of the vacuum cleaner from as near to birth as one can trace these things. (Show me a woman who remembers the first time she vacuumed post-partum and I will show you a woman who is either suffering PPD or at the very least OCD.) Any loud, sudden noises have always been a problem, but he slowly learned to live with his father sneezing (something that once sent him into hysterics the likes of which I had never seen), the coffee grinder, and pretty much every other noise he is likely to hear on a regular basis.

It has been speculated that he didn’t get over his vacuum cleaner fear because he was not exposed to the sound frequently enough. Don’t think I missed the thinly-veiled criticism of my housekeeping, either. (Never mind that the speculation was my own.)

Sometime this winter, Sam and Will made an arrangement wherein Will would vacuum while Sam sat on the sofa and watched, wrapped safely in a blanket. Sam was still terrified, but less than before.

We stalled right there until one day in April when Will brought the vacuum outside to clean up our porch. On that day, this happened:

I will be 30 in a week. ONE WEEK. Don’t worry, there is still plenty of time to get me a gift. I will make it easy on you: I want yarn and a tattoo. And a sandwich, I really want a sandwich. Though I’d like to have that this afternoon, so it really has nothing to do with my birthday. (But I might want another sandwich by then. One can never have too many.)

Thirty.

This has never been a big deal birthday for me except inasmuch as I have been looking forward to my 30s since I was a teenager. I would be, I hoped, comfortable with myself and my life by now. I would have a family. If I am really lucky, people would have stopped telling me I was “too young” or acting like I am stupid just because of my age. Alas, people still act like I am stupid, but mostly because of my stupidity rather than my age.

Stayed tuned; I’m making a 30 while 30 list, which will include a few things I haven’t accomplished by 30 and a few other things too. Exciting things. Like going fishing.