i obsess.

badly-sprained toe-karma master strikes. for totally valid reasons.

May I recommend, as a seasoned experiencer of awful, semi(drunkenly)-predicted awfulness, that you avoid pronouncing your next injury on your blog?  BECAUSE THEN, IT WILL HAPPEN.  AND YOU WILL SAY, HOLYSHITTHATHURTS.

I am only trying to help.

As I have officially stubbed the bloody stuffing out of my toe.

I think it sort of went like this:

brain: "Time to pee."

ears: "Husband is showering in the pee room.  (How dare he.)  Wait a tic."

brain: "Ope!  The showering has ceased!  Get thee ready, loins and such, for peeing time to commence!"

ears: "Husband is insisting that we should get out of bed.  Let's excuse our seeming slothitude for our desperate need to pee, and having laid in wait to do so, post-showering in the pee-room.  Fingers, cross thyselves."

brain: "Ha!  He fell for it.  Also, wow!  Pee-time.  Also, ears, seriously?  Thyselves?  The middle-english pomposity has gotta go.  Plus I'm *pretty* sure it's "thineselves."  *whispers* losers."

ears: "Dude.  Brain.  Still heard that.  BECAUSE, WE'RE :: THE :: EARS.  Brain, you make us sad."

body: "Brain!  Ears!  Shut up!  We're at all systems go!  Can I get a second on that movement?"

ears, brain, grumbling unintelligibly together: "Yeah, sure.  Fine.  Whatever."

right pinky-toe: "Harumph.  Nobody ever asks ME whether I'm good with moving.  I get the shaft on an all-too-regular basis.  Screw those self-important assholes.  I'm staying put here in this dark, soft place where there's a cozy mini-bed-on-bed made entirely of dog hair commingled with coils of sproingles from head's topping.  So what if it's mostly gray and full of split ends?  Beats a cold, badly-in-need-of-washing faux-Italian-tile floor that's a little too slippery for bathrooms/other likely wetted-on-regular-basis spaces due to its fauxocity?  Yeah.  YEAH." right pinky-toe folds tiny, invisible arms obstinately across tiny, pink toe-chest

asshole: "Excuse me, right pinky-toe?  You talkin' to me?"

right pinky-toe: *weighs options, chooses to ignore asshole*

asshole: "I get so damn tired of everyone taking my name in vain.  Christ." shakes tiny, shrunken head, defeated

body: "Move it out!  Blankets up!  Legs overboard!  Torso lurch toward bathroom drunkenly!  Too nearly drunken for real!  Slow up!  Okay, good movement, everyone!  Keep it upppPPPPWHATHTHEFUCKJUST-OWWWWWWWWWWWCHHHHH" entire body slams down onto slimy faux-crackled tile, alive with pain reverberating from churlish pinky-toe

right pinky-toe: "Ha."

p.s. Right pinky-toe didn't exactly get the last laugh, given that it split its head wide open on the wall it smacked into, AND is either fractured or sprained.

See, RPT?  Nobody, NOBODY wins in these situations.  Least of all the bladder.  The bladder spent waaaay too long waiting for the mind-breaking pain to cease before it was allowed to unhinge itself.  I'd keep an eye peeled for bladder after this.  Because it is now UNHINGED.  AND TOWERS ABOVE YOU.  AT. ALL. TIMES.  Open wounds are easy to compromise.  Something bladder is rather TOO well aware of.   Why ARE you so aware, bladder?  Oh.  Uh.  What?  I was -- hahahhahahahh!  Just! Kidding!  Ahem.  *backs up as bladder slowly circles, menacing*

p.s. I think bleeding is a good, generic metaphor for -- other kinds of bleeding.  If you can dig it.  *wink, wink*  *sad, sad*

my parenting book proposal, entitled "How to Parent, by Asshole McSurvivor-Pants." (or: What Would McSurivor-Pants Do, With Fewer Tools and Far More Insanity")

You know what?  I'M gonna write a goddam parenting book, and it's gonna be about a thousand times better than that of the ilk of the current popular motherlode of parenting book writers.  And it isn't gonna be a nonstop ball-busting lecture of mammoth proportions that sticks in your craw just as you go to manage a situation, it's just gonna be lots of crappy illustrations with stick figures and gigantic, 42 pt. font, all bolded, that says shit like "JUST DON'T KILL ANYONE TODAY."  "REMEMBER TO AVOID DRIVING OFF OF OVERPASSES RATHER THAN CONTINUE DRIVING WHILE PEOPLE ARE SCREAMING THINLY AND FOR LENGTHY PERIODS IN THE REAR OF THE VEHICLE."  "REMEMBER THAT THE RANDOM SCREWDRIVER YOU KEEP IN THE GLOVEBOX AND IS ENCRUSTED WITH BITS OF FRENCH FRY FROM THAT TIME YOU TRIED TO USE IT TO SNATCH A DROPPED EARRING FROM THE ABYSS OF THE UNDER-THE-CARSEAT-MONSTER IS NOT TO BE, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, INSERTED INTO YOUR EAR IN AN ATTEMPT TO REFRAIN FROM LISTENING TO THIN, LENGTHY SCREAMING.  OR IF YOUR EAR ITCHES REAL BAD."

ETC.

yes.  etc.

And it isn't gonna tell you how you should avoid using a certain tone of voice when you explain things to your child, it isn't going to recite in sing-song fashion at you like a tome of ministerial wisdom based on the ages, that you ought to avoid thinly screaming yourself, or thickly screaming, or just screaming, or even yelling, it's just gonna talk about how, if you haven't shoved anyone today, YOU ARE KICKING ASS.  YOU ARE A WINNER.  A WINNER FOR THE LORD.  (that part is just filler.  everyone knows you're a winner for the lord even if you haven't checked the little box next to the "managed to avoid tripping certain members of your family in a malicious desire to laugh at them for no specific reason other than pure, pisen meanness."  obviously, if you've achieved the ability to trip for comedic purposes, you are beyond our knowledge and should be writing your own trope-enriched parenting book.  that we may or may not commit to reading, although, to your face, we will LIE LIKE SNAKES and insist that we'll read it over and over until we are dead.  just please don't trip us.  or shoot us in the butt with a bb gun.  -- um, bee bee gun?  oh, fuck it.)

So my parenting book is gonna sell like crazy, everyone will line up for miles to congratulate me for pointing out that parenting can't be instructed on, and that people who dole out advice on how to parent someone else's children deserve, at minimum, to be shot in the ass cheeks, nay, PEPPERED in the ass cheeks, with bee bees.  (mmm.  delicious, cold metal beeee beeees. *salivates*)

MY parenting book will be very positive, because it will cover the finer points of how to be proud of yourself for not shaking the shit out of your children each and every day that you manage to avoid doing it.  For not yelling at them every time you stub your own toe, and just want to shriek at someone else rather than experience that small but exquisite moment of pain without possessing a direction for the shriek, like, say, at the small people who were responsible for tripping you with their -- heeeeyyyy.

Oh.  SHIT.

have we?

 Have we achieved the zenith of the yin/yang eyebrow experience?  I want to know, in earnest, because I am TIRED of having to regret so regularly my lame choice in the nineties to imitate Drew Barrymore/et al in their pursuit of the heroine of Blue Angel (Marlene Dietrich, she of the quasi-invisible brows) and remove my above-eye hair half-moons of caterpillar-esque expressiveness.  I want to stop opening fashion magazines and be forced to confront my antique stupidity at the routine aspect of the lovely, lithe, fully-browed beauties gazing therefrom.   (The moon will wane, however, for them, too, because it was cool to have fat brows in the eighties, I know, and then they STOLE them from us ten short years beyond that, so WATCH THE FUCK OUT, little full-browed beauties, for they are coming, and they will be bearing tweezers, in about ten years.  Or so.)

HahahahahahHAHAHAHAHAHAHahahah.

Ahhh.

*sob*

i'd say it's about time to hang it up, if i could be certain it wouldn't make me begin posting furiously in response.

Which simply means I have an uncontrollable urge, on a constant basis, to behave like an adolescent. 

At best.

FUCK, I miss blogging.  I mean, I miss writing.  I don't miss what blogging has kind of become, for me, which is this nightmare of social obligation that I cannot uphold.

I care about the people I have met through interaction created as a result of my writing here, but I do not crave regular social interaction.  I'm not super-good or whatever at that shit.  I kind of hate having to be social.  Mostly, I want to be left alone.  Sometimes, of course, that's absolutely untrue, and I wish ardently to be flitting, mothlike, diaphanous, under a moonlit night, threading through a maddening crowd, smiling, looking fantastic, making the other moonlit creatures laugh at my insightful jokes based on the quantum theory of poo, and wisely gleeful at my sojourn through life as a young, beautiful, diaphanous creature drawn to that one low-hanging light over there in the corner, oh, life, how long and beautiful you will be, how I will remain lovely and fresh and dew-bedecked, how there will always be other young, diaphanous creatures to love and fuck and kiss and spurn and worship and laugh with and oh, how that light beckons, I must just sneak only the merest inch nearer, I must just peer into its wizened depths for but the smallest speck of an instant, so that it may whisper its glowing secrets to me and I will grow only more beautiful and young and life will open and become more wonderful and the sounds will deepen and all the world will spin in a constant WHAT THE FUCK JUST HAPPENED WHY DOES IT BURN??? OH GAHHHDD WHAT! WHY! WHO THE FUCK SHOT ME UP WITH THREE AMPULES OF ELECTRICAL METHODONE HOLY FUCKKKK!

Owwie!

That's how it feels, somehow, lately.

Now that I am no longer beautiful, I can say all of these things, because my life is no longer that of the one where what people think matters.

It does not.

And I am glad.  I am glad to know this part, this clarity, this growing clarity that brightens and brightens and stings and burns the retinas, although that could also very well be the pain my eyes give me now in this era of my time from looking too long and too well into the depths of a stupid-ass computer screen, and from other equally eye-beauty-thieving shit.  I mean, don't get me wrong, I could read/ogle glowing screens from here until my personal eternity has quit me, because I am a suckling wretch at the teat of technology, but I will not score any points in the eyeball-beauty arena.  It ain't easy on the eyes, is all I'm saying.

(Okay, that was weird.  I had to spend, just now, easily a good minute trying to relocate my finger-stance on the right side of the keypad because I'm still getting used to this ever-so-slightly-smaller keyboard on the new netbook I work on, and it felt sort of like senility, like I had never seen the keys of a typewriter before, I scrabbled my right fingers over them attempting to place myself, place my extended-digit-self on the pad, and it was like forgotten-yet-known and so - scary.  Should it have been scary?  I. don't. know.  Yes?  Sure.  What's right, what's wrong, when your hand cannot find purchase on the keys of your mind's table?

I'm gonna give myself fucking Alzheimer's at this rate.)

Oh, the scourge of needing to write, and knowing how trivial, in the end, the pursuit.

There is no rhyme, no reason, and I should be loathe to share this nonsense, this drivel, and in point of fact I am, but I am compelled.  I am fire, I am heat, I am this stream of syllable and pronoun, and all while I whisper, faint, at night, late at night, when no one cares to listen, when I am shush and tuneless and all keyed up, and I turn disquieted on the spit in my steadily-deepening bed-coffin, there, in the night, I am burning it into my own little soul that I will never, no, never, write the things that matter, the epics, the torrid novels, the novellas, the pamphlets, there will be no great production, I will not matter, in this historic river I will not be trumpeting from the heights, I will be small and quiet and my voice will crack slowly and break into crumby bits that will not even float downward into the rocky crevasse and remain, stubborn, black, but instead dissolve, a foam of gentling acquiescence slipping out to sea.

I love these late-night rhythms of blur and tangy oblong heady chopped-up soups I whip up out of a child's purple cracked-plastic bucket filled with dark stars and cold, wet sand and dreams eddied into these arms, these fingers-of-brain that tell me stories when I cannot dream, cannot conjure my own dreams, am dreamless as I am currently barren, as I stroke my fingers down the length of the cave's walls and find etchings that remind me of a time so long ago that nothing hurts there, it is all wine-dark and wet and cool and there are gentle whispers of breeze along my forearms and about my neck, eliciting shivers that remind me I would prefer to go inside to the rickety rented house and away from the cold, but not quite yet.  Not yet.  Not when the chill and the stars and wine-darkness can cajole me with their guilty asides.

I long to know what they would tell me, but I am too impatient.  I must run inside!, now, and huddle close in a dog-hair-bedecked blanket, one that does not quite cover me, and I must choose between wrapping it around my neck while my feet dangle, bare, chilled, outside its snug embrace, or giving my feet its shelter and leaving my neck and shoulders naked and forlorn.

The hot cocoa is delicious but it burns my lip and is short-lived in its intoxicating splendor.  Why is nothing what it promises?

Oh, what I wouldn't give for the perfect cup of cocoa.  The one that is bottomless and hot but not stinging.

Fingers-for-brains, what say ye?  To bed, to curl up in crone-shapes and remind me of my pending death (which may be ages from now, but what's in an age, you fucking wretched bits of flesh and bone and sinew and shaped so very like the fingers of my forebears, that you would remind me of my own brief fling with this flesh fresh-that-is-not-fresh-and-grows-less-so-by-each-tick-tick-tick?  Hmmm?  Callous.  You're all callous as fuck)?

Obama's on Leno.  Tivo just winked on, but it can seriously fuck itself.  It cheated me out of a new episode of The Office tonight, and for that I will curse it roundly before allowing it to worm its pathetic way back into my life tomorrow at some stupidly weak point, preferably in the afternoon and we've gone and had some decent form of exercise and I can give myself the admirable excuse of having exercised our bodies adequately in order to feed on tivo's meager offerings for a few slices of hour.  Fucking tivo.  Ugh.  Tivo doesn't even deserve a capital letter at its front, the wretched brain-miser.  I could write things, you know, you beast, if I weren't slaving for you, panting to make my way to you and fall captive to your nightly spells of pithy, neatly encapsulated 22- and 44-minute dreams.

God.  What would Hemingway have to say about tivo.  Would we even know?  Would Hemingway have managed to escape its hungry maw?

I'm fascinated to ponder that.  I have to believe he, as well as my other literary heroes, would have stayed just out of reach of the miserable brain-eating machines.

Better me than them.  I am the martyr.  Yes.  Look to me so that ye may be saved from the existence of watching anything and everything your television shows you so that you do not prescribe thoughtful thinking on your porr, beleaguered brain.

I will bear that crass, er, cross, for you.

(I don't really think it's necessary to say anything.  It's cool.  I got you.  It's all me.  I got this one, baby.  I got this.  That's just how I do.)

making people remember why they avoid this blog like a suspicious stain.

Would you please stop sending me telepathic requests for posts that I don't have it in me to write?  I feel terrible about it, really.  Honest.  But my stomach hurts when I try to consider it.  And that's not my fault. 
It's yours.

It's also kind of the result of 2+ helpings of the chicken-with-rice dish I made tonight that's kind of a bastardized version of a Brasilian dish I used to love when I lived there, a regional (i.e., state of Minas Gerais, a state below Brasilia, the country's capital, and inland about ten hours' drive from Rio) recipe that I sort of make kind of correctly.  As far as memory serves.  (... !! ... ??? .)  There's this amazing sauce that accompanies it, called vinagrete, it's kind of a salsa but with vinegar as a base, and parsley instead of cilantro, plus red bell pepper that you mix with the onion, garlic, tomato, salt and pepper.  The only side dish is refried beans, which I would normally make from scratch because they're prepared differently in Brasil than in Mexico, but I forgot until the last minute and had to pick some up from the store -- *shrug*.  Similar-ish enough.

Did you want something from me?  Because that's all I've got.  I tried to collate all the addresses from everyone who said they want a private password for when I private-up for a few, but my computer crashed and I took that as a sign from god to suggest that I should not be near my computer.  Which is why I'm here, only not trying to do the email-collating thinger, since that would've probably gotten me nowhere close to anything resembling progress.  This all looks a lot more progress-y.  That said, I still want to private up but by the flaming hand of gilgamesh, how do I make myself try and go through all that rigamarole again?  It vexeth me.

Whatever.

Anybody wanna be my secretary?  GOD that sounds sexy.  Just the idea of having a secretary makes me so hot.

Which is funny, because I'm kind of freezing.

drowning Batman.

Jack:  "I'm dwowning Batman, mommy!  Wookit!  Wookit him drowning, go down, down, down into the deep, deep, deep bottom of da tub, mommy, see he's dwowning, mommy?"

me:  "Why is he drowning, though?  Batman's a superhero, honey.  He doesn't have to drown.  He could survive - he usually does, in fact."

Jack: "But no, mommy!  He's gonna dwown.  He's gonna hafta dwown, I think.  Batman's dwowned."

me:  "Is this because the fish were drowned yesterday and they died?  Is that why Batman's drowning?"

Jack:  "Yeah.  He's dwowning just like the fish."

me:  "Maybe Batman could play with that shark instead of drowning?  Maybe he could play with the shark and the polar bear?"

Jack:  "No!  Batman and the shark can NOT play together, mommy.  They are NOT friends."

me:  "Why can't they be friends?"

Jack:  "Because they're people, mommy, and people aren't friends."

me: (choking down laugh) "People aren't friends, Jack?"

Jack:  "No, mommy, they aren't.  They're just people.  And they sometimes just aren't friends."

As he sing-songed to himself afterward, I contrived to think of something, a vignette, maybe, that I could include with this, to write it as a post that referred to something else, something bigger, that could make the point so I wouldn't have to even comment on it. Which I sort of decided would be too easy.  Kind of a cop-out.  After all - the worst part of having that conversation is trying to determine any of its meaning.  Realizing, as I do, that there could be so many interpretations.  And each of them would be utter crap.  Because he doesn't even know what he meant by any of it, and when I ask him in several years about its significance, he'll not remember. 

And, yes, I will ask him.  It's the kind of annoying thing I do.

My mother would agree with that statement.

flavors!

There's two kindsa crazy, yo*; there's the "I can kinda dig this shiz" brand, and the "Wooooaaah.  Slow it down, there, Nelly," variety.

I think we both know which kind I am right now.

And I think we both know why you aren't sitting in my lap, petting my hair, and feeding me chocolate-flavored-whiskey as a result.

p.s. With all of the appointments I suddenly have scheduled to see both my therapist and my psychiatrist, you'd think I was a) popular and b) rich.  Turns out, I'm *not* Cindy McCain; rather, my husband called and reported that I was, uh, unwell.  Somehow, this alarmed them enough to see me now, rather than in the middle of November.  Cancellations all over the place!  Blowing up like my teenaged-neighbor's celly, yo!

It's so funny.  It's so funny that, once my husband informed them that I might seriously wish to kill myself, they're ALL. ABOUT. ME.

Why not before, though?  When I made all those calls to get appointments?  And even went to some of them (the ones I remembered)?  Why not then?  Why didn't they see it then?

I guess I do an adequate job of covering up the crazy?

(Well, not if you read me on twitter this evening.  But -- never mind that.  Sigh.  I blame the box o' wine.

Okay, and maybe also the crazy.)

*I will allow that, in fact, there may be more than two varieties of crazy.  But, for the above argument, it worked nicely.  Let's just leave it there for now, shall we?  Thank you.  YOU are divine.  And lovely.  And deserving of chocolate-flavored-whiskey.  I'll be sure to feed you some just as soon as I get back in the saddle.

yay?

I got the job.  So that's good.

On the other hand, we still have to sell the house.

Also, I'm supposed to interview Oregon's soon-to-be Senator, Jeff Merkley, on Friday.  It's a phone interview, so I'm not super-panicked, but still.

Maybe one of you who's kinda good with the words wanna, um, lend me your head for an hour?  We could trade.  It'd be funny.  You could be all, lookit me!  I'm a dummy!, and annoy the shit out of everyone you work with.  Or just scare your toddler to bits.  Me, I could be smart and engaging and on it and know all my questions inside-out and sound really, really articulate and coherent and brilliant.  Look at what you could be doing for me.  No!  Not for me!  For Oregon!  For the future of our country!   For humankind!

I'll be waiting to see whose head is ready to sit on my shoulders in a few days.  Just, you know, be prepared for the eventuality that I may not give it back.

xo Deb

my three year old has bludgeoned me with his energy.

So, turns out that a birthday party involving a bunch of almost-pre-schoolers (starting in September, ohmygodsomeoneholdme) can totally hand several adults their asses in terms of the fiery spinning and singing and screaming and running and chasing and throwing and door-slamming and crazed, human tornado-ish-ness. 

As I support an ice-pack to the brow with what remains of my personal verve, I offer a funny thing.  (You like funny things.  You do.  I know you do.  You've said so.  I think.)

Don't be insulted.  Just laugh.  It's funny.

(I've totally checked my objectivity in really, really exhausted land, and mean no offense to any particular ethnic group.  It's just - language/culture barriers are funny.  Right?

Oh, god.  My funny bone has split on me.

Fuck it.)

what it's like when you have a disability but can't get assistance because you forget to call because of the disability:

I'm on hold but it's already afterhours for the mental health triage for Kaiser and I have a feeling I should've tried to call maybe slightly earlier than I did, which was, hilariously, right at five o' clock.  You know.  Quittin' time.  So, basically, I nailed la hora solid.

What I want to know is this:  after I get the help I need, and b'lieve you me, I need it, N.E.E.D., should I write a book about my ADHD experiences?  Now don't you all (hee!  I said "you all," like there are more than three of you reading) kiss my ass and say, sure, honey, you should do it!, sure's shootin', don't just blow a bunch of hot air at me; tell me if you think there might be someone who would benefit from my semi-horrific collection of disarranged, colossally messy life puzzle pieces, none of which fit together in any coherent fashion.

Or, conversely, tell me if you think that, oh, poor dear, she really *is* a big, sodden, ridiculous mess (and please take note of my having deliberately NOT described myself as a fierce, hot tranny mess, b/c I am simply not that interesting anymore, people), and she just needs to find somewhere quiet where she can whisper to herself and rock out in her kewl granny chair.

Book?  Or whispery chair scenario?

It all starts here, people.  IT. ALL. STARTS. HERE.  (It also all falls out of my ear, or ass, depending on your pov, or maybe quite possibly where you're standing, in which case, I apologize and -- you're right.  Absolutely no more beans/beer at the same time.  Scout's honor.)

Dweedle deedle dee!

word of the day.

Gotcha!  There is no word of the day!  But you looked.  And I used exclamation points accordingly, as one should, when one is expected to produce and, realizing that the drawer full of "brightly imaginative" is tapped, finds oneself doing a silly jig instead.

I could do the jig with my clothes off and maybe while holding hands with jesus and THEN maybe you'd be innarested.  But I suppose, since you pepeol jus wont be sated wwith antyhign less, i'll have to jig sans vestments and since i *obiuvsouly* cant produuce jesus to be teh fred adstair to my giner, you will just have to acept GIN as his standin.

Which, no pobrlm, ive had alredady some of.  And i will now commnence the jizg.

Whee!

Didja like it?

Was it all thata you had hopped for?

Goodm.

wanst some gin?

itsh good to.

yyum.  *licks inside botttle for resth7*

i can kance, um,m dance again if you want.  i had thiaz really awsmoeme dream abuout how when i saw, um, when i wasz a shripper, i used to get upset when the polae waz too slickh, becasue my hands go tall clalmmy whne I'm tyrifng to do thingfs like climbs rocks or polkes, heh polka i can't do that dance., wher whas i.  i had a dream about climb ing pokes, no, poles, DAMMIT KEYOBARD, sotp messing up wat im tring ot say.  i was dreamignas bout working hte pole and how much i prefered a less slick surface, the brass onesz wer sucked, the more indrstrial kindas were boss, because amy nands coudl stick to it better.

and its was greate, my dream because i realy woredd the pole fierce ilke a fiecre hot trany messz.

mk gona go laya domn,, now.

hopee you had a goood time watchgmi me do the pokla.

plseeae close youre dor onna way ou.t

*whipeser8* thxnkmsa ou, i llove yo.mu, your rad.  m sognna be sichk now shhhhh

p.s. GREATEST HITS CLASSIC!, in case you actually arrived here hoping for something that dwelled somewhere within the realm of substance. 

emotions, allow me to introduce surface.

Oh, hi, Surface!  Nice to meet you - again!  I mean, I'm assuming we've met before.  I feel like we must have, even though I totally can't remember.  Whatev.

Wouldn't you love it, Surface, if you and I could somehow form a permanent bond, so that whenever we meet, we don't have to be reintroduced?  Somehow, every time that happens, there's this surprising pain that Nervous System has to manage.  It's surprising because, well, there's that whole *ahem* (whispers) issue with Memory.  Yes.  I know, issue is being overused these days.  I didn't think that sort of thing bothered you too much, Surface.  I thought you were disaffected.  Cool.  Etc.  And I have this spidey-tingle that says you're about to launch into a long, tedious explanation as to why that's not true and cite several examples and precedents and DUDE, stop pretending to be a barrister.  Yeah.  I said barrister.  It's cooler.  You know that when you're not playing your never-knew-from-cool tired-ass bit.  But.  Back to what I was saying - about Memory having kind of sucked, well, all along?  It's not our fault Memory's so bad at her job.  Why we should have to endure this repeated pretense at not knowing one another?, and why Nervous System has to continually fend off the bouts of pain that result is totally stupid and illogical.  Which brings me to Logic.  Where has Logic even BEEN all this time?  Logic spends more time vacationing than anything, and is conspicuously absent on these recent bitter-cold, rain-soaked days, just when we need her support the most.  God!  This!  Sucks!

I have to go, Surface.  I promised Velvet-Lining-of-Chest Tucked-Inside-Inner-Depths-of-Soul I'd be back by lunch.  We're having toasted cheese and tomato soup.  Don't worry.  I'm sure you'll get some.  I'd just rather not have to watch, is all.  You eat like a mad cow.

Anyway, relax.  We'll meet again soon.  Don't start sobbing.  God.  You'd think you were Emotions.  Sure.  You can call me E. 

Just don't you fucking DARE call me Emo.

or, you know, okay, i could completely disagree with myself.

I've said so many dumb things in my years playing a human being here on this planet that I'm not surprised to catch myself out having said one more dumb thing.

For instance, I've now switched stances wholeheartedly from what I just posted about ignoring the network media, although not so much about ignoring them, but mainly ignoring the suggestion that McCain's winning because he's no longer having to struggle with another candidate for the nomination, while Barack and Hillary are still in a heated contest.  Rather, what this dude says:

Matchups Against McCain Will Suffer

Expect Clinton to start closing the general election performance gap on Obama, but not necessarily gain on McCain. I have long argued that whoever has the monentum in the primary campaign will always perform better in the general election. For the next several weeks, neither Clinton nor Obama will have momentum in the primary campaign, but McCain probably will. As our campaign gets nastier and remains somewhat inconclusive, there is a good chance McCain will gain on both Clinton and Obama.

I dislike eating my words, because they taste narsty, but I'll do it.  Bleah.

(Mainly, I just DON'T want this to be true! - I don't want to see the Dems infight to the point that we can't win the election in November - we are only hurting ourselves with this crap.  Hill and B DO just need to have a thumb-wrestling match and call it, already.  And we know they won't.  And it makes my head hurt.)

this is when i begin squirming subtly while smiling in an awkward fashion.

So, all that brouhaha I stirred up about the paint and other make-up of the toddler trike?  I suppose I should try to keep it in mind for future reference, because the truth of the matter is this:

I.e., that my son's utter, unabashed joy over receiving his first shiny, red bicycle (okay, it's a trike, but you be the one to explain that to him, 'cause I don't really have the energy) is outweighing my concern over whether he'll spend large portions of time licking its probably lead-soaked alluring red exterior.

Thank you, Grandpa Jeff.  The recipient is satisfied beyond words.  He'd prefer to sleep with it, but is settling for just sitting on its well-curved black seat for most of the day as second-best.

And Gwen and Mignon?  Your told-you-so's are more than earned.

I'm cool with it.

5 a.m. logic.

After Caleb did the 2 a.m. potty trip with J, the one where he wanted to sit vacantly on the toilet after he'd finished going, for an indefinite period, and Caleb got a little short with him about that desire, I woke blindly at 5 a.m. to the screaming shrew that is our toddler.  I insisted that, with eyes burning and shoulder achy from too much time sitting weird while watching stored-up Scrubs episodes from the last few months last night, not to mention past the old bedtime (whydoIdoitwhy), he'd better go back to sleep, NOW, or I was going to shut his door (the deal we've worked out recently in order to keep him from sobbing after bedtime has finally, adamantly, arrived).  He kept sobbing.  I stumbled toward his room and stayed true to my word, shutting both his door *and* ours.  Nothin' doin'.  He continued screaming.  (This was after we'd already gone through the litany of issues that might have woken him up, with his scratchy-throated, wobbly "noooo" bleated out after each item was asked; "Do you need to go potty?"  "noooo."  "D'you need to change your pants?  Is your bed wet?"  "nOooooOo."  "Are you thirsty?  Do you need a glass of water?"  "NOOOooooOO."  "Is this retro-active payback for what you may require in psychoanalyzation as an adult thanks to our current parenting behaviors?"  "NOooo."  And so on.) 

A few minutes later, as the screaming hoarsely continued, I blurrily reminded Caleb to ignore it.  He was obviously managing that just fine, because he responded in the almost-asleep voice that it was not a problem.  Seconds later:  snore.  You know.  The usual.  Meanwhile, my heart began accelerating its rhythm, because I always get kinda pissy when he can fall asleep so fast and so easy after so much disruption, and because, well, there was the fucking screaming happening, still, so I waited a little longer and then stomped over to the door.  Caleb snapped awake and tried to caution me to be nice.  I was, sorta, if you think of sotto-voce as nice.  I mean, I do, especially at 5 in the morning. 

Anyway, I beligerently tossed his door open, kneeled down next to his little bed, and said, in a nice, quiet voice, "J.  Listen to mommy." 

"Oh." 

"Now, you need to stop crying or later today?  You're going to stay in your room in the morning.  You won't get to go downstairs and play, and you won't get to go in the living room and play with any of the ornaments on the tree, and you'll just stay in here.  That's it.  Nothing else.  Because it's only 5 in the morning.  We're not getting up right now, you're not going to play downstairs right now, it's still the middle of the night.  Time to go back to sleep.  Unless you keep crying.  Then you'll just be in here, with the door shut.  Do you want that?" 

"Blow my nose?" 

"Sure."  And I offered the lower portion of my t-shirt for him to honk good and loud into.  He did it twice.

"Are you all done crying, now?  Should I leave the door open?"

"'Course, mommy.  Leave it open, peese."

"'k.  G'night.  Go back to sleep."

"'Course, mommy."

And I shuffled back to bed, feet cold, stomach colder where the snotty part of the shirt clung to my torso.

Climbed in under the covers, husband already softly snoring again, and thought about how weird it was; that I could be so quasi-mean to my son about his potential punishment, even feeling like it was mean as I proposed it, listening to myself sort of shocked that I could say something so like what I remember hearing about kids being trapped in rooms, all day, every day, fed scraps, clothes unchanged, *abused*.  Granted, I knew that this was simply a proposed extended time-out, and that I didn't really mean it, because I knew, just knew, he'd not call my bluff.  But what if he had?  What if he'd continued to cry, what then?  Would I have insisted angrily on his remaining in his room for the morning?  Is that like jailing a toddler?  And when I know my husband would have most likely balked at my trying to enforce what I'd said (because I try to stick to what I say I'm going to do, for the sake of consistency, even though it's sometimes a little on the, let's face it, batshit-crazy end of the spectrum)?

I'd be lying if I didn't find the whole thing kinda funny, though, as I was drifting back toward pretty, pretty sleep.  I wouldn't have to follow through on the jail-time, and it worked, my threat, and still.  I had a belly coated with snotty goo to attest to my being -- normal?  Tired?  A real parent?

Oh, I know.  Finally done with my hipster phase.

*******

Just re-read this and I can't resist adding that I read between the lines more than the lines themselves, and boy, is it enlightening.  For one thing, it's pretty obvious that J probably didn't give a crap what the content of my lecture was when I went in there, rather, he was happy to have my soft, quiet voice playing close to his ear, getting to blow his nose, receiving the little pat on the back and, finally, a nice blanket readjustment from mom.  He probably didn't even think about what I was saying.

So much for my getting all caught up in that part of it.  gah.  So typical.

of tummy-ache and ginger tea and -- oh, realllly.

I had a vicious tummy-bug (doesn't that sound so much adorable-r than "gastroenteritis") take me down on my birthday, which was Sunday, and I had cute-as-a-button fevers and, while I did no vomiting, my bottom(ing, keeping within the cute theme, 'cause rhyming is cute, it *is*) will not be the same as it was for some time.  And my tummy is sore from all the precious spasms.  Plus I'm sick to death of flavorless food, i.e., dry toast, rice, bananas, and some applesauce thrown in which actually *did* keep things kinda interesting, also, I put (ooooh!) peanut butter on my toast a few times for protein and 'cause I think I might have had to hurl the toast away, with my arm, not my throat, but anyway.  Fun!  Which, shame on me, I shouldn't mock the process, because I blew it on Tuesday night, since, even though I was still in the throes of misery, I ate the delicious, mind-blowingly good fried latkes Caleb made for the first night of Chanukah, and then?  I had seconds.  I'm officially retarded.  No offense to special-needs people.  I'm serious.  They are all smarter than me.  I mean it.  I rate low on the brain-possession scale when I pull such stunts.  Which is why I paid dearly yesterday.  A damnably tepid day on the eating front in my world.  And that is something that pangs me, because food really does = one of the best things in life, I believe.  I'm not exactly a foodie, because I can't cook worth beans (heh) but I likee the eatee part.  Lots.

But my birthday was fine, Caleb and the kid sang the song and the kid helped me blow out the candle on my cupcake, selected from the ones that he and Dad made, so that ruled, and all the people I love called and sent cards and emails and wrote on my facebook wall and stuff.  I'm learning more and more that it's what means the most to me, those people just leaning in through the doorway for a minute and saying, "Hi!  Happy!  Love!"  So.  I'm getting cornier than ever in my wizening age.  Sweet.

Sweet.  Something I'm not, lately.  I'm more just "stress ball of yarn wound tighter than all of the press secretaries for the current presidential administration put together," which almost sounds more exciting than it is.

I've been unable to blog about my parenting, no, wait, let me start over.  I'm unable to blog about my son, more and more, as he gets older, because I'm feeling more and more guilt and frustration and have no idea how to reveal that to people without feeling like I'm doing it wrong, doing it badly, with no redemptive anything, and am so afraid that people will criticize me, or worse, call the authorities and remove my son.  Even though most of my logic says that is just silly, really, silly as can be, there's a teeny part that says, don't give up the goods, bitch.  Don't tell people what you're doing, not in black-and-white, because then the evidence is all there.  Shhhhhh.  If you're gonna be a horrible mother, don't broadcast it, for FUCK'S sake. 

(Hi, Mom [in-law]! *waves*  Don't be horrified by this stuff!  I always pour my soul out on my blog like this!  It's how I manage to keep it from driving me to drink.  Heh.  That was funny.  *pours another cocktail*  That was another joke.  I make a lot of jokes about being an alcoholic/drug-addicted/actor-type-person here.  No worries.  I would never, ever, ever, *ever* become an actor.  So breathe easy.  Wanna shot of tequila?  Damn.  Bottle's empty.  Neversmicnd.)

I wish I could just be honest, like Kristen and Lotta, who do it with humor, panache and pistol-smart talent, because it must be so emotionally cleansing to unload about how things really are as a parent, and I want to do it, but it feels scary, so instead I turn the loaded gun I carry on my own fleshy ghost and shoot, shoot, shoot away.  I'm positively, no, negatively riddled with wounds of my own making at the moment, because I'd rather manage the pain I've caused myself than this messy, unbounded emotional swamp made up of moments where I've done or said something involving my son that I regret.  Regret because I fear.  I fear that he'll be harmed, irreparably, and okay I'm a cliche, I'm the mom that everyone says, don't be silly, we *all* fuck our kids up, I'm just going to pool my money with my friends, like Nora's friend and I had a laugh over this morning at the daycare doorway, because when they're grown up we can pay for group therapy for them (cheaper when you buy in bulk, right?).  I'm not laughing inside, though, and neither is she, neither are any of us.  It's horribly hard, it's horribly scary, I don't want, and neither does anyone else want, our kids to develop scars and permanent wounds that they

can't help but develop or experience and WHY can't I get past that thought of a sudden?  I've done nothing but tell myself that he'll have to run into things and fall off of things and he'll have scars and he'll have experiences and he'll have stories, and I was totally okay with that, I really have been massaging my own back for the last two+ years, convincing myself he'll need these things in order to have a full, rich childhood, but why in the motherFUCKING world did I forget that it applied to the emotional as well as the physical?

Wow.  I've been beating up on MYSELF, beating up on myself because I want to keep him from feeling those beatings, those emotional bruises and scars, and I just. can't. stop. it. from. happening.

He's going to be hurt, scarred even, not necessarily by me, but by life.

Oh.  Oh, but, god, it's one thing to say that what-doesn't-kill-you-makes-you-stronger over and over and OVER to yourself from the time you first hear it as a twenty-three year old until right this second and onward, ever onward, into the misty, gray future over that hill, but SHIT, no, I can't can't I can't let him have to oh, god.

I hate this being a parent so much more than I thought I would.  I hate that he will hurt.  I hate that he's already hurting.  Necessarily so.  Because that's our fucking plight. 

I know.  There's beauty.  There is absolute, stunning, breathtaking beauty and light and joy in this life, and I see it in his face, I hear it in his raspy, sweet voice when he shouts at the sight of lights strung along rooftops and when he spies a bird tunneling skyward, when he smells cookies or bread baking or hears music and, enchanted, dances wildly, hands in fists and a crazed grin on those little-boy cheeks, and I delight in those moments.

Shit.  This shit is hard.  It's so hard.  I love him more than I ever thought possible, and that love makes everything so hard.

Well, at least now I've solved my health riddle.  I think I'm getting an ulcer.

somebody oughtta slap me.

I get not one, not two, but *three* good things in one fell swoop.  This after bearing no deserving mark of any kind, and instead, earning merely a box on the ear.  Or three.  For one thing, I wrote that lame, whine-encrusted post earlier, and now I have brand-new, perfect, hump-able countertops in snow-white (the color is, in fact, named "blizzard") manufactured quartz.  They are, well, they're making me breathless.  And not just because of the epoxy used to adhere their sleekness to the cabinets.  Although that may have something to do with my spinning head, and not just the beauty. 

The second thing was that I screeched more at my poor, sweet puppy-muffin this morning, in a vain attempt to quell my anger over things that are out of reach of my clutching, dried fingers, because she leapt onto my bed while the countertop installers were here and I'd trapped her into our bedroom to keep her from pestering them with her overly-personal greetings (she *is* a dog, but still -- it's rude, the crotch-sniffing, if you're not a dog; people don't like it, and by people, I most certainly mean me).  Afterward, as I was cleaning the surface of the bedcovers with a rolly-tape-thingy one uses to remove dog hair from clothes, and in my case, many, many other random surfaces that are probably not what its intended use is for, not that I'll let that stop me in my endless search-and-destroy mission re: the dog detritus within our living space; I realized that, in terms of her cost-benefit ratio, Ella is mostly all +s, with the only negative being that she sheds enough to build a new planet constructed entirely of her shedded material and it drives my crazy just that much crazier.  Well, and she can be whiny if within 100 yards of a tennis ball, but that's pretty much it.  Otherwise, she's a pet amongst pets, and with the prettiest, softest brown eyes I've ever peered into, and guess what that dollfaced dog did for me, just a few minutes later?  While I tried to vacuum the stairs, but instead encountered a spider bigger than my hand walking, yes, WALKING down the stairs, because it *could*, I suppose, but then.  Oh, my, yes, then.  I summoned SHE.  And she came.  And the spider stopped walking, and froze.  It knew.  And I said to her, Ella?  C'mere, girl!  C'mere, sweetie!  And she wagged, and smiled, and ran up and down the stairs, until I pointed, shaking, at that thing.  And she stopped.   And pointed at it.  Until I said, Ella.  GET.  IT.

And she did.

And I love her.  She is my shining, white dog in furry, shedding armor. 

Do you think eight treats is too many?  Do you think I'll regret my choice to reward her thusly at a later point, say, this evening, when her anal glands begin firing a round of fishy bullets into the air? 

Probably.  But, hell.  Girl-sweet-face deserved it.  I couldn't have done anything but wait for the end of time, or my husband, whichever came first, shivering low in a corner while the spider circled me, ever closer, its fangs dripping.  *ewwwww*

And the third thing.  The thing that has already provided me with much commingled shame and embarrassment, because my ADHD is in full dudgeon today, what with the kitchen stuff all happening, both good and bad, and the spider-attack, and the epoxy-sniffing, and my burgeoning appointment with the therapist where I have to disclose that the medication thing was a bomb, and now we have to talk about it and I have to describe things and finish sentences and try to avoid crying, all on one measly cup of coffee and zero food because that would require my doing dishes in the bathtub and I'm holding out until the dishwasher's installed, tomorrow, and don't look at me like that because you'd do the same thing, and you know this. 

Um.  There was supposed to be a third thing included in that last paragraph, somewhere.  Did it make it in there?  Can anyone else look?  I'm afraid to.  I can't remember quite where I mentioned the part about the spider-attack and I tremble at those words so I can't look back or I'll turn into a salt-lick for spiders to trod upon.

So Jozet gave me this award and I don't deserve it and I lost control of my bowels all over her comments section because I have no control over anything, ever, but especially in the face of being honored by someone so - someone whose abilities defy description, in the better/bigger-than-life category.  So.  I feel bashful and unworthy and thankful. 

And I'll write another post later about who I'm passing the award to, plus the pretty button will be revealed, which will hopefully prompt me to belatedly post the other buttons I've been given in the last few months but I keep forgetting to do it, and I apologize deeply to the givers, for I have dissed thee, please forgive.  Please. 

But first I have to run or I'll be late to my appointment for ADHD, a thing that causes tardiness, among other resulting disastrous effects.

Sweet.

maybe i should just twist shrink-wrap around my head.

Then I wouldn't have to bother with therapy.  And that would be a relief. 

Not that I don't love and adore talking about myself on and on, ad naseum, because, oh lordy, but do I ever.

It's just - oh, hell.  I feel as though I've been down this road so many goddamn times already.  Though, of course, not as a parent, which is truly what is taking me back down the avenue of "uh-hum, and why do you think that is?" (and other equally vague, mind-numbingly frustrating statements spoken through pursed lips of that ilk).

So much is surfacing right now, as we paint and paint and tear out and remove and visit the hardware store enough times to know many of the employees on sight, and receive sometimes-daily visits from the electrician and the general contractor, and write checks for obscene amounts of money for ridiculously exciting things like furnaces and flooring and cabinets (because, yes, we're throwing in that trite, hole-ridden towel on salvaging the cabinets, the object of so much back-and-forthing and hemming/hawing that has borne witness to my varied attempts to remove the paint and nasty, inches-deep stains of god-knows-what on both the insides and the outsides of the old kitchen cupboards, where I've removed more flesh than paint, and revealed more ugly soul-worms and sundry other unpleasant spiritual nastiness in the process).  Also, we've done some painting, and there's been the fun of J's massive anxiety over having started daycare part-time, it's been tough on him, all of this, and I want to sympathize, but I also need the sanity that results from a little time to work on all the jobs I've got and not be forced to do so during his incredibly-shrinking naptimes and after he's in bed, when I'd prefer to do things like, oh, sleep, and relax, and have five minutes of conversation with my husband that is not limited to child rearing or home repairs or the business or money or other similarly bloody fucking I'd-rather-die-now-please topics of hellish soul-sucking pleah. 

Don't get me wrong.  I heart our new home.  I will heart it much more when it resembles our home and not a factory for broken dreams.  Which is currently its state.  Ai.  Seriously.  Kill me now.

But, no, please don't, because I'm gonna git fixed, I'm going to the doctor, and I'm gonna get heaaaalthy, going to the doctor and I'm gonna get heaaaalthy.  Gonna get me some focus, is what I'm fixing to do.  Gonna get me some brain-glue.  Kick that frontal lobe in the balls.  Til it pukes.  I'm gonna toss it in the horse's water barrel, and then make it drink eight pots of rocket-fuel-coffee.  And spit in its eye.  Hear that, frontal lobe?  Get ready for head to roll.  (Ha.  I'm really just that amusing.  Say you're amused.  Amazed?  Amassed?  Amorous?  Ambiguous?  Ambidextrous?  Amicable?  Amorphous?  Amway?  Uh.)

The stuff that's really been busting up through the top of my skull these last few work-y days is my history in regards to le burlesque.  Now that I've uncorked the bottle, it's all pushing up, crowding through the neck all together, loud and crackly.  I can barely keep it all sorted, in fact I can't really at all, and I want to find some time and a wee corner in which to seat myself and write write write 'til my hand cramps in the weird claw that I'm becoming familiar with of late, but when?  And it wants to be written, I'm feeling it in my jaw and the itch is strong, when?  And one of the weirder aspects of this nascent push to purge the shivery, black scrawl of words is that I'm seeing them again, seeing them everywhere, the women who I know have had racy histories of their own, only, am I imagining it again?  Like I used to do, when I knew in my bitty bones that so many bands had written certain lyrics with shamelessly racy burlesque babes in their heads as inspiration?

So if you're offended and must skulk off, permanent-like, I will do my best to keep my head up and write it despite the disappearance of people I've grown so accustomed to in this layer of world (kind of like one of the filling layers in a cake, really - raspberry-jam).

I have to keep my head up, keep writing it, keep prodding the frontal lobe, fixing, working, toiling, laboring.

I owe it to - myself?  Sure, yes, for today, that's who I owe.

(Although for the rest of the week I've gotta toil for the other joints.  Bummer.  I really long to press the words into place on pages, make their lacy shapes appear lest I forget them, in permanent displays of equal parts silliness and horrific stupidity and shambles and shams I'm such a sham.  I'll be at it for a long while despite that wretched truth, something tells me.  I wish it would shut up.)

please understand.

You guys know why I don't comment much, right?  Or why I barely even make my way to anybody's blog, ever, at all, even on the rare occasion?

(This is where you tell me it's okay and pat my back and walk away, thinking, what a needy mess.)

Anyway, I was attempting to reverse that whole business a little bit in the last few days, and I not only read many good posts, I even got a chance to comment a little.  Mind you, I shouldn't have been doing so.  I have work to do.  There's a job, which = actual money, sitting on my desktop immediately beneath this very open mozilla window full of my blog's business.  I've adroitly ignored it for the last two and a half days.  I won't make excuses, though.  I just -- needed to see some of you.  It's pretty selfish of me, given my current life situation.  But I had to know how you all are.

I found out some amazing things.  I read Mrs. Chicky's interview in the Boston Herald, pride rippling through me, face beaming, as I scrolled down.  I lingered over Ruth's and BubandPie's and Jana's accounts of summer, regret interlaced with pleasure because our summer has so little resembled their experiences.  (I'm sorry, baby boy - next summer will not be this -- harried?  Rushed?  Ugly?)  I made the usual leap from giggling to sighing to teary-eyed (corny but true) while reading another in the very long line of beauteous, vision-inducing, literature-worthy posts by Binky.   I felt moved by Suebob's meta-discussion about comments, and Mrs. Chicky's excellent addition to the conversation. 

Mostly, though, I experienced a deep sadness for this horrid business of the growth (brazen!) of our children.  While reading Mama Tulip's complex, lovely post about her son's second birthday.  Slouching Mom's depth of feeling for her sons in the many tributes to their acceleration through life.  Wordgirl's explanation about her behavior regarding her firstborn's college-bound momentum, her inner turmoil palpable (although she manages the writing of it with grace and humor and the lightest, deftest touch, a la her usual astonishingly brilliant style).

How do we allow our babies to grow up, to become fully functioning adults?  To leave our sides, never to return to the soft, fragile beings that needed us so desperately?  Okay, fine, so maybe the desperately needy part is a little overkill, but -- god, it tears me APART to think that there will come a time when my son won't place his glorious little hand in mine and squeeze my fingers, and look at me, his sweet face inches from my own, and shout MAMMMMAAAAAAA!!! ear-shatteringly.

How will I live after these days have passed through my hands?  These hands, so willing to rush past every moment because it is too much, almost, this existence as it stands, this constant nightmarish pace, slap-slap-slapping my cheek (quite rude, actually) as it flits through the middle of the hourglass?  I berate myself for not taking every drop of perfection in the moments we have here together and swallowing them whole, because I'm too tired, too dismally self-centeredly exhausted and fucked up in the head to really manage it.

*lays head on desk and sobs quietly*

stupid subject line.

Listen.  I'm just thrilled as can be to know that you're all out there, blushing for me over my embarrassing turn in the hot-and-bothered video (though that's not to say the other ladies aren't super-ridiculous-ouch-burnin'-up hottt - just me and my uber-dorkiness kinda tarnish the whole thing, meanwhile, argh, I'm fine, swear, don't acknowledge the fetal rocking and thumb-in-mouth), but what I really want to do besides put it behind me is consult you guys about something.

Namely, I want to start a help-a-fellow-blogger-in-need project.  I'm not good at stuff like organizing and managing and shit.  I can't even write posts that I've decided are going to be topical; I get too stressed out and forget everything I was ever gonna say and run away from the computer and cry.  Really.  But there's gotta be somebody out there who knows how to handle this sort of thing deftly; someone who might be, oh, um, say, maybe in the non-profit-consulting sector? 

I'm thinking we could start a donation account or something and then once a month, we could vote to have the monies go to the party who, well, I suppose they'd have to volunteer to accept money in the first place, oh, CRAP, see?  No good at this kinda thing.  But I'm thinking in the vein of that blog-for-a-year joint, and there's a load of people who've signed up for it.  Only this would just be, you know, donate a dollar or two every month, sacrifice your latte or mocha for a day and toss a buck in the jar, and then the collected sum could go to the person whose situation has been deigned as being the most dire, and the money goes to them for the month.  Month two, same scenario, only the person who won last month is out of the running.  Etc.

Jess?  Whaddya think?  You maybe want to help me out with some information?  I would totally take on the running of it if I could just get some hand-holding from people in the know.

Anyone else?  Ideas?

I just want to be able to provide some succor for those of us who are in desperate straits, because the man's pressing down with his thumb harder than ever, lately, it seems.

(And if someone would prefer to join me in this endeavor, knowing full well that I'm totally incapable of anything beyond coming up with these half-assed, idealistic messes, that the managing of them is sort of out of my personal scope, well, just fucking say so, k?  I won't be hurt.  I'm fairly self-aware re: my total ineptitude.)

I just wanna help out somehow.