So, one of the very helpful suggestions I submitted to Parenthacks, an extremely cool site for the be-spawned that I have to give insane props to (as the kids used to say), was posted today. Thanks, Asha! You can read it here.

And I was so pleased to see that someone left a comment that really kick-started my creativity as a parent! In fact, the comment inspired me SO MUCH, I have decided to write a book so that I can share my awesome parenting suggestions with the whole WORLD!

Here’s the comment:

This is a HORRIBLE idea. What’s next? Taking medicine through pretend cigarettes? Novelty glasses are fine, but putting the focus on distinct glasses designed for adult beverages is a bad move.

–Tim

A bad move? A BAD MOVE? You know what’s a bad move? Having that giant stick shoved so far up your ass. It must really impede walking.

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YOU GUYS! You thought I died or something, didn’t you? No such luck, ENEMIES.

I’m here, I’m just tired as FUUUCK. For reals. I mean, I did grad school, I did two babies, I did the made-for-TV-movie marriage. So I knows what tired is. It’s here. And it wants its drycleaning.

On Sunday I went to kickboxing class. I am supposed to go to kickboxing class on Sundays, but tell me, is that a bad idea or what? Sundays are for stuffing your maw with crepes, or totally buying some MF shoes, or hoovering some rinky-dink off a hooker’s flibbertigibbet. Needless to say, I have NEVER gone to class on Sunday, and now I know why. Verily, it sucketh. Suckethed.

So I bopped around with my jump rope until my face matched my hair, and then we did a little boxer’s shuffle, and some warm up punching, and after about ten minutes got ready in front of the bags. We were going to give those bags a bag-whuppin.

I got ready for a jab-cross, just to warm up. Jab. Cross….OW. Ow, ow, ow. Hello, the floor. I love you, The Floor.

“Dude, are you okay?” Supa said.

“No,” I replied. “I’ll be across the street.” I scraped myself off the floor, mooched some ibuprofen off the instructor, and went to the coffee shop to get a giant mocha-latty. The barista played the entire new Yeah Yeah Yeah’s album all the way through, which I am now interested in because of the awesome fall mix tape that Sweetney sent me. I had a great time. I love exercise!

You know, through all my retail and barista shenanigans, I have never pulled a muscle in my back until Sunday. My conclusion is that I am old and that exercise is bad for me. In fact, I know this is true, because I got on the scale for the five-week weigh-in and I have gone up in weight and bodyfat. Five days a week of exercise=fatter. Yes! I have awesomely subverted the dominant paradigm or something.

“Um, what happened?” said the instructor, as she marked down my numbers.

“There was an incident with some cheese,” I replied evasively.

“Hmm,” she said. “Well, if you’re concerned or frustrated…”

“I feel like I should be more concerned or frustrated,” I said, which is true.

I’m not either, though. My pants are looser. I feel better. I sprinted across the rose garden the other night and I didn’t even get the teensiest bit out of breath. I’ve lost a couple of inches off my waist. I am reaching the point where I see myself in the mirror and say, “OH YEAH I’D HIT THAT.” (It’s fun to do this in public and watch Companion edge away with the baby. Hur hur hur.)

I’m not really in this for the numbers on the scale. My goal is to have endurance and be stronger. I don’t want to be one of those old ladies on the bus who are question mark-shaped and can hardly move.

So screw you, scale. Screw you, creakity back. When this is over I can say, “I think I can beat Mike Tyson.”

Oh, and if this blog is being updated too infrequently for you, you can often hear me Rambling Boringly and Incoherently ™ at I, Tourista when I’m in my car and too tired to make the typing.

cleek

I am having one of those weeks, people. I think maybe I am wearing an invisible shirt that says I ARE TWELVE or something.

Yesterday during kickboxing we had a guest instructor. I love love LOVE our normal teacher. She’s even fun to just stare at, because when she gets down on the floor with us you can see every single muscle on her leg in perfect sharp definition. If Michelangelo saw her, he would probably fall down weeping and realize that he didn’t have to sculpt and paint mans with boobs, because the ladies can bring the muscles too.

ANYWAY, this guest instructor immediately endeared himself to us by addressing us as “girls.” Nevermind the fact that there were no actual girls in evidence and our class also includes a middle-aged man. I’ve seen Our Man doing push ups. No one should call him “girl” either. Our instructor jumped in and corrected him with a quick “WOMEN.”

He apologized, and class went on fairly non-heinously (except for the fact that he seemed overly fond of playing John Cougar Mellencamp (or is it still just John Cougar? Cougarcamp? Mellenport?) repeatedly and louder than was really necessary).

An aside: doing bagwork while listening to John Puma Mellentaco’s “Hurts So Good” made me feel like I was in a bad movie about a scrappy lady boxer from a small town who will train furiously in between her shifts at the DQ, battling her crappy car that lets her down at plot-devicey moments, and arguing with her baby daddy. Eventually she will rise to the top and will win regionals, which will earn her enough money to [SPOILER ALERT!!!] become separated from her conjoined twin. SURPISE PLOT TWIST! And you wondered why she was never fully on screen, didn’t you???

Supa and I saw him again this morning, and he said “Good morning, Girls. Oops, I mean, Ladies.”

He apologetically said something about it being a bad habit.

“I’ve had two kids, so I think anyone can call me a girl anymore,” I said, in an unhostile way, and laughed. He did a double-take on me after that…maybe it was the pink pigtails today.

I did get a little hostile about it at BlogHer this summer. I was walking across a parking lot with Squid when we ran into a family festooned in NASCAR gear who were presumably in San Jose for some racing thing I vaguely heard about while I was there. The father, in front of his son (who looked about ten) began asking us what the conference was for. Squid offered that it was a conference for women who write on the Internet.

“Well,” he said. “I thought there were a lot of girls here.”

“There’s a lot of women here, too,” I snapped.

“And men,” Squid added, matter-of-factly.

The man’s wife pulled a slightly pained face. I can’t say exactly what this woman was thinking, but I have seen that face before: it is that apologetic face that I have seen women make before they defend a sexist comment.

Today after class Supa and I popped into the coffee shop across the street and were immediately greeted by a barista who was our age. “Hi, Girls!” she called to us. I had to resist the urge to look behind myself like a smartass.

Semantics are important to me. And I’m not saying you have to spawn to be a woman either. In fact, there are many bespawned girls in this world (looking at you, Britney). Marriage at eighteen certainly did not make me feel like a woman, and motherhood didn’t give me the insta-badge either. For me, I think it was around the time that I was finishing my bachelor’s degree, wrangling a toddler, and not melting down into a puddle every time my extremely-disappointing husband shit the bed on something. Again. Basically it was when my life took on a rhythm of its own and I was really discovering that I had strong opinions of my own and a certain degree of capability.

And what’s funny is that I’ve had a couple of friends in my life who have used “girl” with me familiarly and endearingly, and it doesn’t bother me (“How you doin’, girl?”). It’s all context.

It reminded me of this article by Sarah Bunting: Yes, You Are. I went back and reread it today, because sometimes I get in knots about the semantics thing. I say, “Oh, they don’t really mean it like that,” or, “What’s the big deal, anyway?”

It is a deal, though. I am not a girl. I am not cute, little, innocent, or pre-pubescent. Call me what I really am. I’ve earned it.

Oh, man, you guys, I cannot hook it up with the scanner love. Everyone I know has a non-functioning scanner right now. Companion took the pictures to work yesterday, and was only able to locate a black-and-white scanner, which is tres sucky, as they say in FRONCE.

I know, I know: go to Kinko’s. But I have no non-toddler time right now to do this in this week. And I’ll be DAMNED if I’m supposed to scan 32 pictures in a Kinko’s with Hurricane Strudel running around. So, sadly, I am bumping my anniversary series to next week, and it will at least be tied together with the category heading. And there will be pictures then, for crappity fucking crissakes, which is how the Giant Head of John Travolta intended things to be.

This week I am starting a ten-week intensive kickboxing program. It meets five days a week. I am already sleepy and starving all the time, but I think it’s going to be “fun.” By fun, I mean I’ll be able to dig out my old pre-Strudel, out-of-style ho clothes. Woo!

I have wanted to do something like this forever. The downside is that our hot water heater is hemorrhaging today. I knew something had gone terribly wrong this morning when I turned on the shower and it never got past lukewarm. There is a puddle in the basement now that does not seem to be ruining anything significant right now, and the hot water heater people are coming later today. So tonight I will go back to kickboxing class, having NOT taken a shower from the session the day before. Yeah, that’s cute. Maybe they’ll refund the money before sending my stinky ass home.

Speaking of bad timing…why did I get into the shower and shave off everything from the waist down on Friday night? Yes, even my toe hair. Apparently three glasses of wine in a two-hour period is the magic number for doing stupid things lately. And now, of course, the hair is growing back. This wasn’t a good idea when I was sixteen, so why did I think it would be a good idea now? Plus, I was disturbed to discover that I have a tiny stretchmark on my snacktrap. WHAT THE HELL, FRANNY. Thanks for making me eat all those cheeseburgers when I was gestating you.

And tonight as I am punching and kicking I will feel like I have a FIRE in MY DAMN PANTS. Oh universe why did you make me so stupid?

Poster 1: That is the most irritating show I’ve ever had the misfortune of seeing two and a half minutes of.

Poster 2: They talk too fast and in words that no one uses in real life. Plus, the mom looks like she enjoys being punched in the face during sex.

Poster 3: Yeah ppl are always moaning about how good the writing is and I watch and I’m liek ‘wtf..no one talks liek that..no one even THAT witty thinks of things that quick’ …It’s hard to follow. I too, only saw 2.5 minutes. More than I could stand.

….

YAY! Gilmore Girls is going to start again soon! I rilly liek this show! Last season, :'(. Maybe this season it will have Post-Alphabetic Human-to-LJ subtitles.

AAAAGGGGGGHHHH!

I am trying to clean my house, which is making Strudel cry because I’m not paying attention to her every second.

So I sit down to pay attention to her, and she runs off to find crud on the floor to hand to me. I KNOW THERE’S CRUD ON THE FLOOR. I’M TRYING TO CLEAN IT UP!

AAAAGGGGGGHHHH!

I’m going to the Zoo to take pictures of the Steve Irwin shrine there. I can’t clean, and she’s not actually interested in playing. Never satisfied. Sometimes I feel like I’m living with my former in-laws, all wrapped up in one tiny pre-verbal body.

Oh, and PS, The Baby: “HUN HUN HUN HUN HUN,” while annoying and attention-attracting, is not actually a word.

I’m calling for an immediate boycott of Covington (Washington) Pharmacy. The owner, Jim Ramseth, refuses to sell Plan B to anyone. Buy your Jujubees and US Weekly elsewhere.

From today’s article in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer:

“Everybody draws their own lines,” Ramseth said. “And if a person’s purpose is to kill a fertilized egg, then I disagree with that. Regardless of where the practitioner draws that line, they should have the right.”

Plan B, essentially a high dose of the same ingredient in regular birth control pills, works by preventing ovulation and may stop fertilization or implantation of a fertilized egg. If a woman is already pregnant, the drug has no effect. But to Ramseth it still veers too close to abortion.

[Emphasis mine. And thank you, P-I, for immediately following that idiotic quote with the facts about Plan B, and for warning people away from his righteous judgement.]

Is denying emergency contraception to women going to cause them to reconsider? Or is it going to cause them to wait and have to have an abortion later? Impossible to say, but maybe it’s better to prevent the pregnancy in the first place.

I think I’m going to start forming opinions relating to body parts and health issues I don’t have. Prostate cancer? Testicular cancer? Yeah, sorry, it’s god’s will. I don’t feel like I should interfere with god’s will by treating that.

I hope turning away rape victims (among other legitimate clients) who could prevent a pregnancy won’t disturb Ramseth’s sleep at night.

YOU GUYS! Supa and I were totally looking through some photo folders and found the DENIED!!!! SJ tattoo!!!

I’m NOT CRAZY!!!!!! But I am a little drunk. Champagne for my campaign.

This is making me laugh today: THE VOLUMINOUS SLEEVE. Are you for real? I think some of them look kind of cool, in that ding dong, arm-as-clapper sort of way.

If you click further in, they get to the real heart of the matter…How Will You Wear It? (The voluminous sleeve, that is. Let’s keep up, people.)

Fortunately, there are choices: A) Evening Dressy; B) Downtown Night; C) Downtown Day. Apparently Voluminous Sleeves will atomize if you set foot in the suburbs, leaving you with a sleeveless top. What does one do, change in the car on the way downtown? I need answers here, Fashion Squad.

In Other News

I am waiting to see if Franny is done barfing, which she only did once this morning but you NEVER KNOW. Le SIGH. I am quite wroth with her right now, because she’s been on a mindless streak of destruction for about a week now. She has been tearing things up that mostly don’t matter, but are kind of irritating and disrespectful.

This is a small one, but she asked me to paint her nails last night. I did, and then after I went out last night she laid in my bed and picked half the polish off her nails. It is thoughtless stuff, but I just want to shake her and say “THINK!” I have asked her to think about what she’s doing, but it doesn’t seem to do any good right now.

I totally remember this. I remember being so thoughtless and being like “bwah?” when people would get mad at me for crayoning on the wall or whatever. I’m starting to think it’s kind of dumb that we as a culture have moved away from dirt floors and such. But I’ll bet people still had stuff they liked then that their kids destroyed, like their only needle or favorite sheep.

Carpet. White walls. Nail polish. I blame the Victorians, as always.