special olympics

When a group of twenty-somethings in a band travels around, staying in free hotels and with access to lots of free alcohol but little income otherwise, they come up with creative ways to entertain themselves.

We were in Natchez, Mississippi one weekend, playing at a regular club on our gig rotation, a small underground bar that was probably one of our favorite places to play. They always put us up at this terribly low end hotel on the opposite side of town, a hotel that didn't raise a fuss when the guys used the nightstand drawers as their ashtrays and that eventually filled the swimming pool in with concrete, presumably because their clientele wasn't of swimming pool caliber.

We'd finished our gig at the club and made our way back to the hotel, at least one female hanger-on in tow, a somewhat homely girl that I was charged with befriending in order to keep her entertained watching the guys until their antics were over. Having drunk more Crown and sevens than I care to mention, I had no problem chatting with the total stranger that was now part of our crew for the night.

Our typical continual drinking and occasional pot-smoking aside, the guys were looking for something new. Something competitive. Something maybe a touch athletic… which isn't really the forte of musicians, in most of the cases with which I have experience. And so, the Hotel Room Olympics was born.

The first order of business was naming the national affiliation of each competitor. Kyle, the muscle-bound guitarist who had the only athletic physique, was dubbed the German competitor. Brent, the dark-complexioned drummer, was declared from Mexico, since his band nickname was Taco, contrary to his Cajun background. Mike, the bass player who had a skin condition labeled of the Bovine Nation. Randy, the barely over five foot tall rapper in the band, was named of a Chinese country, possibly less for his short stature than for the effect his frequent pot-smoking had on his eyes. And the games began.

The game that was the most indicative of typical evenings with the guys was the backfarting competition. This was an event that the drummer had invented that had grown to epic proportions. While a damp bathtub was the best medium of sound, we eventually moved the event to the requisite table in all cheap hotel rooms.

Backfarting consisted of a damp table, a shirtless contestant, and stomach muscles at least strong enough to lift one's legs up by the gut. If you do this with an ample amount of back fat, it makes a sound like, you guessed it, a fart. This was a crowd favorite, causing us to interrupt more than one cheap traveler's night in neighboring rooms with our raucous laughter. The "Mexican" contestant, whose nickname was Taco, always ruled this particular event. As the gold, silver, and bronze medalists stood on stacks of pillows at varying heights, the room burst into "Frito Bandito," the closest we could get to a "Mexican" song in our drunken stupor.

The other events didn't have the regular victor that backfarting did. They included the high jump (over a pile of pillows), the bed vault (which led many cries of "WHAT A DISMOUNT!") and the floor exercise. The hanger-on and I cheered after each event, laughing at the "national anthems".

As the floor exercises died down, and the last beer was drunk, and the laughing turned into snoring, I could only think one word, one word suitable for these nights. Special.

why, if you’re a stay-at-home mom, you’re better than me

So yesterday I was stuck at home with the two kids because their "grandma" was sick with the flu, and man, what an adventure, if an adventure is someone systematically burning all the hairs out of your body with a red hot poker and then shoving it in your eye.

For two days in a row, I didn't get more than three or four hours of sleep. Then yesterday morning, despite my exhaustion, I had a sinus headache, so I took some medicine, which I guess exacerbated the problem. I could barely keep my eyes open the entire day. And since my patience lasts about as long as my hair is at the moment, adding miserable sleepiness is not a good thing.

Liam didn't nap for more than thirty minutes, which is ridiculous, since sometimes he'll nap for two hours of the day. I couldn't get either of them to eat anything worth a crap. I got Liam to eat one slice of cheese, and they each ate a bite or two of a hot dog, but that was it. Lots of Cheerios, pretzels, etc. I tried to take Aidan outside for Liam's short nap to give him a break, and we weren't out there for ten minutes before he saw a bee and decided he wanted to go back in. I took them to the store, which is always "fun."

By about 12:00, I started thinking, maybe Tony will come home early to relieve me. No such luck. He has to take hours off his vacation to do it, but I was getting desperate. By 2:00, I was slowly losing my mind. I picked up all the toys in the living room and tried to make myself busy with Facebook quizzes while they played on the floor with one another. By 2:30, I started watching out of the window. By 2:45, I had the two boys up on the couch, all of us watching out of the window for Tony's car. When I started seeing the kids that walk home from the school pass by, I started getting angry. I called the classroom, no answer. I called his neighboring teacher's cell phone, no answer. I called his classroom again, and again, no answer. By 3:00 I was irate. And building. 3:10, no Tony. Finally, at about 3:15, I relented to letting Aidan take a bath, which I'd been trying to put off till Tony got home. I stripped them down and stuck them in the tub. When I went to throw Liam's pj's into the living room to have them ready to dress him, I saw Tony's car pulling in.

I checked on the kids until I figured he'd be walking up. When he walked in the door, my purse was on my arm, I was about to explode, and I just said, "They're in the tub" and flew out of the door to my car. I took a Xanax, and it took me a thirty minute errand-running cool down break to even get back to where I could breathe regularly and my heart would slow down. I had worked myself into a panic attack. Great. One day, someone is going to figure out that I'm a terrible mom and come and take these kids away. Thankfully, their "grandma" is much better at dealing with them than I am.

why same-sex marriage is "wrong"

1) Being gay is not natural. Real Americans always reject unnatural things like eyeglasses, polyester, and air conditioning.

2) Gay marriage will encourage people to be gay, in the same way that hanging around tall people will make you tall.

3) Legalizing gay marriage will open the door to all kinds of crazy behavior. People may even wish to marry their pets because a dog has legal standing and can sign a marriage contract.

4) Straight marriage has been around a long time and hasn't changed at all; women are still property, blacks still can't marry whites, and divorce is still illegal.

5) Straight marriage will be less meaningful if gay marriage were allowed; the sanctity of Brittany Spears' 55-hour just-for-fun marriage would be destroyed.

6) Straight marriages are valid because they produce children. Gay couples, infertile couples, and old people shouldn't be allowed to marry because our orphanages aren't full yet, and the world needs more children.

7) Obviously gay parents will raise gay children, since straight parents only raise straight children.

8) Gay marriage is not supported by religion. In a theocracy like ours, the values of one religion are imposed on the entire country. That's why we have only one religion in America.

9) Children can never succeed without a male and a female role model at home. That's why we as a society expressly forbid single parents to raise children.

10) Gay marriage will change the foundation of society; we could never adapt to new social norms. Just like we haven't adapted to cars, the service-sector economy, or longer life spans

hilarious stuff you take for granted

So today, Aidan was finished eating his "dinner" (a "warm hot dog", his daily meal), and I had told him if he ate something he could have some pudding. He walks into the kitchen to retrieve the promised pudding and he's looking at his foot and walking weird. He said, "Mommy, look at my foot." I said, "What's wrong with it?" I didn't see any marks or anything. He said, "It's invisible."

He walked funny over to me staring at his foot, and I figured out what he meant. I mean, do you remember when you learned that your foot falls asleep? I thought that was a pretty hilarious way for him to explain it, that his foot was invisible.

requiem for a mundane life

As Aidan burst in to interrupt my bath time for the fourth time, I had a vision, sweet and beautiful.

In this vision, I leisurely take a bath without being interrupted. I leave the bathroom to put on my pjs without tripping over toys in the hall. I enter the living room where one of my rerunning sitcoms or SVU marathons is on, instead of Veggie Tales or Scooby Doo. I am surrounded by only furniture, and I am able to light a candle on a coffee table, a coffee table that I can actually use to rest my drink.

I put a DVD on, a DVD that doesn't include animated stars or talking animals, and I decide to paint my fingernails. I grab the fingernail polish and sit, without realizing what freedom this is, painting my nails while watching a film.

Unfortunately, I am awaken out of this reverie by Aidan pulling his drawers down and repeatedly saying, "Mommy, look at my oinky butt" while sticking his rear end in my direction.

stairs: 4, jamie: 0

Yes, I fell down the stairs again. Just to recap my previous death matches:

First, I slipped down the stairs just after Liam was born, while I was holding him, only a few weeks old. I had to take all the impact in my back rather than drop him, which began the juicily delicious chronic back pain I've had since.

Next, I fell down the same stairs running down to bring medicine to one of the boys. Took the impact on one side of my back mostly, to avoid spilling medicine. Note to self: wiping up medicine is better than further damage to back.

The last encounter I had was at school. I was going to my car in the parking garage in my slip on brown shoes with the slickest bottoms ever, and it was *gasp* raining, one of the few rainstorms we actually have here per year. As I am now unaccustomed to the rain, I wasn't taking care, and my feet flew out from underneath me on the incredibly sharp concrete stairs going into the parking garage. That one provided some awesome scraping and bleeding in addition to the putting a cherry on top of the back injury.

So last night, after downing some Nyquil and falling asleep on the couch, I awoke at around midnight and came out of a stupor to head down to bed. No socks this time, which I blamed on my falling on the carpeted stairs the last two times. Nope, this time, it was just my bare feet. And the added bonus this time? I slipped on like the second stair, which means I slid down probably eight to ten steps, again on my back.

If anyone's got any spare Vicodin, send it my way!