Dead Dog (god spelled backwards)

Bruno and me at the Thompkins Square Park dog parade on Halloween in 2002. Yep, she was dressed like a hooker.


Some of you may have noticed that when I write about stuff that Lily says, these things oftentimes pertain to god and marriage. Which I find rather fucking hilarious, since I'm not religious and I'm separated.

Tonight she was talking about her grandparents dead dog, Bruno, and how she was now in heaven with god. This led to a discussion about where you are before you're born (you're in heaven too, we decided), and Lily stated that before she was born she lived in heaven with god and was "god's wife".

But back to Bruno. Bruno belonged to Shawn and me a lifetime ago, before Lily, when we used to live in the East Village of Manhattan, where cool young people like us would walk their cool dogs down Avenue A and all meet up at the dog park in Thompkins Square. We'd drink our vegan espresso drinks and talk about politics and yoga and the fucked ass war in Iraq and Britney Spears. The dog park was really clique-y. The dog owners were, and so were the dogs, as a result.
Bruno was like Ally Sheedy in "The Breakfast Club". She'd get to the dog park and run around in circles like a savant, alienating all the other dogs, then she'd shyly jump up on the bench and lay her head in my lap. I'd be like, go! Run around! You can do this inside the tiny room we live in down the block! But no. She was a whippet-lab cross (best we could figure), so she had the sweet loyalty of a labrador mixed with the high-strung neurosis of a miniature racing dog with a heart that could burst at any moment. Her strange behavior could be infuriating.

Anyway, I digress. So, when I got pregnant with Lily we realized how insane it would be to live in an overpriced studio apartment with a dog, cat and baby and we moved to one of the outer boroughs of Manhattan. Bruno freaked out. She hated Astoria. It didn't help that we had moved from one of the most dog-friendly neighborhoods in New York to one where no one seemed to have a dog at all. I would walk her down my block and people would literally leap away from us, as if I were walking a giant tiger with a bloody child's leg hanging out of its mouth. It was weird. And Bruno became such an asshole. I came home one steamy day in July, like 7 months pregnant, to find an entire block of cheese had been eaten out of the fridge. She somehow figured out how to paw open the refrigerator door and spent the day gorging herself on the most toxic foods imaginable for dogs.

So when Lily was born we realized just how miserable this poor animal was going to be living in QUEENS with a new baby and two people too sleep deprived and busy to walk her or even pet her. It just wasn't fair. So Shawn's parents came and took her to live in the land of milk and honey upstate. And the last few years of her life were tranquil and awesome.
But she got cancer and had to be put to sleep last week. I was struck by how upset it made me. Maybe what struck me really was that the end of Bruno's life sort of signifies the end of an era in my life too.

Lily was going to visit her grandparents this weekend. She wanted to bring her a dried flower to put on the grave that her grandfather and Shawn had buried her in. She said,
"Now Bruno is god's dog". Indeed.

Caption This Photo

Where dreams come true

Many of you must be wondering why I wasn't blogging last week. Come on, I know you were. you eagerly logged on to Ferrtileblog each day to find nothing but the same stupid play dough art pictures I'd uploaded before I left on my vacation. And you were like, what the fuck? Where did Kristin go? Lazy Ass. Doesn't she know I need some Fertile with my Starbucks in the morning?! My mundane work day (and life) sucks without Ferrtileblog! I miss her! And then you prayed that I was ok, that nothing bad had happened to me, because of course, you always assume the worst.

Well, my pretties, I have happily returned. Hello! With a little bit of a tan, even. And a lot of good sleep and fun family bonding under my belt (which is a little tight, since I ate nothing but pasta and bread and tofurkey sandwiches the whole week).

I was in Orlando. And it was kick-ass. My parents took my sister and me and our kids on a weeklong jaunt to the wunderful Funderland of Walt Disney World. That's right, mothafuckas!

Oh, there is truly nothing like watching the joy in your dad's eyes as he watches your daughter almost pee her pants as she first glimpses Cinderella's castle. It's almost better than cable TV. There are no words.
I joke that they must pump extra oxygen into the air in the magic kingdom, because you can't help but walk around feeling happy. I just wanted to hug everyone all the time. I had a goofy blissed-out smile on my face and I couldn't wait to do and see everything I possibly could.

Just want to give a shout out to Mom and Dad, whose generosity I cannot even describe or begin to thank them for. Thanks, guys. Just...thanks. Love you guys.

xoxoxo

The magic kingdom is PHAT at night. This is right before Lily head-butted Devin. And things got kind of ugly for a minute. By the way, what's up with my pants? Get back in your bottle, Genie. Why did I think that looked good?

Ariel is a little shocked at how much Lily likes to talk.

Lily makes fish faces in epcot.

My fabulous parents. That's a chocolate-covered frozen banana, by the way. You sickos.

D-D-DIABLO!!!

I'm in love with Diablo Cody.


I was so happy when she won the oscar for best original screenplay last night, I was, like, crying, yo.

This is what she said:

What is happening? This is for the writers, and I want to thank all the writers. I especially want to thank my fellow nominees because I worship you guys and I'm learning from you every day, so thank you very much. I want to thank the Academy, I want to thank Fox Searchlight, Mr. Mudd, Mandate, Dan Dubiecki. I want to thank our incredible cast including the superhuman Ellen Page. I want to thank Jason Reitman, who I consider a member of my family, and I'm in awe of his talent as a filmmaker. I want to thank Sarah Self. I want to thank Mason Novick who knew I could do this before I did. And most of all, I want to thank my family for loving me exactly the way I am.

My only regret is now she is gonna get so famous that everyone will love her as much as I do and she won't be all mine anymore. Wow, that sounded stalkerish.

I have finally been meme'd. This now solidifies my status as Princess Bloggerific

I have been TAGGED by Chele, the glorious Tambourine Queen. I love this shit.
Here's dem rules, bitches:

1) Link to the person who tagged you.
2) Post the rules.
3) Share six non-important things / habits / quirks about yourself.
4) Tag at least three people.
5) Make sure the people you tagged KNOW you tagged them by commenting what you did
Whee!!!

1. I am haunted by recurring graphic dreams about filthy public toilets. I have been having this dream for years. Usually in the dream I have to pee something fierce and search and search and finally locate a bathroom that's got an overflowing toilet and is smeared with human feces and I have no choice but to use it. Sometimes in the dream I am not wearing shoes. Ick.
I shudder to think what my subconscious is trying to tell me.

2. When I was pregnant I developed this weird affliction called Restless Leg Syndrome. It's a real ailment, I found out. There's even a support group for it. It is exactly what it sounds like...the uncontrollable urge to move ones legs. I'd be talking to someone, sitting on my butt, and my legs would be doing this strange uncontrollable dance. Even in bed I did it. It kept me up for hours. It went away (mostly) after I had Lily. I think it was caused by blood volume or something.

3. I was in the gifted class in elementary school, but I always felt like I ended up there by some kind of accident.

4. If I'm driving and Tom Petty's "Free Fallin'" comes on the radio, I have to change it, then go back to it once and then not go back to it again, because it's the song that was playing when I was in my first (and only, knock wood) car accident. Aforementioned accident was ironically on the way to a funeral for someone who was killed in a car accident.

5. I have three tattoos. The eye of ra on my hip, a dragonfly on my back, and a lily on my ankle. I hate the dragonfly, because it is huge and kind of stretched out from weight gain and loss. It looks like someone smooshed a giant dead dragonfly on my back. I kinda want to get it removed, but since it is on my back, and I don't have to look at it that much, I forget how much I dislike it.

6. I played with Barbies until I was 13. But mostly just to act out sexual scenarios I wasn't able to engage in in real life.

Y'ALL ARE GETTIN' TAGGED:

KAY-ZEE

JEREMY

STEVE S.

Play Dough Art

"Tick"



"Fetus"



"Witch finger"

I'm like that bad-luck idol that Bobby and Peter found in Hawaii on that episode of "The Brady Bunch"

My luck today is crap.
So Lily decided it would be cool to wake up at 5:30 this morning. Oh, ha ha! What a rich joke. I dragged ass into the living room and let her play on the computer while I ran around the house naked, kicking stuff and muttering to myself. She asked me to help her with something on the computer (which is, incidentally, right in front of the window), and as I leaned in to assist her, we heard the baritone bark of Rambo, our neighbor's bull mastiff, taking a river-sized leak outside our window. Of course Lily immediately yanked back the curtain to see Rambo and his owner, thereby giving our entire block a full-frontal flash of my unmentionables. Then Bitchmother came out and grabbed the curtain and howled something incomprehensible and I just felt awful. It wasn't the best of mornings.

So I just got a call from Shawn. He's currently standing forlorn on the side of the road holding a pair of jumper cables and gesturing pleadingly at our Hyundai, which is dead b/c (allegedly) of lil' old me.

Supposedly I left the back door slightly ajar last night, causing the interior light to remain on (no way, not even), which apparently made the battery to die. So when Shawn and Lily went out to the car this morning to go to school, the car was, well, you know, dead.
And parked on the wrong side of the street.
So they got a ticket.
And had to walk to school.

My bad.

I'm wondering...

...Do you ever feel like the whole world around you is going batshit and you're the only sane one in it?

The cat who loved me

Inspired by Memphis Steve's blog, I have decided to dedicate a post to my wonderful cat husband, Sea Monkey.

Though he hasn't done anything interesting lately, like lock himself in the bathroom (as Steve's cat, Sponge Bob Stinkypants, did), and he doesn't pee in the toilet unprompted like my late cat Pidgeon, Sea Monkey and I have a very special relationship and I think it deserves mention here.

See, my cat is in love with me.

I'm reasonably sure that Sea Monkey doesn't realize he's a cat. Actually, I know it. The way he looks at me with those doleful eyes as I leave in the morning for work, the way he crawls up by my head when I'm sleeping and buries his face in my hair and watches me with the tenderness of a stalker as I sleep, the way he glares with pure hatred at any man who comes into my apartment and dares snuggle me on my couch, I just know it. The cat wants my body.

I think it all started when he was a tiny kitten and we got him from the North Shore Animal League. He had intestinal parasites and was on heavy antibiotics which made him catatonic and probably kind of trippy/confused. Still, Lily said, "That one, that's the one I want," and so Sea Monkey was ours. I thought he was the lamest kitten ever. He slept all the time and looked like he'd maybe suffered brain damage. He never meowed (still doesn't...he opens his mouth and releases tiny squeaks, but that's it).
As soon as we got him home he skedaddled away from us and found his way up inside the heating vent, where he stayed for three days. Thank goodness it was summer. When I finally figured out where he was, it was I who stuck my arms all the way up inside the vent to pull him out, suffering scratches and exposure to mouse feces and dead roaches and god knows what else. Then it was I who smothered Sea Monkey with snuggles and kisses and wouldn't let him get away from me for the next 24hours, as I had no desire to repeat this daring rescue.

Thus began our passion-filled story of love. He was a one-woman cat from then on.
Poor Lily. She's tried to sneak her way into the tight circle of adulation between Sea Monkey and me, but he really doesn't give a crap about her. He tolerates her "grooming" him with a doll brush, and sometimes will even humor her with a half-hearted bat at the toy mouse she dangles in front of his face as she tries to engage him in play. He just isn't into anything that isn't me.

There really is nothing like coming home to a hairy man who loves you unconditionally, lays in your lap for hours on end, and doesn't ever speak. Oh, pure heaven.

Every time I leave for my lunch break, a tree screams in agony

Today I stood by the napkin dispenser in my work cafeteria and watched approximately how many napkins my fellow employees help themselves to at an average lunch visit.

Appalling. What kinds of human beasts are you? Seven napkins? SEVEN? One guy just took and took and took until he had what looked like a miniture paper towel roll which he wound around his hand before departing for his trough upstairs.

They generally don't serve bison ribs swimming in barbeque sauce in my gourmet cafeteria. So I have to ask, what is WITH people and the need to horde piles and piles of napkins? Wasteful.

He's a sociopath, but he's such a funny sociopath

My sister and I have a well-documented history (legally, in some cases) of attracting undesirable men. I'm working on breaking this trend, with the help of a therapist and this "club" that has these "steps", and also I'm considering electroshock treatment. But dang, it's hard work. Especially when there are just so many of these dudes lurking around every corner, wagging their tongues and waving at me with left hands bearing white marks on fingers where wedding rings have been twisted off and hidden in a pocket.

I have spent a lot of money and time trying to figure out why a certain type of man appeals to me. I have to remind myself that it's ok to go out and enjoy a meal with a man who might actually be able to cough up the money to pay for it. Or who isn't going to bang on my door at 3 in the morning tripping and asking me to "talk him down". I still find myself staring with cock-eyed disbelief when a man does this thing with me called "telling the truth".

I think part of my problem is, I like drama. I've been with the the stable, 2 car-garage type of guy, but I just can't stay interested; my boyfriend from college now lives in suburban New York and has a teaching job and three kids. (He was also afraid of bridges.)I'd have made him completely miserable. Kicked his ass up and down our tree-lined Westchester street just to break the monotony. Now that's just not fair (to me).

My sister was married at one time to a guy we'll call "Chet". Now, Chet was a total sociopath. But he was so freaking funny, you just couldn't help but enjoy his company. Chet did the craziest things, like smuggling tons of frozen steaks and fish fillets in his pants from the Ground Round when he was working there, just so we could have really good dinners when we came to his house. He had a way of justifying the (often illegal) things he did. He would play these elaborate and terrible tricks on my sister, like where he'd pretend to go to work in the morning and drive his car down the street, park it, and then sneak back into the house via the bathroom window, and wait behind the shower curtain so that when she got up to get ready, he'd pop out and scare the living shit out of her. Now, that is deeply disturbing, but so rich with creativity and humor I can hardly stand it.

See, this is the problem. I shouldn't find this kind of behavior funny or redeemable in any way. I at least can recognize now that my current life's work involves keeping the Chets of the world out of my personal sphere. It's getting easier, but it ain't no walk in the park, man.

Can you guess what this press-on tattoo is?

The correct answer wins...

Nuggets of wisdom from Lily Alice, Part V

Lily: "Mama, if you have another baby, I want you to get that stroller that has the platform so I can stand on it and talk to the baby".

Mom: "Oh, honey. You know what? I might not have another baby. If I do, it won't be for quite a few years. Like maybe when you're in junior high school."

Lily: "That will be fun!"

Mom: "Yeah. It might be."

Lily: "Well, I really want you to have a baby. So I'm going to ask God to give you a baby."

Mom: "OK."

Lily: "I'm gonna call God on my cell phone and ask him."

People need to pay better attention to my delicate lady parts

I'm really tired of getting sub-par service at salons that specialize in working on my sensitive areas. For example, I spent a fuck ton to have a brazillian bikini wax last week and not only did the woman keep waxing and re-waxing the same spot (a very sensitive spot, at that) until I felt like I'd been rubbing myself against a barnacle, she actually coughed on my vagina at one point. Like, coughed right on it! Didn't cover her mouth or anything. Disgusting. Of course I tipped the bitch. I don't know any better. I think I was in shock.

Then today, I treated myself to a threading of my eyebrows and upper lip (an eye-wateringly painful but so worth-it process where someone pulls each errant hair out individually at the root with a string of thread. I don't get it either, but it hardly even grows back).

The eyebrows I don't always do, because I can just pluck those. I love to pluck anything on my body. Ingrown leg hairs, the occasional confused pubic hair that finds itself growing out of my chin. But the upper lip I try to get done professionally at least every three weeks, or I end up looking like one of my old Italian Aunts. I had one aunt in particular, god rest her soul, whose moustache was not only thick and unruly, but yellowish from tar b/c she smoked like a chimney while sitting on her plastic-enshrouded couch. I don't smoke, but I am definitely in the genetic line to inherit the 'stache if I'm not careful. So I'm extremely careful.

This threading woman abused me too. I ought to have kicked her ass. I left the salon fine, but went home to find red, swollen, raw patches at the corners of my mouth which I of course could not stop licking at like a lion with a thorn in its paw. Ouch. I'm pissed.

Maybe I need to pay better money for these services. Or maybe these people just need to take better care of me. WTF???!!!

I'm A Catch Me A New Husband With These Here Pics

Oooh, Ah simply cannot make up mah mind!


Okay. So I'm thinking of doing another online dating experiment. But this time one of the real ones, like one of the ones you pay for, instead of one of the free ones that attracts all the serial killers and panty fetish brain-damaged sex offenders. Just an idea. No commitment yet. Right now I have to focus on getting a job, because my current freelance gig turns into a pumpkin at the end of the month, and in doing so drying up my cash supply. So of course I spent this evening doing what anyone in my position would do. I played model and took a lot of pictures of myself. It made me feel better. But I simply cannot decide which pic would make a good profile photo.

1. Ooh, ha ha ha, hilarious AND sexy!

2. wholesome, yet slutty

3. Sodomized with taser

4. Pensive. Or stoned.

5. Come 'n get it boys (in my pants)


Thoughts, guys?

Thoughts, part 2

I have another game I make up at work sometimes. If it's really slow I'll sit in my cubicle and envision a Lord of the Flies scenario if there is a nuclear explosion outside which totals the city and my fellow employees and I are forced to live the remainder of our days out in this building which, for some reason, is totally unaffected. I try and imagine who would take on the role as leader, who would supply the sperm so that we could keep the species going, who would be the first one we would eat, who would decide who got eaten? It's all so complicated.

Thoughts

Sometimes when I'm in a crowded elevator at work that's travelling on the local track (hitting every freakin floor between 19 and the basement cafeteria), I like to make up fun games to pass the time. I carefully regard each person around me and pick one person I would have sex with if I had to. The stout little maintenance man with the wart on his nose? Or the lanky, pasty-faced banker with the strange pattern balding (hair in front, hair on sides, no hair on top)and incessant throat-clearing? If I'm lucky, the hot little Jamaican guy with the butter-smooth accent will climb aboard and make it game, set, match. Other days, it's just a little tougher. That's ok, I'm always up for a challenge.

Back to the garden

I know I titled the last post "Grace", and I was thinking it might be fitting to title this one "Faith", then I was thinking of looking for a really sick image of George Michael's ass to post under the title, you know, the one where he is wearing that wonderfully fagalicious rhinestone jacket that says "FAITH" across the back? I love that one. But I decided instead to talk about Woodstock. And in doing so, bring it back to the subject of faith. Sorta.

So my friend Jeremy and I went up to Woodstock yesterday on kind of a whim...the weather was to be gawgeous and we had a whole Saturday to spend however we wanted. So we hopped into the Hyundai and hit the thruway, my vagina music blasting on the ipod, him being a really good sport about the vagina music, nary a complaint the whole way.

It had been a really long time since I'd been to Woodstock. The place is saturated with memories...all good ones. Kind of from a past life. It was cool to be there with a new friend, to traipse up and down the slushy streets, popping into the crystal shops and funky vintage clothing stores with someone who wasn't as familiar with the town as I was. I always love to lead.

Though my feet are planted pretty squarely in New York City, I still have wild and tangled roots that reach all the way up to the Hudson Valley - Woodstock in particular. The minute I hit Tinker street I can just breathe better. I know it's the mountains that really calm me down. But it's also all the tie-dye and Bob Marley, the musky smell of incense and vegetarian food that simply hangs in the air and seeps into the walls of every funky head shop along the main drag; it's the chimes and the tarnished silver jewelry and the Dansko clogs and the buddha statues and the artists and protesters on the village green. It's all of it. I go to Woodstock, and I'm just home.

So, we pulled into the municipal lot and parked the car, snickering and goofing around, and didn't realize that the place we were supposed to be going was like totally 2 miles outside of town. We started to walk, and had gotten pretty far before we realized how fucking far we still had to go. The town fell away and we were alone on a cold, wet country road with our destination too far ahead to see. We were late for our rendezvous with some people Jeremy knew, and it started to feel heavy and intense. I started to feel bad, like I'd fucked up somehow, even though it was nobody's fault.

Then I did something. I just kind of let it all go. I looked around me. To my left was a big blue mountain, to my right was a dense expanse of winter-naked trees. Behind us was the town of Woodstock and the promise of hot coffee and soup and some light, frivolous impulse spending later in on. It was a beautiful day. And I was just happy to be there. So I just let go. I said, fuck it. And I just believed that we'd get where we were going, and that we'd find a ride back to town after so we wouldn't have to walk. And do you know what? We did. We got where we were going. A little bit late, yes, but nobody minded. We had a great time. Jeremy's friend had a brand new car and offered us a lift back into town. And Woodstock, all woodsmoke-smelling and colorful and busy, was waiting for us with good food, silly incense and fake tattoos to buy, and interesting hippie shopkeepers to talk to. And it was really all okay.

So, thanks, George Michael. With your rhinestone bomber jacket and moussed hair and ridiculous sunglasses. Sometimes it's true, you just gotta have faith.

Grace

So when I dropped Lily at school this morning, her teacher approached me with this irrepressable smile. She said, "I just need to tell you this thing that Lily did yesterday, it was so cute..."

I love teacher conversations that start like this.

"Well," said the teacher, "She was having a tea party with two other girls and before they had their tea, she said, 'let's say grace'. And she made them all hold hands around the table, and she led them in a prayer."

My heart was swollen for a second, because sometimes I get glimpses of my child and who she is in the world apart from me and I'm reminded that I'm actually doing things right.

So I smiled. "Yes," I said, "We say grace before dinner."
As a recovering Catholic, I tread lightly in the area of religion. Spirituality, though, I am drenched in. I like to think that as parents, we are teaching Lily to honor and respect the universe and everything it, as well as the unseen, the unexplainable. We are teaching her to have faith, and above all, gratitude. To stop and reflect on how lucky she is to live in abundance, to have so much love in her life, and to remember how important it is to be kind and loving to those around her.

I guess the spiritual foundation we are giving her is grounded somewhat in Christian principles. Sure, why not? Lily knows who Jesus was. She knows he lived a long time ago, that he was a very good man. That he loved everyone, no matter how much they might be dicking him over. But I don't make him out to be magical, like the Doug Henning of The Holy Land or something. And the whole son-of-god thing? No, don't quite buy that. But that's just me.

The teacher I'm referring to though is waaaaay religious. I think her husband is a minister. So she took my acknowledgement of our family's spirituality as an admission of my own religious fortitude. She saw me as an ally now and someone to whom she could, er, speak frankly.

"Well," she said, fingering the little gold cross around her neck. "I'm just so glad to hear you say that. You know, as Christians, we have to remember to be forthright and assert our beliefs!"

I nodded hesitantly. Uh-oh.

"We must remember that our community is getting smaller and smaller!And we have to fight to be able to show the world what we believe in! No matter what people think!"

Oh. No.

She went on and on for quite a while. I didn't have the heart to redirect her, to tell her that in actuality, I didn't know how I felt about religion. That just because my daughter likes to say a prayer of thanks before a meal or an imaginary tea party, that doesn't necessarily identify us as anything except good, grateful people. But I didn't say this. For a couple of reasons.

First, I was kind of intimidated by her. Maybe it's cowardice, but I have never really gotten that whole us-vs.-them attitude held by the extremely religious. I didn't want to shut her down, and I thought that if I didn't agree with her, she'd assume that I was against her. I wanted her to feel free to express herself. Probably I was just being a pussy.

Also, and this is the weird thing, it was oddly cool to be acknowledged in this way by a person of such tremendous faith. It was kind of nice to try that on for a few minutes, to pretend that I, too, had strong connections to a community like that. I don't, really. And it was kind of nice to pretend that I did. Even for a brief moment. What would it be like to be that filled with the holy spirit? Man, it might actually be nice. Anyway. Something to ponder for a Friday.