Nuthin's up

Dear Diary,

Sometimes I have nothing to say. I could ramble about taking my adorable daughter for her fabulous pixie cut today. Or about buying briars instead of flowers, hoping my petal-munching cat will maim herself. There are the socks I've yet to mate that are just staring at me.

Diary, I don't have the will or the energy to try to develop any of this into a story. Believe me, if I figure out how to make the sock thing interesting, I will do it.

Instead, I'm embracing the technical side of this blogventure - I learned how to embed videos in the html code. (I know, I know - you've known how to do that for 10 years - quit yer braggin, Diary.) I will share the fruits of my labor with you now.

Great music + hot moves + wicked html skills = shut up and dance





Yours til the dance moves,
Not Stacy

Rube

I found myself at the booze sample table at Whole Foods tonight. Usually they're serving wine, but this time they were making Black and Tans. A Black and Tan is Guinness (black) layered in the glass on top of pale ale (tan). They were marketing the drinks as "Black and Blues" since the pale ale brand they were promoting is called Blue Moon.

The key to layering the drink, I learned, is a pouring spoon. I scored a free sample, a free lesson AND a free adorable, shiny pouring spoon. Then, I bee-lined it to the beer aisle and bought $25 worth of beer. Their sales scheme worked.

I made several/many/lots of these drinks tonight and it was entertaining and yummy. Someday (soon) when I repeat this party trick, I will undoubtedly go back to the Blue Moon brand. I will faithfully call them Black and Blues instead of Black and Tans. I've been mind-controlled and I like it.

Note: Not a paid endorsement, but an endorsement nonetheless.

Bravissimo!

I want to be an opera lover. All day I carefully prepared for seeing Cosi fan Tutte tonight. I bought a dress, downloaded $29.99 worth of Mozart on itunes and read up on the libretto. Along the way, I made the tough choice to wear clogs with my new dress. Then, I couldn't figure out how to get the itunes to stop shuffling the songs, so CCR and Joe Jackson kept popping up in the opera and had to be vanquished. I really had no idea the "words" were called a libretto, but now I do and so do you. Thank you, wikipedia.

I was now ready to be an opera lover. The Winspear Opera House was spectacular. Cosi fan Tutte is a comedy and I had no trouble following the story. The voices and costumes were amazing. The seats were 8th row, dead center. Most importantly, I was with my dear friend (can I refer to her as Not Loni? oh please, oh please) and she adores the opera. She was bouyant and smiling and humming the whole time. Perfect, yeah?

I wrote on facebook about going to the opera, saying I was, "bringing my lighter, planning to dance." Oh, yes, hahaha. Should have been, "bringing my snuggie*, planning to nap." I was asleep within minutes. At intermission, I downed a cup of coffee, went back to my seat and was snoozing away again within 15 minutes. Not really perfect. Apologies, Not Loni.

Perhaps one type of opera lover is someone who finds the experience so incredibly relaxing, they fall sleep like a baby being rocked to a lullaby. If so, count me in.


*I don't have a snuggie. I wear clogs to the opera, but I draw the line at wearing a snuggie.

OT

Miss M isn't going to take it anymore! She just told me she's tired of people bragging about watching the Olympics. Meanwhile, she's really excited about starting occupational therapy today.

At age 8 she's going to work on her muscle tone and sensory integration and handwriting, etc, etc, etc. One more little wrinkle in her life of little wrinkles - she's like toes after a long, hot bath. (Or is that image more shriveled than wrinkled? She's not shriveled.)

I don't call it occupational therapy when I talk to her about it. I say we're going to "that play place." Maybe I'm wrong to not be more direct with her, but I want her to think of OT as something cool and fun - not weird and not work. I want her to feel special, but not, you know, special. Perhaps she'll brag to others about what a great time she has.

I imagine tomorrow at school, some little girl with stars in her eyes will talk about the women's long program in figure skating and how beautiful and sparkly and graceful the skaters are. May will look at her and say, "oh, you watched your fancy TV show, did you? Well, I went to this place with padded floors and swings and they brushed me and rolled me around on the floor and it was WAY BETTER than what you did, so quityer braggin you little slut."

A week down. Weak.

This was the evening I had planned to down a beer and two Simply Sleep at 8:30pm. My Lenten promise is keeping me up late every night. It's a good thing I didn't also make an "early to bed" committment.

->Grocery shopping for a lactose-intolerant, vegetarian 10 year-old is bullshit.<-

Join me for a dance. Then, please save me from the repetitive dance music on my itunes and make some recs. After 8 days, I need new material.

I never said I'd be funny or insightful, I just said I'd show up. (I will add that I promise to neither talk about nor post photos of my cats, but that's all the quality control I'm willing to extend.)

Olympic Dreams

I love the spectacle of the Winter Olympic Games, yet I don't envy the lives of the athletes. I don't want to be any of those people. No snow, no ice, no contraptions for me. (Have you noticed that winter sports are contraption-intensive?) This week, I have wanted to be this person and this one (not Julia Stiles, Kay Hanley) and I would totally steal the identity of Fluid Pudding, but I don't wish I could be a figure skater or a bobsledder or a Flying Tomato. I've been skiing three times in my life and I could go forever without making it an even four. Except, darn it, I have this husband, Not Don, and three kids and we're going skiing at spring break. I'm hoping I can get a doctor's note so I don't have to participate. I still have flashbacks of floundering on my back in the snow with my skis tangled in the orange plastic fencing. So don't worry, Lindsey Vonn. I don't plan to steal your identity or your medal, even if I could.

Quitter!

I'm a writer, and I'm not talking about this navel-gazing exercise. This week, I'm being paid to write. Here's a sample: "You’ll never have a cloudy day wearing jewelry in an array of soft, fun colors. Beads in graduated sizes mix it up and match everything in your wardrobe." (You know you want some!)

Yes, it's catalog work. Catalogs are cool! It's a short, one-week gig. I get to tell people, "I'm going to the studio." I hang out on a couch in the studio with my laptop, drinking good espresso. Photographers and graphic designers and stylists discuss merch and layouts while I dash off, "Move your feast to wherever your heart desires with the convenience and good looks of a folding rattan and bamboo table." I hope to work on the fall catalog so I can write about gourds.

I've had several (nice, well-paying) jobs in the past 16 months and I quit them all. My longest continuous employment has been five months. My longest period without a paying gig has been three weeks. When I finish the catalog work, hopefully tomorrow, I plan to stay unemployed for awhile - do you hear me, Taylor Hicks? I'm looking forward to the break, though I'll no longer be a writer.

Blog Housekeeping - Blogkeeping? Blousekeeping?

I just noticed today that although I wrote my first post on Ash Wednesday, I titled it "Because It's Tuesday." How completely out of it was I to think Ash Wednesday happened on Tuesday? I mean, hell, I waited two years to write anything at all and then I get all Lent-themed, and then I screw up the most basic aspect of that theme in my first post.

When I wrote that title, I had the Mickey Mouse Club song "Today Is Tuesday" going through my head. I'm too young for the original Mickey Mouse Club, but those of you who grew up in NoVA might remember it being shown in syndication on channel 5 for years. I used to watch it after school everyday. Annette! Bobby! Cubby and Karen! (Fun Fact: Cubby's Mother knitted a layette for C when she was born.)

Pretty soon I'm going to add some info to the About Me section. Pretty soon. Right now I'm dragging people I know over here, so I don't feel a need to explain who-what-where. I've spent a little time thinking about settings and layout and what-not. Allow comments or not? Use my real name? Use labels? Link to favorite sites? I did add Followers. Be one.*

I started typing a "let me know what you'd like to see" kind of sentiment, beloved readers, about what I should include, but hey! That's not in the spirit of blogging. This is mine. I can't do it by committee and if I want to say Wednesday is really Tuesday then I will motherfuckers.

*Please.

Are you cooler than an 8th grader?

Tonight, I was driving along in the Swagger Wagon with five young teens. We'd had dinner at Benihana and were headed home to continue C's birthday revelry when it happened. Bust A Move started to play.

I turned to C and asked in a hushed tone, "May I dance?"

C replied without hesitating, "Yes."

Then, as I started to raise my hands in the air like I just don't care, she appended, "just keep your hands on the wheel!"

And car dance I did, while keeping my hands at ten and two. How many other 14 year olds would give their Mom permission to literally bust a move in front of their friends? She's the coolest. Me, not so much.

Speaking of dancing, I am happy to report that I have sore knees from the daily dancing. Three days of dancing for just five minutes each time (3x5=15) and my knees are shot. You can make me suffer, Lent, but you can't make me stop.

Stanky/Oscar crosstalk

I've seen very few movies this past year, probably the fewest in my adult life. I think UP is the only Best Picture nominee I bothered with, so of course I believe it should win. Those Pixar folks never cease to amaze me. (You know, Where the Wild Things Are was an important film for me because my friend worked on it and I was really rooting for it to be a blockbuster/critical darling. Then beyond the whole friend thing, I loved WTWTA and got a bit defensive with anyone who didn't "get it," so screw you, Academy.) (I digress, hence the parentheses.)

If I end up dragging myself to a theater to see one of the Oscar nominated films, I want to see An Education. It's indie and British and 60s-hipster and Nick Hornby wrote it. Plus, it stars Peter Sarsgaard. He has a quality. That quality is thinly veiled sleaze. Peter Sarsgaard is the new James Spader - not the Stanky/Boston Legal version, the sex, lies and videotape version. I had a thing for that young James Spader. He was a little creepy and pasty and smarmy, but also intelligent and tall. He acted in edgy films before he pulled a Shatner and decided to become a constant self-parody. Peter Sarsgaard has stepped in to fill my Spader Void (the void is in my heart - keep it clean, people!), and I salute him for that and I might (might) just go see his movie.

This is the "I've Been To Me" Part

Day 2 of blogging, if that's what we're calling it, and I was all out of ideas. Oh, but, hey now, I said rather nonsensically to myself, what about this whole motherhood business? Afterall, I named this doodlepad in homage to the classic slutty/wistful/mommy song of 1982 (don't make me link to it) and today is the 14th anniversary of the day I became a mother. Surely pontificating about the essence of mommydom is a worthy pursuit on this particular day. Hmm.

I had a great tuna sub for lunch today. I enjoyed it much more than childbirth.

Because it's Tuesday

I set up this little spot on the internets for myself (and you!) almost two years ago. I've never been able to start yapping into the void. I decided today that Lent 2010 is my rationalization, reason, inspiration to get going already.

Lent is not meant to be a self-help program, though many people think of it like a second chance at those New Year's resolutions. (How can I parlay my faith into a diet program? What thing that I absolutely LOVE, what special, personal thing that makes life worth living do I want to deny myself for the next 40 (44) days?)

I decided today to observe Lent in two ways: celebration and discipline. (Let me take you aside and mention that I'm not Catholic, nor do I know anything much about any religion, except perhaps Dudeism http://www.dudeism.com/.)

In celebration, I will dance every day of Lent. I will most likely dance in my kitchen. I started this morning and got a little closer to Jesus shaking my ass to Fergalicious and Paparazzi. My reason for dancing is that I've been a bit down in recent months. When I think of all the things I SHOULD do, like exercise and cut back on coffee and go to bed earlier, I don't feel my mood lifting. Foolishly performing my floor show in the kitchen makes me smile always, so I'm going to do it everyday to remind myself what fun is.

For discipline, I will post here each day. This will be really hard for me, and perhaps this is what the traditionalists want to put me through with their version of Lenten observation. I don't even like to shower on a daily basis. Maybe someone will read it, maybe I'll tinker with the format of the page, perhaps I'll dabble in politics, current events or fashion or something else I have no business commenting about. 40 (44) days of disciplined dabbling is what I'm in for. Are you in?