idiots

Note to self:

The YoVille world is not a real world in which you live. This means a few things. First, there is no need for the avatar to look exactly like you. A longer hairdo choice is acceptable! Secondly, and most importantly, you do not have to actually live in and maintain the house! In other words, don't feel compelled to choose a coffee table based on how much easier it would be to dust than another one that you like better.

the joy of omissions, baby version

So after a weekend of trying to keep our sanity from slipping between our slick fingers with the two boys at home all day, it was finally Sunday night, 6 pm, bedtim for Liam. Oh happy day! I grab him and his water-filled sippy cup and head downstairs, where we've actually gotten him into the habit of just being put in his bed awake and walking out and closing the door behind us.

I get down there, he's ready for bed, putting his head on my shoulder, and I go to lay him in the bed. As soon as his head hits the pillow (he's totally subdued, thank the good Lord), I feel that the pillow is wet. I think, oh lord, did he pee in the bed earlier or something? So I pull him back out and put him on my hip. The entire pillow is soaked, along with half the sheet. I smell it, and thankfully, it's not pee. Just water. I am like, how in the L did so much water get in his bed?! Did Aidan throw a cup in there or something?

I had to wander around the entire downstairs to get the stuff fixed. Get a new pillow from Aidan's bed. Get a thick blanket to line the sheet so I don't have to change the entire sheet with a steadily second wind-ing baby on my side. Lay it all out. By the time I get all that together and lay him in the bed, he is PISSED. So I've just expended much more energy than was necessary and have made him truly awake, giving him hope that he's going to get to play longer.

I come upstairs and say, "Man, Liam's bed was soaking wet!" Tony says, "Oh yeah, he spilled a bunch of water in there earlier."

Okay, two notes:

1. He cannot "spill" water. He drinks from spill-proof sippy cups. Unless this eighteen-month-old pulled mouthful after mouthful of water from the cup and into his mouth and then systematically spit them into various parts of the bed, one after the other, that cannot be possible.
   
2. Couldn't Tony have (a) changed the bed or (b) at least told me about it, so I could have avoided the angry infant at bedtime?
   

Just a note for future fathers… A soaked bed is not something that can be kept secret. Even in the desert where we live.

not quite twilight. maybe mid-afternoon.

Okay, am I the only one who was disappointed royally with the Twilight movie?

On a strictly personal OCD note, I picture myself in the leading role of any book like this that has a narrating character that I identify with at all. That said, the girl who played Bella (while I enjoyed her in other things I've seen her in), was much too large of a person. I need the small, strong type!

In the first place, I think the movie making was not nearly as good as it could have been. The development of the story could have been better with not very major changes. One of the most significant things that makes the book so good is its completely accurate portrayal of what it's like to fall in love, particularly as a young person who hasn't been crapped all over and still believes in the "we'll be together forever in bliss" stuff. I think they could have spent a little more time developing that part of the story. Even eliminating the extraneous school friendships and setups would have been a good thing to add more time for their relationship growing.

Secondly, the casting was off (other than the big-boned Bella). I didn't think the dude playing Edward was a very good actor, and frankly, I thought he was supposed to be beautiful. That dude looks like someone bashed him in the face with the flat end of a frying pan. And how dumb was his facial expression as Carlile made him stop sucking Bella's hand? Jacob is fairly unattractive in my opinion as well… his is the nose that ate Manhattan, and his hair looks very unnatural on him. One of the dudes who came with Jacob to the beach at the beginning might have been a better fit. They actually looked Native American. And speaking of Carlile, how horrible did cool guy from Can't Hardly Wait look with blond hair? HORRIBLE. Lastly, while it couldn't be helped and he did a decent job with the small part he had, I couldn't stop picturing Laurent when he was Big Love on "House."

When it comes down to it, I won't be pirating a copy of this movie. Congratulations on deterring crime, moviemakers!

alexandria

When I was in college, I sang in a cover band, the only girl in a group with between five and seven guys depending on the band and the year, traveling around the Bible Belt singing such powerful future classics as "Get Your Groove On" and "Set U Free." While there was never a lack of marauding around the Deep South committing unspeakable act after unspeakable act, one particular incident sticks in my mind, and not just because of the clear presence of E. Coli.

The band, which was suitably named after a profane term of endearment, played at a club in central Louisiana named after one of the greatest inventions in history. No doubt, then, that some of the major memories I have of this club include (a) their selling nitrous oxide balloons on the left hand side of the dance floor, (b) having an apparently bisexual girl seduce me by discussing a song called "Orgasm" and offering me free draft beer, and, much to the guys' chagrin, my choosing not to take her home, and (c) hearing the story of the stabbing in the men's bathroom, an event that didn't stop the flailing about on the dance floor.

On what I think was my first gig at this club, we decided that in order to safely drink our body weights in free liquor, we would require a hotel room, to avoid the two-hour drive back home. We booked at the closest, cheapest place we could find, but then ended up happily accepting the invitation of two girls at the club, who offered their home to us for the night. This wasn't an uncommon occurrence: the stories you've heard about girls and their love for guys in the band is true, something I marveled at throughout the years I sang with these guys. While I was friends with them and wouldn't characterize them as unattractive or not fun to be around, I never understood the magnetic attraction they held for girls… that is, until I considered the mental (or should I say, chemically influenced) states of said girls.

On this particular night, there were two interested parties, neither of whom had a name that I remember. One was a very nondescript, average-looking brunette, and the other was a blonde with a somewhat large face that was still on the other side of pretty. That they were happy to invite six total strangers (me, two male vocalists, a guitar player, a bass player, and a drummer) to their home should have indicated something about them, but we were just happy for the free room. We promptly cancelled our hotel reservations and took off for Chez Sluts once we'd packed up our gear.

After stopping at a grocery store for more alcohol, we drove to their house, a two story home that I have very little memory of. In retrospect, I'm sure it was in an incredibly seedy neighborhood, but on the forty bucks a week I was making as an undervalued female singer in a band with guys who saw me as a potential lay, I was just happy not to have to pay to sleep on a semen-stained hotel bedspread from 1974. Their desire to hook up with two of the band guys, one of which had a serious girlfriend and wasn't known for philandering, didn't affect our decision at all, of course.

The house was the typical college-age place. Mismatched furniture, poor lighting—none of which made a rat's ass of a difference to us. Immediately upon entering, the brunette, having realized that her hoped-for partner for the night was only interested in free lodging, lit up some incredibly rank smelling weed and promptly passed out on the couch. Her roommate, the moon-faced blonde, welcomed us with drunk cordiality and put on a Bad Company CD. As she began to sing along in operatic tones, we put the squeeze on her potential partner to get her out of the room. He was only happy to oblige, as you can imagine, and we were left to our own devices, since the brunette was still mentally MIA.

As soon as the coital trip upstairs was taken, the remaining (coherent) guys in the band took over the house, determined to corrupt everything they could touch. And by touch, I don't mean with their hands.

The first order of business was to raid the fridge, since drinking from six pm to three am tends to make one hungry, especially after a four-hour stint in a sweaty bar. After consuming what they could find (during which time I was scoping out the place), they began their invisible destruction.

After depositing some pubic hairs into a bag of frozen boneless chicken breasts and doing other damage to the foodstuffs, the drummer, who had an unnatural and hilarious (to everyone who wasn't dating him) preoccupation with his ass, decided that his posterior was his weapon of choice. The other guys were only too happy to assist him in his endeavors. Over the next few hours, he put his behind on everything that was sitting still, including perhaps the brunette, but I can't swear to that. I was too busy checking out the clean load of laundry, since the girls were about the same size as I.

Before the night came to a close, the drummer's ass had come into contact with most of the girls' eating utensils, all the downstairs doorknobs, and as much of the banister as could be made vile without risking splinters in his nether region. And mysteriously, at least one of their polyester fly-collar hippie-flowered shirts went missing and was never seen again.

The next morning, we were awakened by a banging on the door. When the brunette, finally awake, opened it, it was apparently someone's mom, which was a total buzzkill. Like any good party band, we immediately grabbed our crap and rolled out, the bass player and I jumping in the dilapidated band van with no air conditioning to follow the other cars back to our hometown.

As we were pulled over by a policeman for following the guy singer in his three-lane veer to reach a hotel bathroom on the way home, I happily held my somewhat heavier bag in my lap, sweating buckshots like a whore in church. It was a story I knew would become a story even before the story was over.

And any time I hear "Feel Like Makin' Love" to this day, I feel compelled to sing it in operatic tones.

it’s pat

There's this little human that works in the department down the hall from me. I've not been able to ascertain if it was a little man or a boyish woman. It's about five foot two, and wears button ups and khakis and has a short haircut, but its frame is small and its face is young and androgynous.

This week I discovered. It's a little man.

jme's etiquette rules, part one

If I am waiting for my food to heat up in the microwave in the break room at work, and you come in and don’t know me, you should immediately check your mailbox and leave. Waiting with your food in your hands is unacceptable, because it makes me feel as though I can’t stir and continue heating my food when the microwave beeps.

idiots

Note to woman at gas station:

Please do not go pushing buttons willy nilly at the gas station attendant's little box station. What you allegedly thought was a "push button for service" button was actually the "set off the alarm and stop all pumps immediately in case of massive fire emergency button." And I'm pretty sure it was probably labeled. Idiot.