I wish it were Sunday, 'cause that's my fun day...

Happy Monday, folks. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for a better week, despite the solar system's personal vendetta against me.
Though that angry red planet is spinning furiously backwards and is determined to fuck up my world, I have the faith of a child in the tooth fairy that this week's gonna be better. If not, I'm blaming it on all of you.

Unfortunately, Monday is already off to a sorta crappy start...the city, which was so crisp and chilly and hopeful last week, with trees already starting to show hints of beautiful autumn colors, is back to sticky and gummy and warm and stinking like a bum's dirty hiney. Damn.

One of the loveliest things about fall in New York is that the stink of summer fades clean away when the air turns cool. Everything feels fresh, and there's a renewed hope and excitement in the air. So you can imagine my dismay when I climbed up from the bowels of the Union Square subway station only to meet with the stink of 100 dead hookers with vaginal infections, which lasted the better part of six blocks. Guess we have to wait another week for the freshmaker to return. September is a weird month. Hot, cold, fall, summer, make up your fucking mind! Jesus.

Anyway, I am not so easily discouraged. There are a million reasons I love fall in New York. For one thing, it's a great time to be in love. I look forward to holding hands in Central Park, cuddling up in a cafe with a hot spiced cider, watching the tourists flit up and down 5th Avenue looking for Trump Fucking Tower. It's the beginning of a very happy season here in my fair, fair city. People are just nicer to each other when they aren't sweating their balls off and having to endure the smell of three months worth of garbage piling up in the streets.

I'm putting on a happy face. I'd appreciate a little support, for once.

Mercury in Retrograde hair

I've decided that instead of blaming my many shortcomings as a human being on simply being an exhausted single mama with a full-time job, every time I fuck something up from now until October 15th, I'm going to say simply, "Oh well, it's because Mercury is in retrograde".

So, for the next several weeks, those close to me can look forward to viewing my new fashion trend of semi-dreadlocked Princess Leia hair and forgetting to iron my pants.

Also, I will be forgetting your birthdays and anniversaries. You're welcome.
Plus, if you're really really lucky, you might even get a wine-soaked, passionate and disjointed email or Facebook message from me telling me how much I love you and how sorry I am for being such a crappy friend/daughter/sister/girlfriend. Because that's the kind of girl I am.

It's super duper liberating to have someone else to blame for the shitty things I do on a daily basis anyway!

I heart the solar system.

Coffee with MILF

Good morning, lovelies. Oh, how I have missed you, one and all. Well, most of you. Some of you.

It seems the more interesting my personal life gets, the less captivating my blog entries become. One might argue, then, that my life must always have been a great fascinating trip, and to that person I would say Sit and Spin. I mean, really. That's just not nice.

I'm riding the Jittery Starbucks Express this morning, as as I've already had helping number 2 and it's just 8 am. Also, I'm now keeping a secret stash of chocolate-covered espresso beans in my desk and on my person at all times; these are my secret weapon, the Mom-equivalent of coke bumps or little hits from a meth pipe. Yummmmm. I will henceforth have the beans ever-at-the-ready, since Mama is running on fumes to get through a day of work, shrink appointment, and evening PTA meeting. I fucking do it all.

It's funny. My life is so different than what I'd have expected it to be. And yet, I have to say, I am really pretty pleased with the way things seem to be turning out. Though I've never been one to buy into fairy-tale bullshit, I am starting to believe that Happily Ever After can be just about anything you decide it's gonna be.

On Monday I put my John Hancock on the papers that will officially dissolve a marital union of almost ten years. A union that I am more and more surprised lasted as long as it did, and should probably never, ever have been in the first place. Though my marriage to Shawn was not a bad time. And it yielded our amazing Lily Alice, so I'm more convinced that everything in this life happens for a reason.

There was no ceremony, no sentimental tears, no "Fuck You"s. We signed the papers, rode home together in a cab and had dinner as a family. We held hands before a meal of sushi takeout and said grace (Lily: "Thank you god for the trees and birds, and for the food on the table, and for Jesus on the table"), then listened to Coldplay and danced around the kitchen and took video of Lily doing performance art on the counter in nothing but a hippie beaded necklace and her faux fur coat (and no, she did not look like a baby prostitute, it was more of a Jim Morrison effect).

What I'm saying, folks, is that life goes on. The road twists and bends and sometimes there are giant cracks in it and sometimes you fucking fall into them, but you know, you eventually climb on out. the Universe has a plan. There is always a plan.

Me and BabyDaddy are going to raise our daughter to be a wonderful, creative, strong and gentle contributor to society (and one who hopefully won't get anymore time outs for pinching a classmate at kindergarten...wtf???), and that's how it's gonna be.

I'm hopeful. Today, I'm really hopeful.

Little Horrible

I don't know what I did to get on Jesus's shit list, but that vindictive bastard is out to get me lately.

I didn't blog much this week because I was afraid that if I sat down to type, I'd only be able to vomit forth a rancorous froth of bitterness and hatred, and nobody wants to bother reading that.

But hey, I missed you guys, so fuck it.

Goddamn, though. My weekdays have been passing by in a mindfucking blur, making me feel like an arthritic gerbil on a wheel whose been given an excess of caffeine and several hits of bad acid.

Mornings are especially shiteous. I think I would prefer some old school torture, served up prison-camp style – say, bamboo shoots under the nails, or perhaps a searing hot enema – to what I had to endure this morning.

My day started at 5 am. That's right, fuckers, 5 in the frigging morning.
I was pummelled awake by two freezing feet in my stomach. These horrid little appendages were attached to the miniature czar of my home environment, whose demands for orange juice and magic markers before the sun is even up makes me realize why all my pubic hair is turning gray. (Two words, darlings: Brazillian Wax.)

Of course, some mornings go better than others. Lily is, generally, a great kid with an even temperament. Often she will get herself dressed, eat some breakfast without complaint, even brush her teeth with only a little help from me.

But. Today, that was so not the case.

This morning my little dust bunny opted for a white-hot scream-athon while alternately laying on the bed like a broken marionette, and writhing on the floor like an epileptic. All the while Mommy ran about like a freaked-out, headless chicken, fetching two sets of clothing and smearing lipstick across my face and trying in vain to choke some coffee down my dang throat.

You have no idea how much ass it can truly suck to be me sometimes.
But, well, I just told you, so now you do. And I kind of feel better. Thanks!

It's times like these, though, that we really must stop and remember that some people have real problems.

I could be riding out the aftermath of Hurricane Ike in a church with a lion. My home could be leveled. I could have lost a ton of invested (ha ha!) money in the collapsing world economy. I could be Sarah Palin's retarded baby. It could be worse. It always could be worse.

Here's a joke:

Why did the cop smell?

Because he was on duty.

OMGLOLLOLLOLLOLROFLMFAO!!!!!!

Kindergarten Chronicles, Part I

Oh, Christ. I so didn't want this to turn into one of those lame ass Mommy Blogs. But sometimes I have to share. Because the shit Lily says is funny.

Since she started kindergarten, Lily's and my evening dinner exchanges have gotten more and more interesting. Also, more random.

Sample dinner conversation 1:

Lil: I had a great day.

Mom: That's great, baby. How come?

Lil: I can't tell you. I'm......concentrating.

Conversation 2:

Lil: I get to be the lollipop fairy at school all week.

Mom: Really? What's the lollipop fairy do?

Lil: Well, we get to help Monique (the teacher) and pick one boy to be the boy lollypop fairy. I picked Alexander V. He is sooooo nice to me. Sometimes he is mean to other people and he gets time outs. But not to me. I am in looooove with him.

Mom: Love? Really. Wow. What's it like to be in love?

Lil: Well, we're going to be best friends forever. Until 5th grade. Also, Tiffany wants to be in love with Alexander V., but I am in love with him. He pulls his socks up to his knees. That's how I wear my socks now.

(5 minutes later)

Lil: Who did I say I was in love with, again?

Conversation 3 (bedtime):

Lil: Guess what I want to be for Halloween?

Mom: (sighs wearily): Let me guess. Cinderella again?

Lil: No, a pumpkin!!!

Mom: Awesome! Grandma and I will totally make you a costume!!! We can get orange tights, and paint your face...

Lil: Actually, No...I think instead I want to be a potato.

Stay tuned, y'all.

You're gonna make it after all

This morning I was startled awake from a dream about the Manson family by a little finger poking me in the eyelid and a sleepy voice asking, "Mama? What is water made of?"

I sat upright, wiped a thread of drool from my the corner of my mouth, and squinted at the rumply-haired little imp laying next to me.

"Who the fuck are you?" I asked.

No, just kidding.

Seriously, folks. Here we have illustrated just another reason why it is not advisable to drink wine on a Thursday night. It's never, ever worth the upset of the following morning. By that I mean: allowing your almost-5 year old to dress herself and leave the house looking like one of those children on the UNICEF box, forgetting her backpack and having to ask your friend's husband to throw two bucks down from the window of their third-floor apartment so that she can buy lunch, and spending most of the subway commute trying to shake off the sheen of Shitty Mothering that glistens all over you like dayglo body paint.

It's okay though, because when I got off the subway this morning, a happy girly song came on my ipod and I strutted across 5th Avenue and smiled up at the Flatiron building pretending to be Marlo Thomas or Mary Tyler Moore or Meredith Grey and suddenly I felt happy and flitty and pretty and it was all sort of okay. It's almost the weekend and I can spend time drawing with the kid and playing Polly Pockets and snuggling on the couch and take her to a birthday party at a farm and put on my gold cowboy boots and help her feed a goat and everything will be okey-dokey. I can feel it in my old, brittle bones.

Happy Friday, bitches.

Mwah.

I heart my co-workers

This was in my inbox yesterday.



I supposed I invite this. If I didn't plaster my goddamned face all over the internet, it wouldn't be so easy for certain someones to create (marginally) clever visuals at my expense.

Some people just have too much time on their hands.

Collection Agency Fun

I don't know why I answer the phone when the caller ID says "Unknown Name". Maybe I'm a masochist. Maybe I'm just curious like a cat, and I simply can't help myself. But here's one of the super fun things about getting divorced:
You no longer are responsible for your ex-husband's heaping, endless mountains of debt.

So. You're sitting on the couch, staring at the wall, wiping smeared tears from your eyes because you've just gone through the whole first-day-of-kindergarten thing all over again (long story short, she got into an even awesomer school, so you quick-like yanked her from the first awesome school, knowing the upheaval would have temporary repercussions, but that it would be totally worth it). Oh, also you really have no idea how you're going to get her to school every day and arrive at work on time, and you really can't be late for work, and you feel like you don't have a friend in the world, and the weight of responsibility on your bony shoulders is bearing down like a ton of motherfucking bricks.

Then, the day brightens.

Brrrring!

Kristin: Hello?

Telephone: Hello, is Mr. Shawn _____ there?

Kristin, Um, who's calling?

Telephone: Nikki.

Kristin: Hello, Nikki. Nikki from where?

Nikki: (pause). From Houston.

Kristin: Um, no, Nikki. I meant, what company are you with?

Nikki: Red Line.

Kristin: Okay. Is that a collection agency?

Nikki: No.

Kristin: No?

Nikki: Is Mr. Shawn there?

Kristin: No. Mr. Shawn is no longer residing here. You can reach him at xxx-xxx-xxxx.

Nikki: (Recites back an entirely wrong number)...is that correct?

Kristin: No. X....X....X.....X.....X....X......

Nkki: Got it.

Kristin: Really?

Nikki: Yes. Thank you so much for your help.

Kristin: No, Nikki. Thank you.

The end of an era. Sniff.

Well, it's finally official.

After several summers of blowing off the threats, Coney Island is finally conceding to the big bad condo tycoons and closing Astroland for good. On SUNDAY.

This seems rather sudden, and as a result, I find it jarring and I don't really know how to react.

Thankfully, I got my fill of giant, bong-sized frozen Pina Coladas on the boardwalk, tattooed midgets at the sideshow, and needle-sticks on the beach to last me quite a long time. The memories will keep me warm at night as we enter into the cold, cold winter without Astroland.

So, I leave you with this fuzzy memory. Also, it has a gratuitous boob shot. So stop complaining that I don't do anything for you.

Happy weekend, sex perverts!



PS I was just told that this freaking embed isn't working. So if you want to see the boobs video, click here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6C18nn6k8k

Thanks, John.

Putting the "Street" in "Street Festival"

What a weekend. So there was this street festival in Astoria yesterday. Anyone even remotely acquainted with me knows that Mama is a sucker for a NYC street festival.
I'm drawn like a mosquito to a bug zapper. Simply cannot help myself. There is so much wonderful shit on which to waste my cash, I usually have to replenish funds at an ATM at least once during the 10-block walk through Street Vendor Heaven.

When I'm at one of these time-wasters, I get sorta posessed. My heart pumps, I feel that sting of ammonia thrill in my nostrils, my pupils dilate with excitement. The hippie incense smell, the scores of knockoff handbags, the piles of cheap, hand-woven Guatemalan sweaters, the fried dough, the fresh watermelon souring in the scorching sun...oh, OH...it's almost too much to bear.

Yesterday's Labor Day Street Fair was no disappointment. There were FOUR jumpy castles, all roasting in the relentlessly hot sun, waiting for shoeless children to hop in and get third-degree burns on their feet. Also present were three dusty, tired old ponies, penned into a tiny riding ring on a side street. My friend's dad, a street musician, crooned into a microphone in the middle of 30th Avenue, his guitar case sitting open at his feet in the hopes of making his rent money. It was so cool.

There were even two sleepy-looking, life-sized cartoon characters in cheap, baggy costumes, standing in front of the fish market to shake hands with the little ones. Awwww. Though Spider-man and Winnie the Pooh were of no interest to Lily, who was more interested in scoring cheap plastic bootleg Korean toys and extra ice cream, we did take notice of one family who felt it imperative to force their little boy to stand next to Spidey so his 800 lb mama could snap a precious picture.

This kid, maybe he was five? Was thoroughly freaked out. He clung tightly to his mother as she continually peeled his arms from around her legs and tried to attach them to Spider-man, as if he were one of those hanging monkey toys with the long arms and velcro hands. It was disturbing to watch.

When the little fucker finally relented and sagged back, tear-stained and defeated, into Spidey's waiting arms, his mom got her precious photo, and the family started to move on.

But not before Little Maniac Boy hurled himself into his mother and yelled in her face, "YOU ARE AN ASSHOLE!!!!"

To which, his mother burst out laughing.

I think I need to find a new place to live soon.