if everyone just MADE each other a nice gift for christmas, and left it at that. yeah, there'd still be a lot of purchases going on, you'd need materials, but each thing would be so much more from the heart, rather than an obligatory object. plus it might encourage people to expand their skills and talents. you'd have to be a real cold hearted grinch to just half-ass something, or to talk trash about someone's less-than-perfect creation.

eh. what do i know. christ was born, the son of god, here you go, here's an ipod.

and that said, i write with the full knowledge that my list, while long, doesn't have a single homemade thing on it.... i definitely don't know a cobbler. and i'm not making anything for the kids, though i plan to for the adults.

in any case, it's still my very favorite holiday, despite rampant spending and bad behavior. like a simpleton, i am so easily distracted by all the shininess and sparklies, the cinnamon scents and mountains of cookies, the fact that a tree is dragged indoors and totally fucked with. i love it, every last bit.

i could be wrong, but it is my general impression that europeans don't make nearly the silly fuss about nursing in public as americans do. yet another way they are better. guess what--women are a whopping 51% of the population, which means you are in the presence of breasts 102% of the time. for the whiners who express their discomfort at me FEEDING MY CHILD, uhhhhh---that's what boobs are there for. it may surprise you to know they're not just for flashing during superbowl halftime shows.

to get freudian, perhaps we all long for the pleasure and comfort of feeding at the breast, a time before thought and memory where every need is met, and that's why both sexes find breasts fascinating (and before any ladies balk-don't deny it-think about all the time you spent from adolescence to now thinking about yours compared to hers hers or hers). i think this would apply even more to formula fed people since nursing is instinctual so that longing for the breast is there twofold.

now i am right amidst those who think la leche league moms are a bit cuckoo, but it saddens me that it's the only group of people around whom it's perfectly OK to go to it without hiding. who won't remark later...."can you believe, everything showing like that??"

many ridiculous things have caught my attention, just in the last 24 hours. a commercial for the "veteran's day mattress sale" oh right..... everyone waits all year for that, when we can honor the fine people who fought and/or died in service by purchasing a mattress.
also i noticed a sticker on a rubbermaid tote stating that it is a 'limited edition' what what??? because of its unique taupe color? lemme at 'em, these babies might be worth big cash one day........ hahaha.
the third was a bullet point on a bottle of body splash-- 'use anytime-all day or all night.' who comes up with this stuff? it's sort of infuriating, the amount spent on just what goes into making commerce work. and when you boil it down, i guess it's just another longing on my part to trade your blacksmithing skills for my delicious farm raised brown eggs, or something to that effect. damned little house on the prairie.

sorry, parents. i've got him. in the world's cutest costume....





this year he pretty much 'got it.' trick or treating was a blast.... i love my new neighborhood. i had to wonder what was going through his mind since he didn't nap and was already pretty punch drunk. he had to be like "wtf?? is this what i have to do to get candy around here?"





some of my best memories are all around halloween, me and my little brother always made out like gangbusters, and my mom almost always made our costumes. one year we were a cat and mouse and one year, dice. one year i was dracula and so was one of those REALLY overzealous adults who do up their yard and play spooky music, and i swear he grabbed me when i reached out for the candy and tried to throw me in the coffin. oh my god i screamed bloody murder, but my mom says he only grabbed my arm and gave it a tug, there was no lifting involved. what's the difference, i was TERRIFIED. but that's what it's all about, or should be a little bit.
i can hardly wait for the octopus to get older for similar shenanigans. she never made it into her hot dog costume....it was so warm (golly i remember freezing our rears off trick or treating, now it's like 70? miami of the north)....but here she is looking pretty cute anyway.




so with the candy and gramma presents, it's sort of like christmas in october around here today. november, rather.

it is alarming, at the end of the day, to see how many diapers we have gone through. i have cloth ones in my possession, and don't feel the slightest bit guilty about not using them....the both of them are fortunate enough for now not to be sitting in it.....once in a while *i* get to use the bathroom as well. things are possible with the first kid that just aren't now, i'm learning. she'll live, i'm sure....and surely the landfill has a little extra room. i'll just tell myself that.

whoa, jeebus. having 2 is intense. i am averaging about 4 hours of sleep per 24, if "lucky" ---if i was in my 40s i feel this would be impossible. as it is, i am looking forward to that decade since it might be then that i can sleep again. eh. whine whine.

unruly dogs and their overprivileged owners, that schizo naptime woodpecker, the feist ipod commercial, ennui, the word ennui, sleeplessness, most food, boxes and bags, thinking about shelving, itchy itchy itchy belly skin, tv, "you're all baby," pillow between the legs, massive banana consumption, "breaking" the boy of the bee, chipped teeth, what is and isn't in my control, waiting, waiting, waiting.

mostly it is boredom, an unforeseen necessary routine, tarnished by so much physical incapability, made dull by months of repetition.
but then how the trinkets of parenthood can shine shine shine...




remember this is worth that.

and who decides? this is the underlying topic of this pretty crazy NYTimes article i read
in which the Massachusetts Museum of Modern Art goes ahead and displays this behemoth exhibit against the artist's wishes. It isn't finished and gives an inaccurate impression of the artist and his work, but the museum is way overbudget and overdeadline and has to cough up some "product."

morally reprehensible, for sure, and sure to damage both the museum and the artist since what ended up getting displayed sounds like pure crap compared to the artist's conception of it. however, he did request a fuselage...and the museum is footing some exponential bills on this guy's list....so.......

the article takes the side of the artist, and gets a little preachy with this quote: "Never underestimate the amount of resentment and hostility we harbor toward artists. It springs largely from envy. They can behave quite badly, but mainly they operate with a kind of freedom and courage that other people don't risk or enjoy. And it can lead to wondrous things." but ultimately, i agree. and i had definitely been doing some eye rolling for the "vision" of the artist in requesting these outlandish things, and having someone else have to deliver, so it is a valid point to make.

in the end, the writer opines that it is the artist who gets to say, "this is not a work of art unless i say so' .....now this is so tricky. can i put olives on toothpicks and glue them around my toilet seat, and call it art? then a gallery or museum i am trying to get into can call it 'not art', but it actually IS art because i made it and i say so? how sassy. so all it comes down to is confidence and an all-powerful creative gavel?

i have to agree with leo tolstoy, who wrote that the intention of the artist has to be properly received and felt by the observer in order for it to be art which sounds simple and rule-ish but deals with the emotion and communication that must be present for art to be art.

and unfortunately, Buchel loses all around here, as his intentions are muddled in the unfinished work and so certainly cannot be conveyed. all this is going to trial, some interesting debates should be generated by who has what rights in that realm, and who decides the laws of art...... poor Mass MoCA sounds pretty fucked......

why am i so fascinated by substances that have many many uses. each new use is like lifting a little flap, and there is a surprise underneath is why. i guess.

so because i'm one of the great dorks of the world, and because i love this mysterious and precious liquid so, in every one of its many incantations, i will share with you the things i know vinegar can do.

1. if you put a tablespoonful in your dog's water 2-3 times a week, your dog's peepee will not burn unsightly patches in your beauteous suburban lawn. or urban. or rural.

2. rub it straight on your ripening pumpkin or watermelon. it will discourage any rotting as well as insects as your produce comes to its fullest potential

3. speaking of insect critters, putting a line of it outside your doorway(s) (or cracks, crevices, wherever they come from) will keep the ants away.

4. hot vinegar poured over a stain will remove it lickety split

5. 1 part white vinegar + 3 parts water= streak free windowy shine, plus a great all purpose (and all natural) cleaning product

6. kicks the rear of bleach for whitening your laundry. add 1 cup

7. sounds gross, but a shot of apple cider vinegar will do wonders for your hangover. keeping it down may be difficult, tho. worth it?

8. a splash or two in the water you use to boil or baste a ham with will keep the ham nice n sweet n juicy. though i never made a ham, ever.

welllll, that is it for now. not the most impressive list, but i know i have much more to learn about this special acid. maybe someday i will brew my own, and begin the vinegar farm of my dreams.......

michael stipe and his fine band were on sesame street last week, bringing a little tear to my emotional eye. the song was "shiny happy monsters" alternated with "sad and sobbing monsters" to showcase to kids the wide range of emotions, and the fact that they can so rapidly flip, i suppose. it was amusing also cause this bunch of serious nerd-rockers sort of had to *force* looking like they were having fun, especially m.s. sheesh. you're playing your guitar with honkers. lighten up, buddies.

anyway rem is great, and always goes with fall for me for some reason, and i don't really know where that came from...... i am trying to interest myself in music made more recently, i am sick of just about every cd we have and would like to branch out a bit. then, it requires some degree of motivation and hobby-like time commitment, which turns me off these days. mostly i sit around and wait to hatch.

it is odd, when you go to move, and take everything down, and realize just how much *stuff* you have here and there, useful or not, and how that stuff defines you in a way. so far there are 7 full boxes of books and more to come. so that suggests that that is the most important aspect of our lives. i will most definitely not have that many boxes of clothes, or sex toys. so. it's just odd, looking around at this gorgeous apartment, and how it will once again be a blank slate for the next folks, and i'll have a blank slate in the new house, which will be my slate and no one else's, and no stomps from my ceiling or ll's telling me not to pull out the jimny weeds that are so precious somehow. that part will be awesome. but moving is sort of intense, especially right now... but then, so is everything, right now.

but you have to know how (so states the Cat, somewhat ominously--he IS quite the trickster). i USED to know how, or so i thought, and then for a while i learned how in a totally different way, now i am not sure i know how at all, or even if i really knew how then either. here is a seussian verse about it:

it was fun long ago but rather confusing
to think of amusements as so very amusing
now there is too much and too little to do
minding thing 1 and brewing thing 2

hahahaha.......terrible.