1. Dear MF Diary,

Things have been crazy like Jay-Z and it’s all my fault. I have not felt like writing as much because I have been dog-ass tired. October is a crazy month; it contains Franny’s birthday, my birthday, and my companion’s birthday. Strudel is the lone March holdout.

2. Special Unitorn Shindig

So: Franny’s fifth birthday was pretty good. I brought her in the house with her eyes closed, and held a sheet up in front of the dollhouse so I could unveil it dramatically. She was very excited about her dollhouse and about having some friends over. She was amped about the cake too, which my companion spent four hours making. At her request, it was red velvet with chocolate frosting and a “unitorn.” Okay, she doesn’t say “unitorn” anymore, but I can’t let it go. Sometimes we still say wulva around here too, so, you know. It’s loose like that. (The English language is loose, not vulvas. FYI.)

“Now I’m five! I’m five today!” she shouted, all day long.

Then we took her to dinner at The Spaghetti Factory and sang to her, and she hid in my shirt, but recovered in time to eat her spumoni. For Franny, this day will go down in history as the day I, Sugar Nazi, let her eat leftover frosting off the spoon. Twice. She’s still talking about it.

She went back to Seattle Federline’s house the night of her birthday. When I picked her up from school later that week, I asked her about her birthday after she’d had some time to think about it.

“What was your favorite part?” I said, as she skipped along and bonked her Olivia lunchbox on her leg.

“My unicorn cake!”

Then she told me about her birthday at her dad’s house. Her grandparents were about to go out of town, so she had to have it a week early. She received three video games for her Nintendo Gamecube over there.

“It wasn’t very special,” she said, and then moved on.

3. Goodbye, Ted K.

There is more to report. Here at the Double “A” Ranch we have moved on to the amazing year 1999. Last week we got DSL after years in dialup Siberia and we were able to split it between both computers, so now we can have dorky librarian races! Quick! What’s the population of Peru? When did George Bush make the “put food on your family” speech? Who can find the scariest penis on the craigslist personals? Who will get distracted by mongoose porn and disqualified first? (Me.) Simultaneous internetting! What a country!

Also, last night my companion, AKA “Tha Unibomber,” AKA “some guy who thinks he’s from the 19th-century,” AKA “a recent convert to the horseless carriage” got a cel phone!

“The first thing I have to do is figure out how to turn it off,” he said on the way home. No, the first thing we have to do is get you an Outkast ringtone. Nice try though.

4. Smoking and Fried Food is My Heritage

And now, for the reason I am so tired and less writerly. I am banishing my muffin top, which is hard work, people. I am going 78 miles uphill, both ways, and it is sleeting sharks here. I sit up nights, crying over my smoking-hot pair of Diesel Jeans that I am about two sizes away from. I am of hearty peasant/white trash stock, so my body would like it if I would sit in a hut/trailer, narfling borscht and turkey wings / KFC and cigarettes and weighing 300 pounds. But no, this cannot be.

It started about six weeks ago, when Strudel had a Springfield Power Plant-style growth explosion and my back hurt by dinnertime every goddam night. I know the fix for this is exercise, so I started doing sit-ups and ugh, push-ups. And my god it’s hard to exercise when you’re breastfeeding–it is such an energy drain to begin with. You need to eat at least 500 extra calories a day to lactate, which is like an extra meal. To round out my upper body work, recently I added lunges and squats, which I used to be able to do one million of. I used to be able to bend light poles with my thighs, which, let me tell you, is hell on traffic on major arterial streets. But I digress.

So, anyways, I have added more exercises and now my ass and thighs hurt so bad I creak when I walk. I want to feel like the grown-ass twenty-eight year old lady I’m going to be on my birthday tomorrow, who has rocketed two babies out of her hoo-hoo and gotten a master’s degree and finally ended a starter marriage that dragged on way too long, and who has lived all over the country and has 4,000 pairs of red shoes. I don’t want to feel like some broken down old lady like I did six weeks ago, so…exercise. I have lost at least an inch off my waist already, and now am eating whatever comes across my path guilt-free. I am looking into starting kickboxing after xmas. That way I will win every argument with my companion. Haw!

5. The Days of Wine and Boobranching

Finally, Strudel is teething again. She is getting her top two teeth, after getting her bottom teeth at three months. She bit me in bed this morning and I may be turning her out to pasture soon. Now I remember why I weaned Franny at eight months. First, there’s the “snapping” off–there’s nothing like seeing your nipple get to be four inches long as she pulls away. There’s also the vicious grabbing. She grabs my breast and stuffs it into her mouth like a freaky animal. She grabbed me so hard the other day that milk squirted out and into her eye. And now with the teeth.

USE A CONDOM, PEOPLE. You’ve been warned (again).