Too
much time has elapsed with no writing of any kind except for a)
the baby's blog and b) the baby's journal. This does not make for
a well-balanced writing life. I've been keeping a little blog of
photos for the far-off relatives, but strange people keep finding
it, like visitors from Chile and random strangers from the midwest
who leave comments in the comment boxes. Sitemeter doesn't show
any weird search terms, so how do they find us? The mystery of the
internets is vast.
Because
it is late I'll bullet point my life and spare my brain having to
come up with any sort of narrative, which would just be like bizarre
jibberjabber. I tired.
1.
I'm tired because my friend had a baby at 3:45 am the other morning,
and I stayed at the hospital from 9pm to 6am. I am an f-ing good
friend, yes? This is why I've been destroyed all week, and it's
like I didn't get it at first. I was all, "I used to stay up
and pull all-nighters all the time so surely I can do it now."
Not so. My memory has been annihilated and even though I've gotten
two good sleeps since staying up I can't get rested. I guess this
is what it means to be fricking old as the hills.
2.
Being at said hospital to watch said baby being born (and I didn't
actually seen him born; I refused seeing my own child's head coming
out of my own vagina, so I don't need to see anybody else's) only
reinforced the fact that having Junior at a birth center was totally
the right thing for me. After my friend pooped out the baby she
said she was in agony (even with epidural, so not sure what went
wrong there) and couldn't nurse the baby, so he was promptly whisked
off to the sterile nursery. I went to see him through the window,
and there he was, half an hour after his birth, under bright lights
and alone, not bonding and not nursing and not getting his own mother's
warmth. Then a nurse scrubbed him clean, which made him howl, and
then he was alone again. And it made me want to motherfucking punch
somebody. And I made the mistake of sharing some of these feelings
with my friend's sister, who was watching with me and who had given
birth at this same hospital and whose son endured the same things,
and she started to get nervous. And I had to shut up because I realized
I was ruining what was or at least should have been a joyous event.
3.
The birth center where I had the baby is closed. My midwife is out
of business. She got railroaded on some trumped-up charges and got
fined $64k and she couldn't afford it and they shut her down. This
is incredibly sad for all the ladies who don't want that aforementioned
up there sterile hospital birth experience.
4.
The funniest thing is when after women give birth they say to me,
and there have been more than a handful of them, "I had an
epidural but it wore off so by the end I essentially gave birth
naturally" after making ceaseless fun of me and calling me
crazy for delivering with no drugs. It's like they mock my socks
off but then want to claim they did it naturally too. I do not understand
this but I am unfailingly good-natured about it.
5.
Believe me, I realize what I'm sounding like with all this birth
stuff. Like an obsessed mother earth hippie. And the thing is I
can't help it. I have to stop it but I can't help it.
6.
My hair is starting to come out like crazy as I guess it's supposed
to four months postpartum. Between me and the dogs it's like the
dumpster of a hair salon at the end of the week around here. But
we just bought the best thing in the world because we had to because
the shedding of P&B was getting out of hand -- the Furminator.
And it totally works. It's the most expensive piece of tiny steel
with a handle you will ever buy, but it totally works. And it's
cheaper than shaving both dogs, which we were going to do until
I called around to set up an appointment. ($125 each!) Shaving golden
retrievers seems kind of borderline abuse anyway. I was going to
leave a little poof at the end of their tails.
7.
I sold some stuff at a yard sale that one of my friends had a few
weeks ago, and people totally stole from me. It totally shook my
faith in humanity. I turned my back for a minute and things disappeared.
Also, they put out this bookcase with a "free" sign on
it, and I like a total dumbass put some of my stuff on it to display
it, and turned around and that stuff was gone too. People thought
it was free. That's more understandable than the thieving, but still.
I made like a dollar that morning.
8.
Some down-the-block neighbors went out of town and left their kids
behind for the weekend and the kids were making so much noise (i.e.
playing some shitty R&B music that affronted my sensibilities)
that I called the cops. I let the madness go on until 10pm, but
then I called the cops and the nice night shift guy was all, "Okay,
we'll look into it." And the next thing I knew the police helicopter
was circling overhead for fifteen minutes shining its light down
to disperse the crowd. My one phone call cost the Burbank taxpayers
like $20,000 in fly time. Great.
9.
The Daily News
canceled For
Better For Worse and I canceled the paper. When I called them
to do it the sales rep said, "Why are you canceling?"
and I said, "You jerks canned a whole bunch of comics and for
some reason you don't realize that's why 95 percent of us subscribe
to the paper," and she said, "You're not the only one
who's mad." See, I spoke to them with my wallet. It's the only
way they'll listen. So no more obituaries for awhile. But at least
I don't have to read front-page stories about Victoria Beckham anymore.
Who cares that Posh Spice was eating lunch at the Woodland Hills
TGI Friday's? My good lord, there's a war happening, people.
10.
My Ohio cousins came for a vacation a few weeks ago and I did for
them what I always do for visitors -- I took them on a Hollywood
tour. I think they were bored. Until we saw Elijah Wood driving
a Mini, whereupon I flipped a U and tried to chase him just to show
them an actual movie star, but I couldn't catch up to him. I was
all, "Elijah Wood!" and they were all, "Huh?"
and I go, "FRODO!" and they go, "Ohhhh." But
I just wasn't into it enough to run lights and go balls out and
give chase like I did for Depeche Mode. And Tori Amos. And Tears
For Fears. That was a long time ago and a little stalkery if I do
say so myself. We also went to see the play Jersey Boys, and there's
one line in it where one of the guys is talking about flying over
Ohio, and he goes, "You know, the state you fly over on your
way to LA," or something like that. And I wonder if it's hard
living in a place that's the butt of lots of jokes. I guess if they
cared they wouldn't live there.
11.
Tomorrow I have to call the air conditioning company and argue with
them. I hate arguing, can't stand confrontation unless it's absolutely
necessary. Last week they sent an eighty year old foreign geezer
to service my air conditioner, and all he did was climb (slowly)
onto the roof, look at the unit, and declare it okay. He comes down
and goes, "One hundred dollars." I say, "Did you
replace the filters?" He shrugs, goes, "They didn't need
it." I go, "I've got two very hairy dogs and a baby that
needs clean unobstructed air. I need you to change those filters."
He goes, "They're clean!" I go, "They need to be
changed once a year at least, and this is that time," and he
goes, "Okay. No filters. Seventy-five dollars." I say,
"I just want the filters that come with the service plan."
He goes, "Okay okay! Sixty-five dollars!" And then practically
cried about how mean his boss was and how he could lose his job,
and yours truly, the superest tightwad of the universe forever,
wrote him a check for sixty-five dollars. Sucker. But tomorrow I
gotta call to get somebody non-geezery to come back and change those
filters. Who would deny this baby clean cold air?
