I feel like I’m way behind so I’ll just get this all out of my head and spew in chronological order:

The not so good

• I’ve been contending with some serious writer’s block/lethargy. Obviously.
• Our shower is broken. I’ll have to take baths until I have the money to fix it. Which, at this point, will pretty much be never.
• Came home one day last week to find a dead, mangled mouse in the kitchen. I didn’t even know there’d been mice around. Guess Freddy took care of that.
• The ex’s family has stopped inviting the little man and I to their functions.
• I cried on my birthday. That’s never fun.
• The old TMJ disorder has been acting up and it hurts. I must be grinding my teeth at night again.
• I was drunk-texted awake at 4:36am Sunday morning.
• My new driver’s license arrived. It must’ve come from Bizarro World because the photo makes me look like a jaundiced Oompa Loompa, even though in this reality I’m quite pale.

The good

• Finally gave up and washed that gray right out of my hair. Or went to the salon, rather, to have my hair colored. I feel better now.
• Took my son and my Dad to the Star Wars exhibit at the Science Museum.
• Afterwards I set my Dad up with his first personal email account. Instead of saving up weird clippings from the paper - which was charming, I’ll admit - we can now exchange links via the interwebs as well.
• Received an impromptu visit from my old friend Anton, who was here from Chicago for half a second.
• We’ve made too many trips to Izzy’s lately (I’m looking at you, Mary!) and they’ve had greater variety in their soy ice cream offerings.
• Our CSA boxes started coming to the office last week. I’ve gotten creative with produce that isn’t in our regular rotation. My fave so far? Garlic scapes.
• As a birthday present to myself I had two ceiling fans installed, one in my bedroom and the other in the kitchen. Just in time for summer’s heat to hit.
• A good group of folks joined me for some Pizza Farm adventures, with the bonus of unexpected birthday gifts and goodies.
• Alan Sparhawk. Through a strange quirk of fate I spent a couple of hours with the man last week - for work. Which only makes me love my job EVEN MORE.
• Took the kid to see some friends’ bands play MMAA’s Patio Nights. It was a little exhausting, chasing after him, but overall it went well. And the videos he shot are adorable.
• Found a new babysitter (a friend of a friend who lives in our neighborhood!) which allowed me to see some other friends’ new band play their first show at Stasiu’s on Friday night.
• On Saturday a bunch of peeps let the little man draw on them with a Sharpie. The best piece was the ogre’s butt.
• Finally got my childcare sorted, to cover the gap while the little man’s school moves to a new site. A huge relief, especially since I found the perfect man for the job.

Thankfully the good has outweighed the bad. By a lot.

Soon I will post a round up of birthday-related activities but first, a quick break for five good things - all sent to me from other folks who know what I like:

• The first teaser trailer for Joss Whedon’s Internet musical - Dr. Horrible’s Singalong Blog - has gone online. Yay!
• The garden has been rocked. Well, not by me. I didn’t go. But I can live vicariously through these Rock the Garden photos, by Sara Montour.
• Pitchfork is showing the documentary Low: You May Need A Murderer this week only.
• The Girls Rebel Force of Competitive Swimmers looks so ridiculous. In kind of a bad but awesome way.
• The Bicycle Film Festival 2008, and Lucas Brunelle, with his helmet-mounted camera.

And thanks for all the birthday wishes today! It’s made it an awesome day. Now I’m off to a hopefully awesome dinner.

There’s been too much bad news this week. More friends losing their jobs (three of them today). Relationships gone seriously awry. Friends of friends being murdered and mugged, near places I frequent. Folks feeling generally unsafe out and about. Some so much so that they are going to extremes, like stealth cycling at night to avoid being harassed and/or arming themselves with weaponry. That seems like ridiculously risky behavior. But I don’t think disguising oneself as a vending machine would do the trick either. There are no easy answers. But there’s got to be a happy medium - somewhere between tempting fate and battening down the hatches at home.

Bonus: JK Rowling’s commencement speech, on the usefulness of failure.
Plus: I am a great believer in To Do lists. Compiled in the Backpack application, scrawled on scraps of paper, and sometimes even jotted down on my own hands. So I had to smile when I saw these To-Do Tattoos.
And: A collection of unexpected photography.

Monday brought an unexpected boon. Free tickets to see Peter Murphy at the Fine Line. I’d seen him solo once before, and with Bauhaus three times (the reunion tour of 1998) so I knew his set would be worth seeing. And it was.

Now let’s talk about blood-sucking freaks. And I don’t mean goths gone bad, I mean mosquitoes. They’ve always been more attracted to me than to those around me - like my blood is oh so much sweeter. Other folks will get a couple of bites after being outside for hours. After a quick trip to take out the trash I return covered in angry red welts. So this news is particularly unwelcome:

Bumper crop of mosquitoes expected
Spokesman Mike McLean of the Metropolitan Mosquito Control District says it may feel like there are two or three years’ worth of mosquitoes out this summer.

A big BOO to that.

Also? Not looking forward to having the the Republican National Convention in my backyard, for so many reasons.

Bonus: A fellow vegan gave me the heads up about Oprah’s 21-day vegan diet. My friend’s commentary on the matter is the most amusing part: “I’m not sure if you know this, Sharyn, but being vegan typically entails turning down pies from billionaires and movie stars. I don’t know how anyone does it, really. Especially when there’s no vegan food in Vegas.”
Plus: TV in Japan never fails to amuse.
And: I’ve been thinking about getting the little man a big trike for some time now, like a Desoto or a Torker. But this Steampunk trike is so much cooler.

Trying to keep my mind off my troubles. Yesterday’s Cat Attack Orchestra set, at Eclipse Records, was an excellent distraction. Also popped by Cupcake Saturday but did not partake. This crappy cold has left me without the ability to taste food. But I can still appreciate its presentation.

Five items of interest:

• A recent appearance by David Sedaris on The Daily Show was most entertaining.
• In that Daily Show clip, there is mention of London’s mayor finally calling for a ban of alcohol on the tube. And the ridiculousness that broke out the night before the ban took effect.
• Until I saw that, I’d no idea that Mayor Boris Johnson looks like a big little boy, what with that unruly moptop and all.
• “Architect Secretly Builds Epic Scavenger Hunt into NYC Apartment” - the filthy rich really do have more fun. No fair.
• A one-horned ‘Unicorn’ deer was born in Italy. In other mythical beast news, Coney Island’s Mermaid Parade returns next weekend. One of these years I’m going to participate in it, I swear.

My ex-husband is going on a date. With someone else. Other than me. We have remained close friends since we split up, so I find I’m taking this bit of news very badly. My thoughts on the matter are more irrational than I’d hoped they would be, under the circumstances. When my first husband moved on I was relieved. Not so with the second one apparently. It’s not like I haven’t explored other options in the last year or so. But nothing much has come of it. Hey, I’m a twice-divorced single mother. Who’d want to date me? Yes, the pity party is in full effect on my front porch right now. It doesn’t help that I’m dealing with a nasty summer cold. I’m all achey and sick and spent most of yesterday laying around, watching Adam Ant videos on youtube and reading. Finished up The Merchants’ War by Charles Stross and started in on A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle. Escapism is all I’ve got at the moment.

Two weeks from today I turn 35. As per usual, I plan to celebrate for fully half of the month. Minimum. I’d totally go to the Walker’s Rock the Garden event on the 21st, if someone had a spare ticket for me (hint hint). And I’m looking forward to another Pizza Farm adventure with friends. And there’s an excellent Patio Nights pairing that week of STNNNG with His Mischief.

But it’s not just my birthday coming up. I booked our time slot in the Star Wars exhibit the day before the little man was invited to a classmate’s birthday party at the same time. Doh! Also that afternoon? A co-worker is having a party where he will be giving guests rides in his Ural’s sidecar. Sign me up for that!

In more staying in St. Paul news, let’s talk about the co-op I’m a member of. Mississippi Market has two locations. For a while now they’ve been planning on shutting one of them down. I just found out the new plan is to move to a site - with twice as much space - in the West 7th area. That’s an easy three mile trip from my house.

Bonus: I wouldn’t mind being in Barcelona tomorrow for the Daydream Festival…featuring Low, Liars and Radiohead. Totally dreamy indeed.
Plus: The Morning News interviews Phone Sex Operators - “faceless yet intensely personal” and fascinating.
And: The sysadmin at work bought a case of Brawndo to share. I didn’t imbibe, but I might just watch Idiocracy tonight (the movie from whence the beverage came).

I’ve been coming to terms with some bad news. My bubble has been burst - yet again - about this house selling business. Last week my realtor went over his market analysis with me. I’ve been trying to absorb it but all the number crunching in the world isn’t going to help. Even in the best case scenario, my net profit would be far too little to make a move worth it. Sure, house prices are lower across the board. I’d be selling low and buying low. But it still wouldn’t work. I’d have to finance more of it than I’d anticipated. And because the child support we receive isn’t court ordered it can’t be considered income, and I’d qualify for less of a mortgage. I don’t want to move us into a crappy house in a crappy neighborhood, just for the sake of living somewhere in Minneapolis.

Been trying to look on the bright side about staying put. In the last nine years nearly all of the major issues have been addressed (read: a lot of money has been thrown at problems to make them go away). The house is spacious and gorgeous and decorated just the way I want. The neighborhood is safe and not without charm. The commute is going to suck even more for the little man, whose school is moving further south in a couple of weeks. But many Minneapolitan folks I know have been having trouble with break-ins (two of them while they were in their homes).

Another consolation prize? Punch Pizza is opening a new location on Grand Avenue, not so very far from here.

Bonus: Just ordered a copy of Stencil Nation: Graffiti, Community and Art by Russell Howze, which includes pages featuring the lovely and local Amy Rice. And speaking of books - how about Philip Pullman on Age Banding.
Plus: Radiohead’s Big Ideas (Don’t Get Any) played by old computer parts. Perhaps better than Prince covering Creep (not because of the quality of his cover, but more because of his proprietary attitude about it).
And: Like a giant ball pit, but in water - the L.A. Department of Water and Power dropped 400,000 plastic balls into the Ivanhoe Resevoir. And speaking of balls, the 30th Anniversary of “Ping-pong Diplomacy” Marked in Beijing.

Still catching my breath from the weekend. Friday night we had our usual Pizza Luce dinner before heading to see Kung Fu Panda, which was clever and cute. Saturday the boy hung out with his grandparents on their boat, so I squeezed in a showing of The Fall at the Uptown Theater, followed by dinner at a new Nepalese restaurant. Then I skedaddled to a wedding reception for my co-worker Alex and his lovely new bride Brinsley. Afterwards it was time for the Turf Club and the final installment in a series of shows celebrating Modern Radio Records 9th Anniversary. I stayed at the after-party later than intended and wound up getting to sleep around 6am Sunday. Which would’ve been all right, but the little man decided he wanted to come home early - around 8am - before I was ready to return to active parenting. Them’s the breaks.

The boy is growing like crazy. His summer clothes from last year are all skin tight and he has now bumped up to the biggest size at Gymboree. I ordered some shorts and whatnot for him, and scored this Octopus shirt - which definitely doesn’t come in my size.

Time is flying by. Father’s Day is around the corner, followed by the birthday I share with my Dad. And I remember hearing about the upcoming Star Wars exhibit ages ago, but it opens this weekend! I’m taking the little man - and my Dad - to the Science Museum this month to check it out. When I purchased our tickets online I was surprised that I had to choose what specific time we’d be entering the exhibit. I guess it’s a thing now.

Bonus: I would love to join Björk and Sigur Rós at a free outdoor concert in Reykjavik on June 28th. Sadly that’s not in the cards. But a little road trip to Chicago might just be.
Plus: Magically twisting into tentacled horrors - the pulchritudinous creations of Dan Hillier, who I’ve only just discovered (via the Fabulist and boingboing).
And: The real life Prince of Persia - David Zandi - won’t be cast in the upcoming film, despite his best efforts. It seems Orlando Bloom has been bypassed too in favor of Jake Gyllenhaal, which only makes me go buh?

Last night I talked to the guy who replaced my boiler. When he took apart the vent for the old one, the innards were completely caked with soot. Just totally blocked up. Which had caused the carbon monoxide problem. But it looked like someone had attempted to clean it out in the past…and had done a half-assed job of it. There was still a wire brush stuck inside from who knows when. When this was all dismantled it left behind a huge area of filth on the concrete floor. The fastidious little Olive is smart enough to avoid it. But Freddy? Oh no. His white fur is now a sickly gray, and he’s been leaving sooty little footprints all over the house. Gonna have to clean up the basement and then maybe give him a bath. That’ll learn him.

Looking forward to the Patio Nights kickoff tomorrow. My friend’s band The Talkers will be playing with the The Awesome Snakes. The weather is looking uncertain at best, but I have it on good authority that the bands will battle any tornadoes with RIFFS. And if it does rains maybe I’ll just bring some dry ice, to help set the scene.

Bonus: A friend - the lovely Lori - was featured in a Strib article about folks growing their own food. I haven’t got a green thumb, but I do have shares in a CSA. Our first delivery arrives June 23rd.
Plus: My vegan food porn does not go unnoticed. The Bostonist used one of my shots for their veggie pizza article. And dang, does TJ Scallywaggle’s House of Vegan Pizza ever look amazing.
And: The beautiful Robyn, on Letterman. Love the bear masks.