Offspring Story of the Day

Mags: Let's play the sock game.
Me: What?
Mags: You know, the sock game. "GetoutofthetubI'mdrowning!" (falls to the ground)
Me: What?
Mags: "Get-out-of-the-tub-I'm-drowning!" (falls to the ground again)
Me: Ummm, is this something you learned at school?
Mags: Yah! It was in the sock movie. He was in the tub and then he went down.
Me: Ahh. Of course.

Later that night...

Mags: (suddenly shouts) "GetoutofthetubI'mdrowning!"
(Mags and Mom fall to the floor)

Naptime

So I didn't fall asleep at the acupuncture office yesterday. But I did catch at least 39 winks at physic al therapy today. Crazy, I know. But again, lying flat on my back, warm heating pad around my neck, and then gentle, repetitive circular massaging on my jaw? YEah, out like a light. I did wake up when he stuck his hands in my mouth and tried to tug my jaw off, though. And can I just say grape-flavored gloves my ass. Grape SCENTED, possibly, but they still taste like latex. Guess I was expecting something tastier, a la edible underwear. Yeah, in hindsight, maybe a bit naive.

The jaw is coming along though. I was also thinking that maybe being tired all the time is oddly beneficial. I can open my mouth much more than was expected at this stage, and I'm thinking maybe all that yawning has actually helped stretch those muscles out. Seriously. I'm gonna ask my doc about it the next time I talk to him.

Now THAT'S Tired

So I've been keeping up with the acupuncture thing in hopes that it is helping sensation return to my moutrh/lips/chin. There's been some small improvement in that department, athough I'm not sure if its normal or if the acupuncture is helping. Regardless, I continue to go. If nothing else, I always get a nap out of the deal.

I have come to find acupuncture oddly relaxing. Sure, There's some adrenalin when the needles first go in - and I think that's way more nerves than any actual discomfort - but after that you're laid out on the table, legs slightly elevated, heating lamp to make sure you don't get cool, a darkened room and a towel over your eyes -- Combine this with my old and barely-improved-at-all sleep schedule, and voila! One comatose mama.

Case in point: last week I had fallen asleep as usual. I actually caught myself waking up because I couldn't breathe, but also as usual I was still very groggy and tried immediately to sink into sleep. That is, after I tried to roll over.

Remember where I am? The acupuncturist. Remember what he's working on? My fa---

Any vestiges of sleep immediately evaporated as the pillow pressed the needles deeper into my skin. Moving very carefully, I rolled back onto my back. I did a quick mental assesment to see how I felt: paralyzed? No. Blind? No. Pierced tongue? Negative. Soiled pants? Check.

Amazingly enough, I fell back asleep yet again. I'm going back in for another appointment this afternoon -- I went for about an hour long walk today and I of course have my usual constant fatigue from sleeping like ass, so chances are I'll be snoozing yet again. Note to self - do NOT roll over!

Pick a Card, Any Card

On a whim, I approached an artist that was at a meeting we both attended last night. He makes sculptures via sewing, and I nonchalantly asked him if he ever needed help with the sewing part of it. Amazingly, his face lit up and he said "Yes!" Would you believe, we exchanged business cards and everything! I was shocked! (and very glad I still had a card left in my wallet.) Hell, half the point of approaching him was just to work on my social confindence, and I may have actually landed a (very small) job. Cool!

In other card news, I was rooting around in my Tar-get special wallet yesterday and stumbled across my FAA A&P (mechanics) license. Had completely forgotten it was on my person , as my pilot's licence does not seem to be. Got a little rush of "Oh yeah, that was cool and I kick ASS!" Also sort of mentally revisited aviation as an interest and confirmed that that is not what I want to do at this point in my life. Still keeping the license in my wallet, though. :)

For Emily

"Its that building over there with the columns and the people smoking in front of it."

One More

From PostSecret.com. Love the image, and agree with the message.

Welcome, President Obama!

Wow, that feels good to say. :)

I'm betting the cheering at the inuaguration could've been heard from outer space. Seriously.

Husband and I were taking a poorly-planned tour of one of the local kindergartens and missed seeing it live (dammit!!) but I've been sucking down as much footage as I can since getting back home. The amount of bodies on the Mall was amazing. It seemed to stretch to the horizon. Makes me feel like I can say I was part of the crowd; just way, way, WAY in the back (what're state lines when we're talking about the inauguration, really?)

We've been trying to express the import of this day on Mags, although she is much more fascinated by the fact that someone SHOT Martin Luther King and KILLED him and then he was DEAD! (infliction by Mags.) SHe has been paying attention, though. In dropping her off at school today, we were passed by an African American man (presumably) on his way to watch the inauguration. He was dressed in what I assume was his Sunday finest: a natty peacock-blue, pinstriped zoot-suit type ensemble. Mags spoke up from the back of the car: "Is that the President?" Oooh, the imagination soars.

In closing, a few images I thought were great:

A little civil disobedience and

a sense of humor. :) Now I'm off to the store to see if there are any newspapers left. Congratulations, America!!

Extreme Dislike. I MIght Even Go So Far as to Say Hate.

I used to hate my nose. It was the bane of my existance. I thought it was all people could see of me. It was sure as hell all I could see of myself.

Now here we are post surgery. My nose is wider, and has an extra little dip in it, a la amusement park slide. But I don't care anymore. Because now I have The Chin.

Oh god, do I have the chin. Horribly huge, it sticks out further than my nose now. My face is incredibly out of proportion. I get mistaken for a man even more than I did before the surgery. Hell, I knocked someone over with it the other day!! I turned my head quickly and whoosh! Swept their feet right out from underneath them.

Two things that have happened are really making this an issue for me. I was never real happy with my face post surgery, but have been trying INCREDIBLY hard to have a positive attitude -- you know, I feel better so it was all worth it kind of thing. Yeah, well my sleep has been for shit for the last month, and I'm afraid now that the whole thing was for naught, and all I got got from jaw surgery was this crappy chin. (Oooh, a t shirt, perhaps?)

And the more recent was last night at work. One of the volunteers for catering at the show last night was a pot-bellied man in a bad wig, fire engine red lipstick, nail polish, and a tshirt and jeans. And he/she was checking me out like mad. Even my co-worker noticed and teased me that I'd made a new friend. Now, don't get me wrong - god bless the trannies and all that - but being mistaken for one was horrible. As someone who has crappy self esteem to begin with, and really, y'know, likes being found attractive by a more mainstream flavor of man - hell, being noticed as a girl at ALL - this falls under the category of bad, bad, and bad.

Yeah, I don't really look in mirrors anymore. Don't really like looking at myself, to be honest.

So! My new plan?

a) Win the lottery.
b) Get chin reduction surgery. Oh yeah! I've already been looking into it AND have an email in to my surgeon to see if its feasible. Hoping that if everything heals up nicely that having my chin reduced won't undue any of the benefits of the surgery itsself. Of course I am second guessing myself all over the place now. Should I have had chin reduction surgery first? Would I have lived long enough to have and recover from chin reduction surgery before getting the surgery for the apnea? Will I have to live in a bell tower for the rest of my life?

Yeah. I'm battling some pretty aggressive depression about all this right now. I know a therapist who specializes in this sort of thing but - surprise! - she's not on our insurance plan, who incidentally are probably going to be shafting us a bit in the payment department. Fuckers. So if I seem a little quiet these days, its because I'm trying to not dwell on all the bad, or at least not out loud.

My goodness, such a cheeful post!

Trying Something New

I was at Whole Fuds the other day, and there in their produce section they had a display of fruits and vegetables arranged inside a blender, with the actual produce around it for you to buy. I suddenly had a (halogen) lightbulb go off over my head, and I frantically searched around te display to see if they actually had any recipes for making fruit/veggie smoothies.

Backing up the story a bit, I've really really REALLY been jonesing for some veggies lately. Specifically veggies that arent potatoes. Oh, potatoes are good enough for ya, but after months and months of little else besides that, one starts to crave other foods. Plus potatoes aren't known for their fiber content, if you catch my drift. No, my body has actively been craving green veggies and salads, which are a) still to crunchy and hard for my still healing jaw and b) even th eleafy stiff doesn't work because my jaw is out of alignment, and while I can crush some items between my molars, I'm not getting that sort of pestle/mortar action yet and leaves just kind of get lost in my mouth.

Greens, greens, greens! How to get them without just overcooking the shit out of them? (Also gets very old.) So I ran home (interwebs!) to find some recipes and lo! I dragged up quite a few. Mostly frmo raw food/vegan sights, but no one's perfect. :) One in particular caight my eye: a woman had posted a 30 day challenge for readers to change nothing else in their diet or lifestyle (although it was good if you *did* make other changes..) than eat a 'green smoothie' once a day. That's it. No prizes, not a contest, just a personal challenge. So I thought I'd giove it a try. Not for 30 days, mind you - my propencity for bailing or getting bored is much too strong, and then I'd have to deal with the guilt, and what iof they taste bad, blah blah blah - but for 7 days. I could hang with this for 7 days, AND I gave myself a get out of jail free card if the first day was totally nasty.

Yesterday was the first day, and I enlisted Husband to try it along with me. I had all the supplies: 4 apples, kale, and water. That's it. Oh, and a slapsh of lemon juice to cut the possible bitterness of the kale. Bonus for me, this was an opportunity for me to use my *cough* too expensive *cough* blender we'd picked up for the surgery. Needless to say wackiness ensued, there was diahrreah green sludge on my robe and the cabinets and we had to downsize to the standard blender.

Yes, it was very, very green. Yes, it smelled like nothing but kale. Yes, I made Husband drink first. "Its not bad," he said. "Yeah it totally smells like kale, but it tastes just like apples. Might chill it a bit before trying it next time," he said, and he finished the glass. So I tried some, and it tuerns out Husband wasn't kidding. It was not a s smooth as I like my smoothies (had to wait for the first blenter to COOOL DOWN so that I could puree it more,) but it wasn't bad at all. ANd not surprisingly I had to run to the toilet about an hour later. These pipes are CLEAN, boy howdy.

So I tried it again this morning. Pear, blueberries and more kale (sale, 2 bunches for $5.) Not terribly exciting, y'know, basically pureed pears with a touch of blueberry thrown in, and no real notice of the kale except for the inital bouquet. We'll see how long this goes on for. Would love to lose a few more pounds, I like not feeling as bloated through my middle, and its purported to help with acne, which I have plenty of post-surgery. However I also like eating warm foods not that my internal temperature is running low, and this, while not chilled, doesn't give you that warminig-from-the-inside sensation. Like I said, we'll see.

*Whew!*

Got a call from (one of my) doctor's office(s); turns out the results for my ultrasound a few days ago came back good! The mass/cyst/whatevah came back unchanged, if not slightly smaller! The NP said they'd probablly check it again in another year, round about the time I have my next barin surgery follow up MRI, bu tthey're super not concerned about it right now.

So, whew!

Grossest. Thing. Ever. And its in my HOUSE.

(Do not read if eating. Seriously.)

We have pantry moths. Harmless little flying things that are so slow you can actually catch them with your hand. And not hundreds or thousands; just 2 or 3 a day.

But.

They're decimated our dry goods cabinet. Anything in an open bag? Completely chewed up. Anything in an UN-opened bag? Completely chewed up (they chew through plastic, apparently.) Cardboard boxes? In theory, they chew through those too, although we've not ripped ours open to see. Hell, they even chewed into an envelope of dry onion soup mix.

So, Husband and I spent the morning emptying out the cabinet and throwing everything away, sadly. I mean, it needed a going throug anyhow, but throwing away all that food doesn't just lean on my waste/guilt button, it HAMMERS on it over and over.

But the worst part? (And this is where it gets absolutely disgusting...)

If you have moths, you have - ta daa! - MAGGOTS. Call them what you want: weevils, worms, whatever - there are still squirmy little rice grains all over the fucking cabinet and in all of that food. Gag! Gag! Gag! Shudder! Barf! I am completly horrified. We even had - and I'm not sure why - maggots in our 'sealed' rolls of paper towels. AAauuuuuughhhh! Retch! Retch! Retch!

Good thing I got some excercise and breakfast before I encountered this; my entire day has been derailed. Mass scrubbing has commenced. Chemicals - as many as I can lay my hands on - have been pulled out. The exterminator will be called. Husband will be enlisted to help me overhaul the entire kitchen later today. Showers will be taken. Many, many showers.

And on top of it all I feel guilty! Like I've done something wrong and this is all my fault! I'm fairly embarrassed to even be writing about it. But I've been doing some research, and they're a somewhat common thing (if the moms on the Berkeley parents list can get them, then so can I.) Hell, you can bring them into your house with the food you buy, especially if you frequent the bulk bins, which we've been known to do.

So I guess the thing to do is be a little smarter with the way we store our food from now on: freezing anything we buy from bulk before consuming it, storing things in airtight containers, and eat out more.

(retches quietly into wastepaper basket)

No Pants, Jan 20

That'd be tomorrow, folks.

Drop trou and hop on a public train in a city near you. I may have to have a drink or two first, but I am seriously considering doing it myself locally. Pictures will of course follow if I do.

Spoiler Alert!

For the non-locals, here's a link to some video from the show that give a good idea of what goes on during it; if you're going to see it live I suggest to mebbe don't watch the video...

http://www.ktvu.com/video/18419122/index.html

Six Degrees of PORN CLOWNS!!

Appoligies to those who weren't part of the back story, but I have to tell the story anyhow....

Working for this particular production at this particular location lends itsself very well to rubbing elbows with the East Bay/BM/artist/freakball community (and I'm not complaining about that!) So of course our make up woman had full dreads and piercings and our hairdresser was a full-on goth covered in tattoos who goes by the name of 3va D3struction. But everyone working the show was friendly and chatty and joking around.

At one point I heard 3va chatting with my boss and the name Ouch-y came up. I've only encountered one person by that name in my life, so of course I was filled with curiosity. Turns out she was talking about a certain friend of hers, a bondage/SM clown to be specific. I waited until she was done talking to A and then I sidled up next to her.

"I know Ouch-y," I said. "We hired him for a bachelorette party all the way over in Belmont one time."

"So you probably did all the..." 3va gestured with her hands.

"Yeah, there was plenty of shaving and piercing and the like."

She smiled. "Ahh yes, that would be Ouch-y, all right! He's great!"

I couldn't resist throwing in one last story. "Yeah, somewhere out there is a picture of me on my back, Ouch-y kneeling between my legs, my feet over his shoulders, and him holding a straight razor up in the air."

Which makes me think, I need a copy of that picture......

Excitement Everywhere!

Yesterday was a grey, icky, blech kind of day. Driving across the bridge, the grey was all around me; over the water on either side of me, as far as the eye could see in front of me, and even in my rear view mirror. But I was nearly across the 10 mike span before I noticed it, because my head was full of color. The music was playing, and all I was thinking about was the opening night show, and the movement, and the costumes and the fire. I was a moving technicolor driving hazard in its most spaced out form.

Opening night KICKED ASS! I love love love being able to say I was part of it, too! It went off without a hitch, both production-wise and costumes. And the crowd really seemed to enjoy it too - there was lots of feedback along the lines of "Best one they've done yet" that filtered back to us. Plus, working with A and M has been a hoot and a holler - I'm going to really miss them once this is all over.

And to add to the whole experience, after the show, Herr Direktor took the cast and crew out for free drinks which was cool in and of itsself (a little booze always helps me practice to be an extrovert,) but made even more exciting by the fact that the bar was ... TA-DAA! Downtown Oakland the night of the riots this past Wednesday! Yep, the bar was about two blocks from the worst of it, although by the time we got there the worst of it was already past. Didn't actually see any rioting at all, but must've past about 40 cop cars, streets were blocked off, cops were out in full riot gear, cans of tear gas (some sort of gas, at least) were still hissing in the streets, and I did see one of those large trailers with all the light bulbs for changing street conditions ("street closed from 12 am to 4 am / use alternate route") knocked over on the middle of a road. Oh, and at least two helicopters hovering over the otherwise deserted streets.

In hindsight, maybe parking my car and walking two blocks to the bar through a riot zone wasn't the smartest thing I could've done, but there was NO WAY I was going to miss opening night drinks with the rest of the cast/crew. NO. WAY.

Didn't work the show last night, but did go into the studio to do some repairs/detail work. Got today off and in theory have tomorrow off as well, but just got a text asking if I can work wardrobe/dressing tomorrow night as well. Not sure. Am enjoying the downtime, and also have not seen my kid a lot during Hell Week. Oooh, but I did learn to applique real Swarovski crystals (they're from Austria, you know!) to costumes. It was a veritable bedazzling party, I tell you! And I could tell you how I did it, but then I'd have to kill you. ;)

Busy, Busy

Our show opens on Wednesday. Crazy busy in our little shop these days. (Did I mention our studio shares space with a certain well-known artist from the BM community?) I'm not sure my boss actually went to sleep last night. Sure am glad I'm just a meager stitcher, and a volunteer/intern at that. Have put it a couple of 10 hour days, and will have a few longer ones once the show opens and I am stitcher/dresser during the shows as well. Am going to try and get a few pictures today -- although unlike a previous experience of mine, I will be very careful this time about getting permission and not accidentally firing away like mad while I'm not supposed to be (ahem.)

More later.

Overheard

Gleaned during a discussion with my boss.


An actual job title/decription for a certain show coming to SF: Monkey Wing Specialist. No lie.


How cool would it be to have that job? Or better yet, put it on your resume?!? (Faints with pleasure.)

A Day in the Life

"How does it fit? Does it feel ok?"

"Mmm, it feels pretty good, but lemme check..." He kicked a few times, and then his hands spun through an abbreviated routine. Then he bent over and, placing his hands on the thread-strewn floor, lifted his body into a flawless handstand. After a few moments, his feet returned to earth and he stood up, saying, "Yeah, they fit just fine."

I love my job. :)