Originally uploaded by buffpuff

We took Reed to the zoo for the very first time yesterday. He REALLY loved it. We only got around to about half of the zoo; he is a little person with short legs, plus it was hot we were sweaty, so after about two hours he asked if we could go home.

I have come down with the plague, complete with sinus headaches, chest pain, and mouth-breathing.

These past few days I've spent a lot of time with a couple of girls who I don't see very often. I'm sorry for the circumstances, but thankful for the closeness. It has been really nice.

I watched the presidential debate last Friday with friends, and we all raised our eyebrows or chuckled or pishawed at the same parts. I particularly enjoyed how McCain's eyes bug out when he gets pissed off. This Thursday we're watching the V.P. debate with the same folks, and I'm excited about it.

Still no job-offers. FOR THE LOVE OF SHIT. I did, however, get to visit wonderful Bug Tussel, Alabama today. I want to move there.

Hodge podge.

I have several things I'd like to get to in this post, so this one is going to be a bit all-over-the-place.

First, I am very, very sad and worried for someone that I love who has just experienced a death in her immediate family. This past several months have been overwhelming, I imagine, and this probably seems like more of a load than you can bear. Don't forget to lean on the people around you who love you when it feels like too much for you. I love you so much, and I know a lot of other people who love you so much, too.

Next, I have been without cable for some time, and for whatever reason we can't really pick up any of the local channels either. Besides all the ridiculous sitcoms and out-of-touch-with-reality medical dramas that some people in this house have been despondent to be missing, we also haven't been able to watch many of the current political dramas. I realize that stuff like that can be viewed on the internet, but I spend so much time job-hunting on the internet that I usually am sick of it by the time there is a moment for anything else.

Point is, this post from Dooce contains a video that makes me simultaneously want to claw my own eyes out and throw my computer out the window. Of course I had already heard about most of this, but just now is the first time I've actually watched it. Mind-boggling.

In similar news, I may be going to drink beer and watch the debates tonight. Look at me taking part! I am impressing myself.

Mining for gold.

Poor Reedy. I'm afraid that he might have walking pnemonia, but I'm not sure. I'm thinking I'll pick him up from school early today and let the doctor check him out.

We had a fun trip to the emergency room with him last Friday night: he grabbed my flat iron when it was blazing hot. He REALLY freaked out for about an hour; about the time we got up to the burn unit at Children's Hospital he calmed down. He was such a grown-up, showing his hand to the doctors and nurses. They were all wowed by how calm, sweet, and cute he is. Now all that's left is a couple of watery blisters, and they're almost gone.

We took Reed with us to Kane's open house at his new school not long ago. I never ceases to amaze me how impressive he will suddenly be in situations like that. At home we're still having writhing fits and screaming fits and crying fits. Then he goes out into public and sits still and smiles and acts right. The best part was during one of the teacher's talk about her class and her expectations, Reed suddenly wanted to get up, go stand directly in front of Kane's mom and stare at her while smiling intensely and picking his nose. He had that finger about 3/4 of the way up his nostril, grinning like a pig in shit and going to town. It made me happy.

One must remember to take pleasure in the little things, musn't one?

Don't hate the player- hate the game.

I'm not really sure how to respond to this comment; it's really all over the place.

First, I'm sure that A and B are connected. Most feelings, opinions, and ideas people have are interconnected.

Second, I wasn't raised to think that "evil controls the world" and I was CERTAINLY not raised to think that I am powerless. I was raised to understand that just because someone is the president, or a senator or governor, or a politician in general doesn't mean that they are a good person, or a smart person, or that they have people's best interests at heart. For a lot of people that is a no-brainer, but let's be honest: there are people who don't realize that.

Third, my feelings of depression, anger, helplessness and doom grew out of a nasty case of post-partum depression. They may be deep-seated, but they don't stem from the way I was raised. I wouldn't say that I have ever been perfect, but I can say with total certainty that until after I had a baby I had never felt totally hopeless, never felt like my life might never change, never felt that I might feel this awful forever and that it might effect my family, my relationships, my ability to cope.

Fourth, I think I heap a generous helping of blame on myself as well as other things that I can control. Besides those two crabby dudes that hang out in the balcony on the Muppets, no one lives inside my head and therefore most people aren't aware of all the many things I blame on myself, and all the effort, the sheer infinity of mantras and prayers and notes that I make to remind myself to fix mistakes and stay on track and make things better for my family, my friends, and myself. And I guess all I can say is that it's working okay. I'm not great, but I'm not dead, and that's a good thing.

Thanks for your questions.

How's anonymous internet-hating working for you?

Schmeitgeist.

Oh, Lordy.

I know that I start a lot of posts that way these days, but I seriously go about my day thinking that phrase, shaking my head, and taking deep breaths.

I finally watched Zeitgeist with Jason today.

Let me just say that he's been talking/raving/freaking out about this movie for a couple of months now. I refused to watch it for this long for a couple of reasons:

A) I have always hated the government, resented it, understood how duped we all are. I don't know everything and there was certainly a lot of stuff in this film that I didn't know, but at the basis of all my thoughts and curiosities has been that the government=bad. I was raised by MY MOTHER, for shit's sakes; if you know me, you know what that means.

B) I've been having a rough time with depression, anger, and hopelessness over the last few months. Now is not the time for a movie that shows me every way in which I am stupid, every way in which I am doomed, every way in which all the bad things that happen to and in this country are the fault of THIS COUNTRY, or at least the the fault of the powerful few at the top of this country.

I didn't really have much to say after it was over. I was just kind of, "Yep. That's what I thought- that I would want to crawl under the bed after I watched it."

If anyone else wants to feel the need to crawl under the bed, you really should watch it. Also I'm absolutely aware that one musn't believe everything one hears/reads/sees on the internet. Let's just say that a lot of this hit awfully close to ideas that I've had before. It's all just a little overwhelming.

In other news I just want to say that someone I love very much found out that he has Crohn's disease. I just wanted to say that I'm thinking about you and I know everything will be okay.

Chapel day.

Chapel day.
Originally uploaded by buffpuff

Today was Chapel Day at Reed's school, and my baby wore a tie for the first time.

Of course I'll be borrowing it soon- I can wear it with my white tank top and my Doc Martens. I just need to get some black nail polish.

I can't imagine.

Oh, Lordy. Communicating with the folks at the unemployment office is like being from Alabama and trying to communicate with that little guy who calls me from India about my Mastercard bill: difficult, to avoid using any expletives. So I'm still waiting to find out if I'm going to get any money for not having a job. Shouldn't one get paid for not working? I should think so. At least then I can get our cable cut back on, therefore providing myself with something to do with all this free time.

As it is I am washing, washing, washing clothes and sheets and socks and towels and the cat and my armpits and the dishes and my car and the bills and anything else that repulses me.

Kane and Jude stayed with us this weekend and they are just as smart-assed as usual. So at least their mom and step-dad haven't managed to FUCK that up yet.

In other news, my kid is an even bigger smart-ass than his brothers. It's like God said, "Okay, let's, just for fun, take all the smart-ass Kane and Jude got, and all the smart-ass Jason and Buffy got, and smush it together, give it blonde hair and a fucking cute smile and see what happens."

What happens is I almost die, every day, either from the cute overload that occurs in my house every single day or from the gouging of my eyes with screwdrivers after Reed gleefully shouts "WHAT THE HELL? WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT?"

And, really, where the FUCK is he getting all this awful language?

This is a great idea. If I ever again have money, I might order one of these. Or I bet my mom or Jason could do it.

And here is something to make you laugh today. Thanks, Lindsey.

Card shark or card sharp?

So when I cleaned out the boys' room last week I found something interesting:



Have you ever wished that you had some metal playing cards with sharp, knife-like edges all around?



Have you ever wished that you could find something really inappropriate to give your children?



Have you ever felt like you didn't have enough ways to end up with your kid in the emergency room?



Do you need a nice visit from DHR? You should contact Kane and Jude's mom and step-dad. They've got ideas.

Two is just as sad as one; it's the loneliest number since the number one.

Yesterday was the second birthday of this blog.

This has been a really good year, where "good" equals "didn't kill myself", "learned how to ignore murderous impulses", "tuned out the writhing fits", or "drank during the day".

I really have learned a lot about myself; unfortunately a lot of the avenues that got me to that knowledge involve things I don't like to write about here. You know how I very rarely write about my marriage except to make jokes about how Jason must be high to be able to deal with me? That's because I love my marriage, love my husband, and Jason does not want to read on the internet about how his snoring makes me want to shove all his dirty socks up his nose. So I don't write about it.



Suffice it to say that my marriage has survived- it is just like life, or raising kids, or going to work, or doing heroine. It can be excruciating, but that doesn't mean you'd be better off without it.

Reed is a little boy.



His school has just started requiring all the students except infants to wear uniforms. He wore his new "golf-ball shirt" (a golf shirt) to school with khaki shorts for the first time this morning, and Jason said he was very grown-up, very serious about his shirt, walked by himself to the door and kept smoothing the shirt and picking off lint balls. He'll be three in three months. I can't even comprehend it.

This past year has been a really hard one in the Jason's Ex-Wife arena. She decided that the kids should move back in with her and her husband whom she met in the psych ward. Then she decided that the kids need their father and therefore ought to stay with us. Then she decided that we should go back the original divorce agreement. Then she decided that we ought to pay her backed child support for the three years that the kids were living with us. Then she decided that she wouldn't be providing any transport for her kids any more; if we want to see them we must pick them up from her apartment and then drop them off at her apartment. Then she informed us that we were not to contact her ever and if we had questions or concerns we would call her husband. Then "someone" left some bizarre comments on my blog posing as Mark Dutton, an attorney. Then she dropped it and decided that we don't have to pay backed child support. Then she started contacting us again even though she expressly said that she would not be in contact with us any further.

Confused? TAKE A NUMBER, BUDDY.

Jason and I have given in to the Evil Lord Wal-Mart- we sincerely refused to shop there for the longest time, but my most recent bought with unemployment has reduced us to shopping there. It is three minutes up the road and everything is slightly cheaper than my one true love, Target.

That's another thing that's happened in the past year: I lost my job. AGAIN. I didn't write much about it because it is at once humiliating, terrifying, hilarious, sad. There's really not that much to it. I dealt with a lady throwing boxes at me and screaming the f-word for a year and a half, and I dealt with her Event Coordinator asking me how big my husband's penis is, and then she fired me for staying home with my kid when he was sick. The world is a balanced place, eh?

I've been writing and getting published in Lipstick Magazine, which is fabulous. I've also been making a lot of jewelry that I'm really proud of.



My good friend John moved back from New Orleans.



I have a couple of projects in the works, including a redesign of this blog. We've worked on it some, but then we found some booze so the blog is on the back-burner for a minute. I've been talking with Jason and some friends about starting a magazine, as well as something exciting involving being drunk and making videos.

More on that later. Aren't you excited?

Spring cleaning, delayed.

I gave myself the task of totally cleaning out Kane and Jude's room yesterday. It was my "I don't have a job, I don't have shit to do, what of it?" assigment.



They cleaned it before they left last time, and they "made" their beds which really just means they piled all the sheets and covers on top of the beds. The picture above is what it looked like after I changed the sheets, MADE the beds, and swept everything out from underneath them. I can't express to you what a mess it was- popsicle wrappers, cracker wrappers, pretzels, q-tips, dirty socks, clean shirts. And in their drawers and closets every kind of clothing was shoved into every kind of place. I am a square: I think that socks and underwear belong with other socks and underwear, jeans hang in the closet, marbles and Yu Gi Oh cards don't go with your t-shirts. Square.



I spent four hours yesterday cleaning and organizing their room. I threw away five full garbage bags full of shit, and donated one garbage bag full of clothes to Goodwill.



Afterwards I felt cleansed.



They still have toys, but they are where they belong. They have a much larger collection of books than I thought. They each have about 500 pairs of socks and underwear. There are actual empty shelves. I got rid of so much garbage that there are shelves with nothing on them.



I spent a long time just hanging out in their room yesterday, because it is now the cleanest room in the house. I think I might just move in to their room.



I have overhauled their room and Reed's room. Next is ours.

I have arrived.

This week I am just trying to stay calm as our situation gets worse and worse. I am still applying for jobs, still following leads, still "knocking on doors." THANKS, DAD.

I applied for unemployment last week. It took me two months and about 45 impotent job applications to get to this point. Hello, point. I'm here.

Old habits.

Bush Blvd Banksy 2
Originally uploaded by Dystopos

From what I understand, Banksy came through Birmingham a couple of nights ago and stopped long enough to leave this little ditty on the wall of an abandoned gas station in West End.

It's interesting because I immediately felt sort of embarrassed that this, a Ku Klux Klan member hung from a noose, is what comes to mind when passing through Birmingham for this gentleman. (I ran across this during my research- disturbing).

I was talking to Jason and I said, "Isn't he a little shit for automatically thinking that this is relevant in Birmingham in 2008?" I mean, I'm aware that racism still exists. I'm also aware that Banksy's artwork is a sort of cultural commentary, doesn't mean that the KKK is alive and thriving in Birmingham, doesn't even mean that he thinks the KKK is alive and thriving in Birmingham.

I also found several message boards with people pondering the same things I was, some more adamantly than others:

"Too bad Bansky didn’t leave some art that doesn’t hearken back to the Civil Rights movement; this is a pretty hackneyed theme in Birmingham these days, really, particularly from outsiders. I trust the lot of us have moved on, artistically speaking."

"Perhaps I’m not the intended audience, being a native of Birmingham born well after the Klan was beaten back into the shadows. I’m pretty sure I don’t understand the relevance of the piece. I do know that the black man who came over ask me about it while I was looking at the work didn’t appreciate it at all."

"There was no notion that banksy was saying the klan was "alive and well in birmingham" just the opposite if you look at the piece. He was making a historic and social comment on the south and the U.S. as a whole."

Interestingness. From what I'm reading, it's already been painted over. Such a disappointment.

My thanks to Dystopos for hopefully allowing me to use his photo on my blog. His was certainly the best photo I could find of the piece.