There is a “baby on board” sign in a car on my street. Are these vintage now? I don’t know. Is it ironic at this point? Why does this make me want to hit your car? My sanity is worth more than your baby, sorry. I am a contributing member of society, and your baby just drools a lot. True story.

Went to Sonic Boom today and got the Mac Lethal, which I have been lusting after, and something I had never heard called Black Spade. Also I have the new Atmosphere coming to my house via Amazon with my chicken books for my chicken husbandry is rusty. Now I have something to rock out to while I am working on my next project. I have put pen to paper for the first time today and it is off and running. I am hoping to have something out by xmas. Yes, it will be that fast, because probably no one will want to buy it and I will release it myself. That’s right. Wolfman’s got nards. Also, the glass is half empty and someone spit in it.

I am feeling auspiciousalicious because last time I did a big writing project I had just started up my chicken hobby. And now I have a chick named “Calliope.” Do you see where this is going? I hope it will not go where it went last time, actually, which is my drawer gathering dust for lo these last five years. I wrote three hours a day and it felt great. Someone brought me a desk this weekend with a place for an inkwell, so I am no longer crowded onto a cafe table we found on the side of the road. I Have a Drawer.

I am working on my self of steam so I can actually show my work to people now. Last summer was huge for me, because I wrote a screenplay and had my friends read it out loud at a barbecue, which almost killed me, but then didn’t, and those people still call me. So it gets better. I still write for myself, but now I want other people to read it. Starting today I am going to stop pretending that when I hit “publish” my words just disappear. Out of denial; Baby Ideas on Board. Hello, hello, I see you thur.

SOOOO the reading went really well, and it was completely awesome to have fronds there. Other than that, I feel like I’ve slept all weekend. NPR stuck a mic up in Franny’s grill, so I hope they use her soundbite. The interviewer was nice–she said that Franny was very articulate compared to a lot of kids, which was good to hear, since I spend half of her waking hours going Please Express Your Feelings to the Best of Your Ability. (Show your work in the space below.)

Since the book is about hard/awkward times in school, the reporter asked Franny about that, and she said she was dealing with a bully right now. I knew that she was dealing with a really unpleasant child daily, but I was surprised to hear the classification in her own head was set to “bully.” I am trying to give her some tactics to deal with this bully, and Franny said she is backing off. I am probably a little too proactive about telling her exactly what to do, since my mom gave me all that “sticks and stones” and “school doesn’t last forever” (yes it does) crap when I had problems with other kids. I suggested that Franny should call the bully out in a loud voice on exactly whatever it is she’s doing, and use social pressure/shaming to let the bully know that Franny is not an easy target. The kids are all socialized to be quiet and nice, especially the girls, of course, but silence is not your friend, here. Franny reported that when she said, loudly, “You are not supposed to be doing that, and that is not nice,” three or four other kids turned around and stared at the offender and she slunk away. This is the same child who has been saying things like “Give me that pencil, or I won’t be your friend” since they were two. Franny admitted she is relieved the kid is moving into a different class next year.

So I saw coolio San Fransisco friends, and now they are leaving again. Sad panda. Today Companion and I talked about chicken run plans. I have ideas, and he has actual expertise on carpentry and crap, so I hope that when this is done it doesn’t look like the shady part of Hooverville or something. The chicks bock, sleep, poop. I am to bring them into Strudel’s class on Monday. The little monkeys will love that.

HEY. I lived through my auction. Those twelve hour days sucked, and dreaming about the inventory BLEW. A SERVER yelled at one of the moms because we had a snowboard there with cartoon titties on it, which I approved. It was BADASS, and we sold the hell out of it. But now it’s over.

Today, I go to my reward. I am going to go pick up some little beepers so I can renew my happy days of yore when I was a chicken rancher. Did this really happen FIVE YEARS AGO? Holy fucking crumpets. Three beepers. Oh the chickenmanity. Pics to follow.

I have been gardening, laundering, and putting my house back together. I started seedlings on my windowsill. I have almost been forgiven for sneezing at the auction and winning a $850 vacation. WHOOPS. My ultimate bads. Anyone want to come? The house sleeps 16. Eh hee hee hee.

And today I write about offal and dick-waving at Blogher, and o hai, there are still tickets left to the reading I am participating in tonight. Tickets are five or twelve bone, and I am going first. Come and see my goiter in person!!! If you buy a book I’ll let you touch it.

P.S. Someone broke the glass at my fave rave Lighthouse this morning. Go buy extra coffee so they won’t take a bad hit from that!

ETA 11:01 a.m.: Beepers secured! They are dozing under their heat light. Hard to believe that in a few weeks only one will fit into the aquarium, and snugly at that. I got a Barred Cochin, which is one of those Frenchie furry-legged varieties, an American mutty Araucana (“Easter Egg Hen”), and a Buff Orpington. I have never had a Cochin before, but they are supposed to be mellow to the point of being “cuddly” and are supposed to be good layers. Some of my favorite birds before was my buffy named “Marzipan” and an Easter Egg chicken named “Penny.” RIP homies, RIP.

Chicken pics below the fold, and some other stuff that I decided to throw in. It’s like you ordered a hamburger and I say, “Oh, here, bottle of mango chutney Free With Purchase.”

Continue reading →

see more my blogher article on grammar poleezes. I typoed in the first sentence, so I hope someone will get a kick out of that. But I don’t have to tell you that. You saw what I did thur. Also, I accidentally misspelled fascists in the title, but I fixed it. Stay classy, me. FINGER GUNS.

Also last week I wrote a smarmy article about corporate greeneryization, which no one commented on. Probably I misspelled something in that entry, too.

Lately I have been a half-awake homophone abuser, you know?

Hey team, so after a full serving of flu for dinner, we now have colds for dessert. Strudel has some eyegoop, and thank god the drops aren’t stinging her. I am limping along here and just trying to make it to the 19th. I also feel bad that this has become a tackboard for my current health.

Hi, I’ve got this virus. I can hardly swallow and am losing my voice. Also I am weirdly sleeping about 12 hours a night. I aen’t ded. I hope you don’t have it. Take your vitamins!

Love,

A Person Who Wishes She Were Dead

UPDATE! 3/30/08: So, I am coming out of it. I can swallow/think/move! Talked to a doctor, who said that ten days is about par for the course for viruses like this. UGH. It’s not strep, because there were full on cold symptoms, etc. It was virus-stylee.

Survived with: Theraflu, this gargle, comics from the library, sake, limoncello, and lots of Advil. Dood, that was bad news bears. I even had to beg off on writing for Blogher for the week.

I have to confess, though, the naps were pretty sweet. Until I woke up again. Hur.

Back tomorrow! The sad news is that I am plunged back into my auction works immediately.

Lately I’ve been thinking about stretching money, which is one of my least favorite things to think about EVER. I have been poor on and off for a long time, due to either carelessness or circumstance (mostly that, I swear) and it gets old.

Some of the best advice SeaFed’s grandma gave me before she died was, “Work hard in your twenties, it’s okay to be poor then. But being poor in your thirties sucks.” I didn’t know what she meant then, exactly. Would it just be that years of grinding poverty would have taken its toll by then? Would I look and feel ancient like those pictures of dustbowl farmers during the Depression? Maybe. I think what she meant was that a person would likely have children by the time they were in their thirties, and secondly that I am having this feeling of wanting to be settled and have a nice adult life. To be able to take little trips like the one we did to Portland recently, to see family, or to have people over for dinner and to be able to serve them any old weird thing you want.

So I started thinking about how to save money on food. Was this possible? I had fooled myself into thinking I was doing really well, but the total kept creeping up. As I was thinking about how to save money on food, I was also thinking we were kind of screwed, since we like to buy organic, and I decided to cut out as much corn syrup as possible. If there is a corn syrup-free alternative, I will buy it. If not, I will decide how badly I want it. So this has bumped us up to the four dollar-plus loaves of bread range. Delicious and local to be sure, but the way my little termites nom through it, was it worth it? I know one of the biggest ways to save money at the grocery store is to cut out junk food, usually defined as processed food. I thought, we don’t do that much; it’s usually “whole” or fresh foods that we assemble.

But I was fooling myself again. I may not be buying Cheetos, but I was sometimes buying expensive cheese. This is fun sometimes, but I can’t make it a habit. Also wine, which I love, but it’s another extra. I am trying now to think in terms of money and “do I really need these calories, or can I just wait til dinner?” God I love cheese. But junk food has to be anything that is just making my ass bigger.

Fortuitously, this article on how to save money at the grocery store fell into my lap a couple of days later. It’s a good read, full of some stuff I knew, but needed reminding of. Some stuff I wasn’t even thinking about, like the extra cost of canned beans (“expensive water”) versus dried. I followed links and started reading about making your own staples, which will help with my termite problem.

A couple of days after that, Dietgirl got into the act with an entry about budgeting. I feel like the universe is trying to tell me something here.

I buy bulk now and have for quite a while, and fresh veggies, and chickens to part out, that sort of thing, but now am going further. I have resurrected my neglected bread machine. I haven’t mathed it out yet, but I am guessing that loaves of mostly organic, preservative-free bread are now costing me around a dollar with very little labor. I have stopping buying string cheese and am now sending them out the door with a slice of cheese in their hand if they are hungry. I am going to try my hand at making yogurt, which I hear is delicious and a savings even with organic milk as a base. My neighbor does it all the time…I figure it can’t be too hard.

Lucky for me, and you know me, I like to cook anyway. I’ll let you know how it’s going.