thinkin

why are all the little baby boy clothes that you buy from the targets and walmarts and the like embroidered with sayings such as "little tough guy" and "daddy's little quarterback" and footballs and wrenches? 

how 'bout something like : "mommy's slightly sensitive baker"?  or "daddy's li'l tap dancer"? "

of ana ortiz and other things...but mostly ana ortiz

fall television is upon us and let me say how very truly happy i am for that. although we do not at the present moment have cable, i assure you we will. BY GOD WE WILL. AS GOD IS MY WITNESS I WILL NEVER GO WITHOUT CABLE AGAIN!! 

so i really like a lot of shows por ejemplo, la oficina y bailando con las estrellas. especially that last one even though i know i'm in the 52 to 85 demographic. yep, just me and betty white talking 'bout how darling that tom bergeron is and isn't it something they let that asian and the gay judge? i also love ugly betty. i do realize it's not a terrific show by any means but it's so pretty and crisp and it has my friend in it. oh, who's that you ask? why ana "hilda" ortiz, por supuesto. 

we went to college together and i guess we were acquaintances more than actual friends. ok, well, i guess we weren't even that. but we DID in fact have a dialogue once. well, i guess the word "dialogue" connotes something shared between 2 people and i can't say i shared anything more than a wan smile. more on that later. 

i was a freshman while she was a senior. let me rephrase that; she was THE senior. seriously so cool with her glossy pocahontas hair, effortless beauty and envy inducing style. she effing wore the SHIT out of those tiny backpacks. (it was the  90's after all). remember those? what the hell were those all about anyway? why would someone want something that looks like it was made for those kids who never grow but don't want to dress in the target toddlers department? you know those kids who are like 16 and look 3? i'm just gonna say it: those kids are so ugly they're cute. sorry. 

at our esteemed theater school at the university of the arts "GO ARTVARKS!"  the whole school got together once a week for a class called business of the arts. we discussed things like blah blah blah agents and blah blah headshots and often the actual shows the school put on. one week the discussion was about "some show that i most likely hated because it wasn't a musical".  for some weird reason (but not that weird at all because we were in a school for ACTORS WHO LOVE THE SOUND OF THEIR OWN VOICE) the discussion got heated and everyone was talking over each other (again, WEIRD) until ana ortiz' shot her hand up in the air and said in a ridiculously strong puerto-rican accent of which in my mind over the years has morphed into rosie perez from "white men can't jump" and says, 

"CAN WE GET BACK TO THE WORK HERE?"

and i don't know why but for some reason for me and my friends, that was it. over the next four years we found every opportunity to work that phrase into our daily lives. example:

deirdre: molly, wanna go grab dinner?

molly: CAN WE GET BACK TO THE WORK HERE?

then there was the incident that defined my freshman year. at the end of the year we were required to do a showcase which is acting out a scene in front of the whole school and being graded on that scene. sounds fine except that the scenes and scene partners were chosen for you. i had to do a scene in which i had to act DRUNK and SEXUAL.  complete nightmare for an 18 year old me.  i felt like carol burnett. to top it off i was assigned a scene partner who was so spaced out that he DIDN'T SHOW UP THE DAY OF THE PERFORMANCE. that's right. you heard me. the scene that we worked so hard on and that our gpa relied on almost didn't get to happen. my friend peter had done the scene before so he stepped in and held the script and we actually got through it. i'm sure it was terrible but no terrible-r than it would have been if my partner had showed. so i'm sitting on the staircase afterwards and trying to wrap my head around what had just happened when i heard someone coming down the stairs and then felt a hand on my head. i looked up to see pocahontas herself say to me, (rosie perez again, for effect) "you're a trooper". except it for sure sounded like "you're a troopa". 

so, yeah, i'll continue to watch the dickens out of ugly betty. and my scene partner by the name of kelly mccoy? well, he was just wandering around town and FORGOT. 

wtf happened?

today is dane's 9 month birthday and i feel like an inadequate blogger for letting so much time pass betwixt posts. so i'm sorry to all three of you reading this.

the last few days-DAYS i say- have brought rather tremendous changes in my darling boy. 

numero uno: 

he hates baby food.  i mean HATES it. all of a sudden he is in his high chair which he knows brings the promise of food which somehow causes immense displays of crabbiness as if he's saying, "damn it all woman! i have been waiting a full THREE SECONDS FOR MY FOOD AND NOBODY BUT NOOOOOBODY MAKES ME WAIT THAT LONG AND I'M GONNA MAKE YOU PAY WOMAN BY SCREAMING AND SQUEEZING THESE HERE DAMN TEARS OUT MY EYES!"  (you are supposed to read that like george jefferson, by the way.) and i'm like, "FOR THE LOVE OF NANCY I'M TRYING TO GET THIS EFFING LID OFF THE EFFING CONTAINER WHICH I'M SURE IS SEALED WITH GORILLA GLUE GIVE ME A BREAK!" 

so now i have to oh, what is that word?? cook! oh yeah, cook. like whole separate meals for dane. i mean, i knew it was coming but...

secondly:

he expresses his displeasure in a really funny way that i'm sure by age 2 won't be nearly as funny. i believe they are called tantrums. he sits on the floor, high chair, grocery cart, whereever and clenches his tiny pudgy hands and even pudgier feet (feet can in fact be clenched) and stiffens his arms and legs in a rage and screams. it is truly hilarious...at THIS moment in my life. 

third thing:

he HATES the strapping in of the body into strollers, car seats, grocery carts, anything with straps. i know this is not surprising because of all the mobility he has discovered of late but it is like wrestling with a slippery fish. an ANGRY slippery fish. 

all these things aside, he is still happy and bubbly and holy crap i can't believe he is 9 months old. 

thinkin

flip flops with a platform sole. please just don't. 

growing up

do you know how hard it is to vacuum the entire house with a dustbuster? 

maybe it's time for a vacuum.

uh, what now?

so as i said earlier, dane has mastered the skill of pulling himself up.  he's quite delighted with this. so delighted in fact that i think he has become obsessed. case in point:

 

i put him to bed, oh, an hour ago by now and he can not and simply will not let his body lie down. therefore he is standing and crying crying crying. he'd be rubbing his eyes to express how tired he is except that he CAN'T  because that would mean letting go.  so this is how it goes right now:

he cries. i walk into his room and put him back down with pacifier and dunny (dog/bunny; not sure which as it has both floppy bunny ears as well as bones stitched onto the body) so he's down for a second, literally-like "one -one thousand" and then he pops back up. cry cry cry. go into room. assure him that yes, indeed mommy's proud of you for pulling yourself up and finally using those legs and she's sorry she ever thought you might be some cripply tiny-tim of a boy saying "god bless us everyone" when we gather for christmas goose as we never do any year but it's sleepy time. REPEAT EIGHTEEN TIMES AND COUNTING.

 

it's like he's afraid he'll wake up tomorrow and have forgotten how. "was it all a dream? a glorious dream?" 

so what do i do parents? do i let him stand and cry cry cry and possibly fall asleep like some mr. ed? 

for whom is this?

as the title suggests i am grappling with the idea of actually committing to a blog in general.
on second thought, that title doesn't really suggest that at all. i just wanted to show you how i can NOT end a sentence with a preposition.
i think it would be great fun for posterity and possibly it would be amusing for my friends and family. i mean, provided i can bring the funny every once in a while.

there are serious questions here to ask meself. yes, i said that on purpose.

like, how personal is too personal? is talking about how i may or may not have clogged our toilet today and caused danny's brother brian to say (more than one time, possibly 8 times) "please please can you just call a plumber?? no don't get a snake, just oh please call a plumber????!"

see. maybe that's too personal. but you know what? i think i've made a decision.

THIS SHIT IS GONNA GET REAL YO.
why not. eff it. i think i have things to share from the perspective of a new mommy, a wife, a performer, and a generally goofy gal.

so, i have to figure out some things like how to cut and tape...wait, what? paste. paste i mean. and things like pealing pictures....wait, what? posting. posting pictures.

have some patience with me and i'll hope to give you at little diversion at times.
thank you friends.