Ignorance Is a Size 3

There are many things I'm not sure about. Like Grenache. Irony. Neo-Liberalism. Moxie. These are key words to look for when trying to identify someone as an intellectual. He or she is also likely to diss gentrification. And eat Humboldt Fog on a cheese plate. I am no intellectual. I think I used the word chutzpah once in conversation, back when I had a working mind. I cancelled my subscription to the New Yorker. My brain doesn't go there anymore. For me it's just size 3 diapers and butt paste.

This Is Your Brain on Socks

Dr. S. asked today if I ever did lose my mind. I almost confessed to reckless experimentations with hallucinogens in my early 20s, but then I looked at his tan socks, and his clay coffee mug and his print of a Winnecott book cover on the wall (mother and child) and I just couldn't. There was an uncomfortable silence as I prepared my lie. And the moment passed. I can fess up to many things, but not LSD. To my shrink. Oh no. He has such nice comforting socks.

Names and Mt. Washington

What do baby names and Mount Washington have in common? Something, I tell you. The hipper (darn it, I said it again) the boy's name, the bigger the chances that his parents will buy a home in Mt. Washington in the next 4 months.

I'm glad I didn't name Milan Parker. Or Bowie or Finn or Dexter or Joshua or Aidan or Jayden, Ashton, Hunt or Tyler. Or London, Dresden, Boston or Hudson. There are a few others I can't mention here. And no, I did not name Milan after Italy's fashion capital. I do like shopping and he is an international playah, but give me some credit.

I'll tell you what I will do. I will move to Mt. Washington and gentrify it some more. Out with the pupusas. In with the Chariot strollers and $3,000 Tibetan sheep rugs. I will hang an owl just so. And Milan will get a sandbox.

These are the things...

Too fat is when you can no longer wrap a regular size bath towel around your body after showering. Luckily, I still can. But my boobs fail the pencil test. And other parts of my body are strangely different, too. Like C. said, while our babies were crawling in the sandbox on a sunny Friday afternoon, her "yoohoo" looks like an old lady's now. I've never seen an old lady's but I have the power of imagination. I don't know what mine looks like. I've allowed nature to take over. Deforestation has given way to verdant foliage. These are the things we never talk about.

Happy Food

I hardly ever say anything happy and positive and shiny and new, but I'm glad to report that the banana avocado mousse I made for Milan this morning was divine! The recipe came courtesy of the wonderful, inspirational weelicious.com, the best site for homemade babyfood this side of the Mississippi. Thank you, weelicious!

City Sip

The word hip is about as bad and overused as the word postmodern used to be, but I'm going to use it anyway. You see, I went to the (self-described) hip City Sip in Echo Park last night and it was trying so hard to be with it, that it fell completely flat. It was uncomfortably quiet and the whole experience felt stilted. The dudes pouring need to be more animated and please, learn something about the wines you are offering! Don't just read notes from the menu! At times it looked like they were about to say something, er, friendly, but then the cat must have gotten their tongues. They were extras in their own show and they made us feel weird. Not that we aren't weird already, but weirder, as in having a hard time getting into a conversational flow. My frizzante Rose was sugary sweet and when I mentioned it to the guy who gave of owner vibes he said: 'well, it's an acquired taste.' I wanted to say, dude, no one in their right mind will ever acquire a taste for this sparkling syrup, but instead we paid our bill, left, and went to Sgt. Recruiter were we had oodles of fun.

chick lit

The author Curtis Sittenfeld (Prep) claimed on NPR the other day that she didn't know what chick lit was. She's a real published auteur, so she can be magnanimous and say: "Is chick lit any book by or about a young woman? Any book by or about any woman? Any book with a high-heeled shoe on its cover?" Yes, Sittenfeld, that would be right. Answer C.) Any book with a high-heeled shoe on its cover. In that spirit, I went to Edendale Library on Tuesday, which has like 200 books, including none by Paul Auster or Steve Martin (not the target audience's flava), and I squinted real hard to better see all the pink jackets. And lo and behold they were all chick lit. Bright yellow or turquise covers work just as well.

Maybe I should write Ms. Sittenself (oops, Freudian slip) a letter and tell her "To Kill a Mockingbird" is probably not chick lit. Nor is "The Well of Loneliness." Or "Bonjour Tristesse." But that's stretching it.

Staying Human in L.A.

I heard about a guide to staying human in L.A. Alas, I couldn't find it. Great name, though. And much needed. So good I want to appropriate it.

GOOP

Barf. I just stumbled upon Gwyneth Paltrow's new lifestyle website, goop.com, where she yacks on about how to create a good life. How clever. Such a nifty hipster name. Almost as cool as Apple. Platitudinous Paltrow offers this wisdom: "Make your life good. Invest in what's real. Cook a meal for someone you love. Pause before reacting. Clean out your space. Read something beautiful. Treat yourself to something. Go to a city you've never been to. Learn something new. Don't be lazy. Workout and stick with it. GOOP. Make it great." That last part, "GOOP. Make it great," is priceless. I can't stop gagging. And for moms: "I love being a mother who has to overcome my bad qualities to be a good mother. I love being in spaces that are clean and nice."

Go #$%@ yourself and your cheesy "alternative" husband, whose last album bombed so bad he has to advertise on TV, and move back to Kensington already---or Kenya.

Lot 1 a Lotta Disappointment

As a mommy of an infant it takes me a while to get around to eating at the "new" hot spots like Lot 1 in Echo Park. What a dining failure that was, contrary to hyped reviews in the LA Times et al. We got a steak sandwich, which upon the waitress' recommendation we ordered medium rare. It came overcooked to the point of tasting like the soles of my trainers. The bread was an insipid huge sponge, akin to something you get at Ralphs. The cheese: American Velveeta; the onions oddly sour; the fries mealy wedges of carb. Really, it was a sad interpretation of a Philly Cheese Steak. We should have known from the tasty sounding mint lemonade, which arrived watery with flakes of sad dried mint and just a hint of lemon, dishwater really. Service was attentive and great and Milan had a blast mashing a piece of bready sponge. We have since heard that the original chef, Josef Centeno, has already departed, and he cooked at Opus, a restaurant that was always weirdly empty but very good. They even managed to make a more than passable spätzle.


Ergo: fries better at McDonalds; sandwiches better at Denny's; not that I would eat at either one.

Drop Dead

Dr. S. said this week I have been assigned the role of sad mommy. He said I'm playing my role very well. He said not to worry. Milan would grow up no matter what. Even if I dropped dead. What a comforting thought. Dr. S. is so pragmatic. In the meantime I have my friends. They are "WHITE, OBLONG-shaped, TABLET imprinted with A on the front and 0 7 on the back."

Cattle

Don't go to Lamill. It sucks. Service is rude and unattentive. The place has lost it on all fronts. The carpet is dirty. The aesthetics are losing their shine. The waitresses are losing their smiles. They still look cute in their high-waisted denim, but screw $7.50 for a chai latte or an orange-infused cappuccino. Nevertheless, the place is packed with hipster cattle thriving on the see and be seen thing. Baaaaah.

Spaceland

A good evening is a glass of wine and reading bad vampire novels. A better evening? I don't remember. Going out maybe? S. said she went to Spaceland last week and didn't know anyone. And everyone looked like they were 18. But she also said there were a whole bunch of fat girls there. Back in the day, when we owned Spaceland, there were no fat girls. Like S. said, if you were fat, you just didn't go to Spaceland.

The Moon, Salome

It's a full moon.
I went to Target.
Even the monkey

is frowning.

Darker My Love

I just want to wear black all the time. I haven't felt like that in a long time. Black pants. Black tops. Black jackets. Black nails. Black is the color of objects that do not emit or reflect light in any part of the visible spectrum. Just black. Dead winter branches. Crows. Burned pots. Soulless.

I hate Weekends

I really hate weekends. We never do anything and A. just wants to hang out at the house. Band practice hangs over us like Damocles' sword. The days are boring and long. Reading "The Road" doesn't help. Stark. Cold. Grey Ash.

Before and After

Before:

1. Bangs

2. Skinny jeans
3. Wine tasting
4. Spaceland

5. Shopping for sexy heels

6. Sex
7. Vodka Tonics
8. Girls Night Out

9. Money in the bank
10. Adult conversation

After:

1. Stained Sweats
2. Ponytails
3. Snack n Chats

4. Xanax

5. Parenting Books

6. In bed by 8pm

7. America's Next Top Model

8. Target

9. Shopping for organic bananas

10. My phone is so... silent

I Haba Headache!

Haba toys are de rigeur. They are nice developmentally friendly wooden toys. Everyone loves them. They are made from solid, natural, untreated beech wood that is harvested from sustainable forests. They make a lot of noise when baby clanks them around on the floor. I need an Advil. Seriously, though, I love Haba toys.

Lipstick on a Pig

Regardless of what radio station you turn on, pigs are the talk of the day. That's very American. People like pigs. In Germany, they eat tons. Here, they like them in a blanket. Or with apple sauce. Not so much being pulled over by one. Most people can't tell you what the Bay of Pigs is. Some place in San Francisco perhaps???

I'm Not Judgmental

On Sunday, after a long drive back from Las Vegas, we were chilling in the backyard at A.'s sister's house. S. asked if I'd like some wine. I said yes, and he poured some. It was sweet. Flavored with natural fruit flavors. And it was carbonated. And the bottle was HUGE. No, it wasn't a jeroboam. A sparkling desert wine or a summer rose. It was just bad wine with fruit flavor. It tasted like soda. I didn't complain. Not a peep.

Sew Yourself

And now, ladies and gentle metrosexuals, I get to clean the raw sewage off my bathroom walls. Ever since I had Milan, I clean all the time. On Friday, I had a blister from scrubbing so hard. And now I get to scrub again because the fat plumber (not Gustavo, but almost) trudged all over the house and left small black pebbles behind and who knows what else. You see, he was standing in the raw sewage one moment and the next instant he walked through the bedroom. Nonchalant, a whistle on his lips and a leer for my boobs. Such a nice guy.

And this is a Paradigm!

On Monday I had to attend a snack ‘n’ chat event from the mom's club, because once every blue moon our playgroup has to provide the snacks. I didn't have to do anything complicated like bake muffins or anything. My job was to provide water. But still. I have zero tolerance for anything where somebody takes minutes. Don't get me wrong. I ADORE my playgroup, but when I sit around in a circle, sipping coffee from paper cups and listening to the chick from the Center for Nonviolent Parenting explaining what a paradigm is, I feel like doing something very violent and inappropriate. Like yell, Get to the Point. And punch a wall, just for fun. (I never get to punch walls). She had ... [drumroll] two hand puppets. The jackal represented Traditional Parenting (big bad mean violent jackal) and the other animal---it must have been something benign like a newborn kitten; I don't remember---represented, Yay! Nonviolent Parenting! You see Traditional Parenting is bad because it doesn't focus on the child's needs. It may have been more informative than that, but somewhere between the minutes and the community garden the club donated daisies to or whatever and the mom of the month voting and the jackal puppet, I got lost.

Black is the New Smart

I knew it all along! Black does make you look more intelligent! Thanks, Suwon!

http://www.barneys.com/Customer%20Service/FALLFASHIONVIDEO1,default,pg.html?utm_source=YES&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=blackvideo

Hostile Takeover

There are ants in my kitchen. There are ants on the floor where Milan ate a piece of bread. I tried reasoning with the ants when it was just one or two. I told them that there was nothing here for them, to go back and report that to their boss or queen or whatever. They were scout ants. But no, they kept coming back, sniffing around. I apologized before I killed them, saying that I didn't want to take their lives, but that I had to, because they would bring their friends and they would all move into my kitchen and build ant condos.

Their deaths were futile. I killed more, apologizing to the universe. To no avail. They have taken over.

add to this:

the plumbing broke again
my bathroom looks like it was hit by a shitstorm
Milan has a bloody diaper rash
And our account is overdrawn

Add this to the jammed door lock from last week (which cost me $200)
and the kaputt battery, and the replacement battery a week later when my car went dead around the corner from Fatima's house

and... the ants are all of a sudden the least of my problems.

Anger Part Deux

It just occurred to me (I didn't chant Sat Nam for nothing this morning) that maybe the Geodon is causing the angry episodes. Now that I think about it, I have never felt such anger in my life! Or maybe it's the acupuncture starting to move energy? There's definitely something larger going on with me. I'm fascinated like by a car wreck. But here's me, the emotional wreck, finally finding land, bathing in the shallow pools of rage.

Brideshead Aborted

If I sat in an arm chair with a doily more often sipping tea, or gin and vermouth, more appropriately, I might have it in me to finish Brideshead Revisited. As it is, I find it rather a bore. Sebastian, of course, is frightfully charming and that teddy bear of his, so aptly christened Aloysius, amusingly underlines his terrible charm further, but it's all too charming for me. Even though it has such pulchritudinous passages as:

"On a sheep-cropped knoll under a clump of elms we ate the strawberries and drank the wine — as Sebastian promised, they were delicious together — and we lit fat, Turkish cigarettes and lay on our backs, Sebastian’s eyes on the leaves above him, mine on his profile, while the blue-grey smoke rose, untroubled by any wind, to the blue-green shadows of foliage, and the sweet scent of the tobacco merged with the sweet summer scents around us and the fumes of the sweet, golden wine seemed to lift us a finger’s breadth above the turf and hold us suspended."

That passage is perfection. But. my.brain.justcan't.focus.on so much beauty --- today---or ever.

Gustavo Part Deux

I was really professional today. I stood in the street and called Gustavo an IDIOT. And a MOTHERFUCKER. Twice. I was cleaning the bedroom and drinking coffee when he called and asked me not to park my car in front of his house anymore. I told him it's a public street. He kept insisting that it's his, in his horrible English. Something inside me clicked and I hit the space bar and there it was. MOTHERFUCKER. So much for neighbourly relations. Now what? He can tell me to go back to my country where La Guera people live. And I can tell him to go shove another pupusa in his fat face and I can park in front of his house and he can park in front of mine and it's a German-Salvadorian stand-off. But what it comes down to is that he has three huge trucks and takes up all the spaces in front of our house, so I'm supposed to park up the street in front of the mental hospital with my baby, and schlepp him a whole block. MOTHERFUCKER.

Busy Bee-ing

I drank too much coffee and I'm going down a dark path. Dr. S. lauded the beauty of just being versus always doing. So I came home and did the dishes, clipped dead leaves of the jasmine, mopped the floor, finished an article about Glasgow, watered the lawn, ordered a book on Amazon and made five phone calls.

Verklemmt

S. asked me if I'm angry. After reading my blog. I was quick to defend myself. No way. I'm not angry at all. I'm getting it all out through writing, you see. So why did I feel like shaking my ten-month old yesterday afternoon when he wouldn't stop whining? Can I blame PPD for everything? Is blaming PPD not taking responsibility? Can one even take responsibility for one's thoughts and impulses? Dr. S. reminded me yesterday to deeply accept myself and all my emotions, even negative ones about my Dad and my baby. So when I allowed myself to feel something, allowed the nasty stuff to bubble up, I felt like smashing M. against a wall. Dr. S. would call it a metaphor. Of course, I'd never act on my impulses. I never do. That's why I'm all verklemmt, and I'm talking about the original German meaning. Brooke Shields wrote about that, wanting to hurt herself and her baby, and at the time I didn't understand, couldn't understand. And who can I tell aside from Dr. S? The anonymous masses are a brutal audience. The world is a place of forgiveness for the Dalai Lama. It isn't for me. I'm alone in this. I suppose I'm an existentialist and that's a dark and terrible thing.

Sarah Palin is a Dog

We live in a country where political candidates think it's cool and voter friendly to compare themselves to dogs. I guess that's OK if you love dogs. I don't. Much ado has been made of Sarah Palin's pithy little sound bite: What's the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull? Lipstick. It got everyone excited, even leftie pundits granting that she did give a good speech. Who else thinks deriving your pride as a mom from fighting like a trained dog is ludicrous? Anyone? And a dog with lipstick. That's a very telling metaphor from the self-proclaimed bitch.

Just PS: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently released a report that showed pit bulls were responsible for more dog bite-related attacks than any other breed during a 20-year period.

Gustavo

I have a "situation" with my neighbour, as A. calls it. He's from El Salvador, so I can call him a Salvadorean piece of shit. A. thinks that's racist. I think I'm just stating a fact. But A. has been a bit touchy since he changed his and M's name from Smith to Rodriguez. The situation exists because A-) he refused to take his dirty work boots off, even though I had just shined the entire floor of the house and Milan licks it ten times a day (and mops it, of course). And B-) because he said he'd come over at 9:30am to fix the pipes and I refused to let him into the house at noon, when Milan was finally napping. Now he won't look at me or talk to me. And that's why I had to call a locksmith this morning to fix the broken lock and it cost me $200. You see, he fixes things for our landlord. When he feels like it. In his boots. They won't come off. Even for a baby. That piece of shit.

Phlegm Strikes Again

You know, this isn't fat, said my acupuncturist today, while inside I was screaming STOP! NO MORE NEEDLES IN MY FEET (those are particularly touchy) and considering requesting he put ALL the needles in my HEAD. What, I said? This, he said, grabbing my arm. Sure, you've gained some weight, but this is all phlegm. And water. A lot of water weight. I could have wept with relief.

Amish People

At playgroup today, K. was saying: Oh, I would love to have a full-sized kitchen. With an island. And a full size refrigerator. And a full size freezer. Hell, I said, I'd love to have a full size house. Yes, said C., with full size things. Like chairs. And a table. That's when I realized we live like Amish people. Short of the horse and carriage in lieu of a car, we really make do with NOTHING. We have no cable TV (so I cannot watch Project Runway. Milan can't get hooked on Yo Gabba Gabba). We have no microwave. We have to coffeemaker. We have no dining table. Or chairs. How do Japanese people teach their kids about good table manners? How do Amish people freeze squash and peas and yams for baby? How do they make coffee? Well, they can all come over to our "house" and "learn."

90210

It's a week of season premieres on the CW. Among them: 90210. It makes me feel so old. In general, I don't feel old really. I'm sort of ageless, especially since I’ve become a mom. But 90210 brings up interesting stuff. A secret, hidden part of me really wanted to be Donna. On the outside of course I was a chain-smoking, Doc Martins-rocking, Ministry-listening rriot girl, but on the inside I longed to be blonde in Beverly Hills with an expense account. Of course, I had my own sort of trust fund back then, but I didn't shop on Rodeo Drive. Not that there really ever has been anything worthwhile purchasing. Safe for Tiffany's. Anyway, I really identified with Donna in a way I never did with any of the much cooler Twin Peaks chicks in their preppie sweaters. Donna was ditzy and had cleavage and she shopped. What more could a girl ask for? The David Lynch femmes had secrets and complex inner lives. Donna was vapid and thus accessible. And even years before all that Manga stuff became popular, Donna had those huge Bette Davis eyes that just pull you in!

Don't Miss a Single New Episode Tuesday, Sept. 2 at 8/7c on The CW