When I’m walking to work over the Wabasha Street Bridge sometimes a thought flickers through my mind, just at the edge of consciousness…of jumping over the rail and into the Mississippi River. My alter ego, Captain Safety, would ever allow this course of action. But I think there’s something about the idea that’s hardwired into humanity…it’s the same impulse that leads people to activities like skydiving, bungee jumping, rollercoaster riding or even just jumping on a big ole trampoline. It’s the desire for freefall…and the urge to toy with mortality, albeit with safety nets. It makes me wonder what earlier generations of daredevils did for kicks (wrassle a bear? dive off a cliff?) and how many of those thrillseekers survived their solutions.
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Last weekend the little man and I had the privilege of meeting our new-ish neighbors…the ones who moved into the recently renovated house directly behind us. We don’t have alleys on this side of town, so we share a fence. This is where the meeting of minds occurred.
The older woman: Hi.
The little man: *starry-eyed*
The older woman: I like to jump rope.
The little man: *offers her a tennis ball*
The older woman: *accepts tennis ball, runs into her house and brings out candy in return (all of it, miraculously, vegan-safe)*
The little man: *jumping up and down*
The older woman: *smiles a winning smile*
The little man: Mom, she gave me candy!
And so began the romance of the century. But the little man has been burned before. The older women up the block were just using him for his swingset. Thankfully the new girl is just a little bit older (about a year), and she’s as excited about him as he is about her. Before we got home last night she was, apparently, standing at the fence and calling his name over and over again. It was a gorgeous evening so the kids played and I visited with the other mom for some time. When we decided that each of our households were needing to eat dinner the kids looked crushed. As I led him away and into the house the little man shouted “I don’t like dinner! I want the girl!” This morning, she was the first thing he asked for upon waking. I guess it’s all downhill from here.
On a side note, I’ve been having a problem with bandwidth theft…folks find my photos through Google or Yahoo image searches, and then link directly to them. Livejournal users are the most frequent offenders for some reason. Last week one such girl was using a photo of mine for her background image. I altered it to say something about how stealing images was rude, and suggested she read up on netiquette. She then switched to a plain color background and I thought that would be the end of it. Well, now she’s swapped my altered image back in (must have found it amusing), so I’ve altered it some more. Check it out while you can.
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All day yesterday I felt like I was forgetting something…and have only now realized the date’s significance. It was my first husband’s birthday (best wishes Mr. Wrisky), but also marked the two year anniversary of this weblog…in its current incarnation. I’ve had this domain a while longer than that, and back in 2000 made a half-hearted attempt at keeping a weblog elsewhere. Those archives are blessedly absent. In other news, I’ve recently done a little television watching. Out of morbid curiousity I turned on the box yesterday afternoon. Mutant X, a blatant and badly executed X-Men ripoff, is even worse than I could have imagined. The show has it all. Almost. Soap operatic Ed Wood-caliber acting (I can just imagine the director shouting “smolder dammit! you’re not smoldering enough!”), trashy fashion victims who run like girls, and dreadful special effects…but it’s not quite campy enough to make it enjoyable. Just painful. I couldn’t take more than ten minutes of it. Wonderfalls, on the other hand, held my interest the full hour and left me wanting more. I’d been looking forward to seeing it, as Tim Minear is executive producing (he’s worked on the X-Files and BtVS). The only disconcerting thing…hearing Buffyspeak uttered by non-Buffyverse characters. So which show do you suppose is being trash-canned? I’m having flashbacks to the Freaks and Geeks cancellation. Heaven forbid there be any interesting, intelligently written, well-acted programs on television.
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There are places I remember
All my life though some have changed
Some forever, not for better
Some have gone and some remain
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Last night I pulled up to my house to find three squad cars in front of it, blocking the driveway. I slowed down and turned on my turn signal. It took a moment for the officers to notice me, but as soon as they did they quickly scattered, each in a different direction…as though I had been the one to say “move along now, nothing to see here”.
When I got into the house I discovered one of the cats, poor Princess Jasmine, had been locked out on the porch…for at least six hours.
With our newly acquired one hundred pounds of rice in the house, what did I make myself for dinner last night? Rice noodles. Out of a box. It was pretty tasty though.
Ryan’s right. As much as I love the Pixies, I couldn’t imagine spending $625 on tickets to see them…especially not in my backyard. Perhaps I could justify it if the price tag included airfare to say, Paris.
The latest Shift project, Q&A, the photographic interview, begins today. And dude, the questions are, you know, kinda hard.
Pieces from the little man’s playdoh set double as kickass cookie cutters. After a thorough washing, of course.
Courtesy of Neil Gaiman, a site exploring the modern day ghost towns around Chernobyl. Fascinating.
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We still wake up to the freezing cold each morning, but life has a way of forging ahead. I feel like we’re emerging from hibernation, blinking our bedazzled eyes at the bright sun. Ok, maybe it’s just me. But it seems there is so much more going on lately, and more motivation to do it. The lovely ladies had an idea…they’ve proposed we start a book club, to meet once a month. I wish we could fly James up here, to facilitate our first meeting. Alas, we’ll have to muddle through without him (thankfully we have a few more weeks to prepare). This weekend there are a helluva lot of happenings around town. Friday marks the theatrical release of Hellboy. I have high hopes for it, as director Guillermo del Toro has been working closely with creator Mike Mignola to bring this to the screen. Not sure when I’ll get to see it, though. I don’t want the little man to grow up too fast, but I look forward to the day when he’ll be old enough to accompany me to such movies. At least he and I have dinner plans with some folks for Friday night. Some of whom will be attending the Extreme Noise Records 10th anniversary bash afterwards. Sounds like it will be a fun show. Sadly I’ll have to skip it. Saturday there’s another show, featuring The Unicorns and The Ponys, that I’ll have to skip as well. And finally, the last thing I’ll be missing out on…the Minneapolis / St. Paul International Film Festival kicks off this weekend. Last year I made it to just one screening, and that gem secured a spot on my list of all-time favorite films.
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When I came home from work last night I discovered that the husband had, uncharacteristically, gone shopping while I was away. I walked into the kitchen to find…one hundred pounds of rice. It just seems so absurd. We go through a lot of rice, but one hundred pounds? All at once? True, the co-op doesn’t have everything we need in the quantities we desire. There a dinky one pound bag of rice costs $3 or more. The husband went elsewhere to procure the fifty pound bags of rice…for just $20 each. I guess bigger can be better. And, hey, if the neighborhood experiences any flooding this Spring we can protect our property with our giant rice bags. In other food related news, enjoy some brilliant banana info from the Japan Banana Council or somesuch:
The pamphlet then takes a moment to proudly declare that “Sugar Spots” are the black, freckle-like markings on bananas which act as “barometers of sweetness”.
Mmmmm, sweet.
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Hope is alive. Yesterday I saw a number of women wearing flip-flops…with parkas. Only in Minnesota. It’s also the time of year for me to, once again, covet a cruiser. Much to my chagrin, and to the amusement of a certain friend, I’ve been bikeless for years. And yes, I still know to ride one. I think. I’d love one of the Paul Frank models, but any of them would do, really (though it’s been pointed out that I might have trouble negotiating the hills in my neighborhood with a fixed gear). Riding to work would be so much faster than walking. Speaking of alternate modes of transportation…Strike! Blog posted a link to the journal of a cab driver. Turns out it’s an old friend of mine. Check out Dr. Toxic’s unique perspective at Four Dollar Minimum.
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In the last 24 hours a few things have helped improve my mood.
1: Going to the Grandview to see Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (I think we all have a few memories we wouldn’t mind erasing).
2: Finally being able to focus, and make significant progress working on two projects that should have been taken care of ages ago.
3: And, most importantly, retrieving the little man…who’d stayed over at his grandparents. It was just one night, but the house seemed empty and lifeless without him.
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An old friend of ours was hesitant to break the news. After a long, hard road she is expecting her first child. I want to wish her the best, and to do so with an easy heart, but I’m not quite there yet. The husband is a man of few words but this morning we agreed on one sentiment: Fuck everyone else and their stupid happiness. Yes, we’re angry. And we’re bitter. What would have been my due date is approaching (around Mother’s Day, which, this year, coincides with the fifteenth anniversary of my brother’s death). And older people, from generations where larger broods were common, seem to blow off our loss with handy catchphrases like “better luck next time” (I don’t even know if there will be a next time). After my brother died I remember such a person…who’d had the gall to proclaim “your parents should have had more children”. I was left speechless at the time, but fifteen years later I’ve thought of a comeback…it’s about quality, not quantity.
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