Turn and face the change.

Another thing I did, I put on my old uniform, the one with the epaulets and funny lopsided hat. I always hated that fucking hat, it never fit me and always made my face look like it was on crooked. I put it on and rubbed the entire thing with peanut butter, hat, jacket, pants and all. I went to the garage and opened a forty pound bag of bird seed and doused myself liberally. I walked six blocks to the park, laid down, and waited.

This guy is an old friend of mine.

I'm sure I can catch Jason scratching his butt. He does that for about nine hours a day.

Beware, all ye who travel here.

My mom bought me a flip video for my birthday, so you're all about to experience some interesting stuff. So far I haven't had much of a chance to use it, but it's so small and convenient I'm sure that many a video of Jason tooting, me picking my nose, and Kristi musing about childhood dreams of carrot nipples are to follow.

Hey, potty training is coming soon for Reed; I'll bet a can capture his first toilet poo on film.

Today is my 28th birthday.

Honestly, birthdays have just never freaked me out. I was excited to turn 16 so I could drive. I was excited to turn 18 so I could totally be an adult and say "screw you" to my parents, which actually amounted to staying out late and arguing with my mom on the phone sometimes until two or three in the morning, when I would finally give up and go home. I was excited to turn 21 so I could finally find out what it was like to drink the alchohol.

Because I totally never drank before I turned 21.

Anyway, beyond that, ages have never really meant that much to me. Kristi turned 28 just a couple of weeks ago, and she jokingly said (I hope she was joking) that "we're approaching the age where we won't have anything else to look forward to." After Lindsey and I beat her about the neck and shoulders, she was like, "seriously, it's all downhill from here". Lindsey, whose 28th birthday is in about two weeks, has been saying that 28 is just one year closer to 29 and OH SHIT we're about to be 30 like, any minute now. For some reason it just doesn't bother me.

I mean, in a lot of ways, I still think of myself as, like, 20 or something. I still FEEL like a young person, and when I see old episodes of Friends when they're supposed to be 25 or 26, I still think of them as older than I am. But in a lot of ways it just doesn't occur to me whether I'm old or young or middle-aged or what.

Besides, when Jason turned 30 (which was, like, 20 years ago or something) we had an awesome party. We drank a lot of random stuff, like peppermint schnapps with hershey's syrup, and blew up pies with firecrackers. AWESOME, I said. If we can have a party like that, there's no way 30 will seem scary.

From a boy to man. A man with a purse.

Reed is really and truly an amazing human being. He's learning all these new words and phrases, and it's like having an alien riding around in the car or following me around the house.

First, the phone is officially the "mong-EE". When it rings, he starts saying "Mong-EE! Mong-EEE!!". He's very emphatic about it. It really cracks me up because I honestly can't see where this pronunciation came from.

Also, he is really very interested in purses. He loves my purse and his grandmommy's purse (grandmommy is now known as "maw", which just goes to show you we really ARE from Leeds), but he would also like to have his own purse. He found a VERY sparkly bedazzled purse at Cracker Barrel the other day and fell in love with it, and I have to tell you it was a battle to get it away from him and get out of the building. I finally found a little one that I bought a while back but never used and gave it to Reed. Whenever it's time to go anywhere, he says "Poose! Poose!" Once he finds his "poose", he hikes it over his shoulder and he's ready to go. I mean, really, once you have your poose and your mong-EE, you're set for the day.

He's also just started saying "I not know!" with so much inflection and sincerity. We ask him where is purse is, and he shrugs his shoulders and says, "I not know!" I sent a video of this to Lindsey and Kristi this morning, seeing as how they often not know either, so I figure they could relate.

Emma Grace.

A trick.
Originally uploaded by buffpuff

Yesterday our friends Amy and Dave had their baby, and we went to see them today. Emma is the prettiest little baby, a little Eskimo thing with chubby cheeks and a whole lot of dark hair. She slept for the first little while, but was smiling and making the funniest little faces in her sleep. Then she woke up and quietly opened her eyes. You've never seen a room full of adults oooing and ahing the way we all were.

I recently told Jason that I wish we could have more babies, and how I wish we could have a girl. Jason replied, "Do you REMEMBER your pregnancy?" And I do. I told him it's just that the good stuff overwhelms the bad stuff. Or maybe I just want a good excuse to lay on the couch for nine months. But whatever.

Tonight Reed decided he'd help me make supper.

As I stirred the pinto beans (what else?), he pulled the rest of the items we'd need out of the fridge- pina colada mix, A1 sauce, blackberry preserves, worcestershire, ranch dressing, red wine, and three cheddar cheese sticks.

Don't you wish you were eating at our house tonight?

Up yonder. In Isbelltown.

Up yonder.
Originally uploaded by buffpuff

I had to take a picture of this sign.

Recently I was talking about religion and Christianity specifically with a couple of people, and I was thinking how excited I would be to be sitting there in heaven when people started showing up. And, even, how excited I would be to get there and give a few people a knowing "I told you so" look, such as Kurt Cobain and John Lennon and Andy Thompson.

This may sound pretty presumptuous of me to assume that I'll go there, that I have some sort of golden ticket that guarantees my passage through the pearly gates, but I figure Jesus saves and my ass needs some saving right about now, expecially from an eighteen-month-old baby who has hit the terrible twos early seeing as how he's so advanced and mature and shit, which just means that he's already eating dirt and rocks and screaming when I force him, the mean bitch that I am, not to stick things into electrical sockets and eat dirt and pour as much bathwater as possible onto the floor.

Christina Aguilera could probably sing this better than I'll write it, but here it is anyhow.

Deanna, you little stinker.

I have a few things to say, the first of which is how proud of you I am. I ain't your momma or your daddy or anything like that, but I wonder how often you've been told that someone is proud of you. And I AM proud of you, so I feel like I should tell you.

I'm proud of you for jumping into the abyss even though it's scary. I'm proud of you for taking a chance, for doing something very risky, just because you can feel it in your gut that you just need to. Not all of us have that kind of strength.

I hope you find something really really fulfilling- a job where your boss appreciates the hell out of you, or a boy who doesn't want to involve you in polygamy. SHAUN.

Because I have known you for a while, and while we're not best friends, I just really like you. I think you're a sweet girl, and so much fun, and so sincere, and BEJEESUS CRIPES you're so pretty I can't believe that you're not surrounded by boys who worship you and want to take care of you and want to make you feel good. I have had moments in which I wished that I was as pretty as you or as much fun as you or as willing to kick a boy in the BALLS just because I can.

Don't ever stop kicking boys in the balls, Deanna, especially when they deserve it. SHAUN.

I don't know the boys you've dated very well, so I realize that I don't know the whole story and maybe I don't have the right to judge blah blah blah. I just know that you are vibrant in a way that I envy, and a boy who dates you should be SO thankful, and SO happy, and should be thinking of ways to make you smile and ways to make you feel special, not ways to fit just one more girl into his back seat.

I hope that we'll continue to be better friends than we ever have been, and I hope that I'll still get to hear about the ball-kicking goodness even though we don't work together any more.

Done.

I found my calling.
Originally uploaded by buffpuff

You now how I said yesterday that I'd like to own my own business?

This is for sale in Leeds.

It's a PORTABLE. MEXICAN. FOOD. STAND.

He drinks the pool water. But he also drinks his bath water, so I should have expected it.

Originally uploaded by buffpuff

Today was a good day.

These past few days have been better and worse at the same time.

Have you ever been yelled at and humiliated by a woman two-and-a-half times your age? In public? For doing something you were told to do? You really can't handle that much hotness, I can tell you from experience.

Last night we had many, many pina coladas and beers with Lindsey, Dave, Kristi, and Chris. I'm thinking that, in Chris and Dave, we may have found the ultimate pieces of this puzzle that is life. I really felt good, for the first time in a while, with all of us together.

Today Reed tested out his very first kiddie pool. He fanatically loves it, and I can see that many summer hours will be spent this way. Which is really, really good. We had fun.