michele

happy (early) birthday, marina!

ellie, tyler and i perch on the pool steps, sitting on our bums. tyler might say, “i’m sitting on my backside!”, but we don’t know why he talks all prudish proper like that. it’s a butt, and i’ll thank you to say it. popsicle juices are melting all over tyler’s frontside and dripping onto his chubby baby thighs. i am laughing, perhaps because i pawned off the dreaded orange flavor on him with him too young to notice my deceit; perhaps because he’s instructing me on how to eat a popsicle with chubby baby fingers pointing at the frozen treat and my mouth; or perhaps because it’s sunny and warm and my feet are in a pool while friends sit at my side. ellie sums it up, “life is good.”

life is even better today as i checked into my san jose state account and have, in the night, mysteriously been awarded a full grant to cover tuition costs for the whole first year of school. not, admittedly to cover the state school fees of absurdity–there’s an $8 fee for child care, do i have a child? no–but that still only adds up to $450. for a whole year! my mom, possibly, is more thrilled than me as she will be the one actually saving money.

as ellie and tyler left yesterday, tyler spoke to the molly dog in a wheedling tone of pure deviltry, “hi sweetie. do you love me, molly? i love you. thanks for the good times, molly.”

life IS good. today. and yesterday. and many other days to come and go away.

i have been drunkenly trying to remember the word for ‘drunk’ in 19th century british literature for like an hour now. which indicates that i started drinking at like 7. that’s not really promising for this story. but i think it’s sossed. it could be sauced. or sloshed. but i think sossed. yes, i think it. drunkenly think it. i’m weaving in my chair. this is what i get for reading trashy romance novels set in 19th century london while drunk.

and now enjoy a number of pictures of how i spend my days with ellie and tyler.

i have abandonment issues. there, i said it. this stems, i think, from the time in 5th grade when i went to k. katz’s ice skating birthday party and my father was scheduled to pick me up. he didn’t show. i sat on the stairs watching as all of my soon-to-be-hoochie-mama friends got picked up by their doting parents one by one. by the time my father arrived to get me i was sobbing fit to fill a swimming pool.

this weekend at disneyland, marina parked me at a table in the middle of a loud, bustling outdoor restaurant with a live band. she then went to order food, even kindly asking if i wanted anything that she could bring back. she disappeared for 20 minutes and i became convinced that she had left and was never coming back for me because i was being so childish about my inability to walk. she was, in fact, probably 15 minutes down I-5 at this point. my prune-foot enabled blisters throbbing, i started crying just like when i was 10 at the ice skating rink. the group of japanese people to my left asked if they could have one of the extra chairs at my table.

“my revolting and potentially disease-ridden feet are resting on the chair. you want THIS chair? are you kidding me?”

they had no reply, though they did take my chair. possibly their english was not of the highest caliber.

this was depressing when even japanese people didn’t care about me. i was exhausted by sleep deprivation and pain, revolted by the stench rising off my own feet, and my heart-strings were being forcefully ripped apart by the band leader’s daughter belting out some really good tunes. so i kept crying while i waited in futile anguish for marina to come back.

pictures i took of us in disneyland park are HERE. pictures gene and kristen took on the drive down to disneyland, at our super 8 hotel, and the block’s shoppertainment are HERE.

once, a very long time ago, a battle raged between a nation and an emerging baby mouse (feces). now that i’ve already lost you in my analogy unless you were there being mean to gene for hypocrisy on his views of donnie darko vs. fjords: the musical and/or willard the barber and ian (tentative title heavily disapproved of by me even though i came up with ‘willard’).

um, ok even if you had been there that analogy made no sense. but i’m tired and i can’t think of another word than ‘baby mouse’. even though that’s two words. ok, now this post is pretty much entirely for kristen.

the point is, it’s 4th of july and once we fought for that independence and today i fought for independence too. a battle raged over my underwear and i appeared to be on the losing side of it.

i’ve mentioned before my theory that for functionality underwear goes on OVER the garter belt so it can be the first thing off and you can still have the garter belt/stockings combo intact for the sexual relations. however, now that i actually OWN a garter belt and could put this into practice (ha!) my theory was shot down by: gene, jacob, erica, and jason. they all think that the functionality i’m espousing is completely secondary to the aesthetic of wearing underwear underneath the garter belt. i’m now thinking of just getting a chastity belt as my life would be no different and maybe then we could stop talking about my underwear.

seriously, i want to wear the garter belt everyday. though i also want to wear my new fuzzy, knee-high, striped socks everyday and those two articles of clothing really clash.

this weekend was a time of repeat activities for me. first, on saturday, we revisited the south yuba river state park. then on sunday, i went to camp cohasset with my brother and his new girlfriend. i have put up pictures of us at yuba river and me at camp cohasset. last year’s yuba river photos can be viewed here and camp cohasset back in 2004 are here.

i had an amazing time both days though today i am exhausted from the 6 hours of driving each day, the bruisings from rocks, and the throwing of horseshoes.

i’m planning a second yuba river trip on august 20th for those who missed this one and want to go. my cousin james is coming down for the weekend (probably) and he wants to check out this fun place which made me unable to walk all day at cohasset. i had to keep grabbing him even if we were just standing there because my legs were too sore to support me. it was pathetic.

today was my last day of house-sitting in both oakland and lafayette. i was watching kill bill vol. 2 for the first time since i saw it in the theatre this evening while i whiled away the hours before i could depart from o-town. this was after i fell asleep for 4 hours in the middle of the day when i was supposed to be attending matt’s birthday party. (matt – i am so so sorry! i will put your present in the mail though and when you get it, you will totally forgive me).

back to kill bill, the scene where budd and elle talk about whether she feels regret or relief struck me as i walked away from the oakland apartment door for the last time. was i feeling regret or relief? and which one more? and would i have to get bit in the face by a black mamba for the truth to come out? the answer to that last one had better be ‘no’. but i was feeling a little bit of regret about my performance in oakland and the last view of those dogs that i will carry with me. sure, i hated them, but also maybe a small part of me wanted to love them. as i want to love all fuzzy things. so maybe i did like them a little as my relief at being out of that crappy apartment does seem a trifle tinged with regret.

which is not to say that i will ever, EVER agree to house-sit there again. EVER.

in lafayette, i feel relatively certain that i will be seeing katie and sarah the cats again when the home-owners leave to go shoot more things in africa. so there was very little regret there. mostly regret over the pool. but the lack of floaties in the pool made the parting a little less sorrowful. my sadness at never having rocked out to the ben folds songs, ‘zak and sara’ and ‘kate’ while staying there, however, is immense. i could have held up the little paws and made them dance around with me to their songs. i probably would have gotten some severe scratches for my trouble.

tonight, perhaps in celebration of being done with oakland, i spent the evening at the KALX radio station with gene. there is the normal, every-day gene who i know, and then there is apparently the much more exciteable DJ gene who is only trotted out on rare occassions. thus, my time at KALX was a whirlwind of me tracking wild-time gene with my eyes while my mouth remained slightly open in shock. at one point he asked why i was being so quiet and i had no response but, “guh gug eep.” which loosely translated means, “run around some more and find cds and coach spazzy tech guys and uber-late cute band boy from lafayette and be all hyper-alert and i will sit here with my head on my arms and watch.” all around, it was good times and i enjoyed the live band performance by ‘love like fire’ very much. particularly the members from lafayette and boston. ho ho ho.