earth, sun, moon

here's a meme i snagged from jamie jamerkins.

directions: set your ipod to shuffle and click to the next track to answer the questions below. i've taken the liberty of locating the lyrics, or sample of the track when an instrumental is used, and linking them to the title. to read or listen, click the track title. i've also given my guess as to a meaning behind the track. glad that ol' english degree is being put to some use... extracting meaning from song lyrics... for a blog.


1. what would describe your personality?
"there must be an angel (playing with my heart)" -- eurythmics
translation: thrown and overblown with bliss isn't a bad personality to have.

2. what do you like in a guy/girl?
"summer here kids"-- grandaddy
translation: all the world loves a stick in the mud.

3. how do you feel today?
"all countries" -- tristeza
translation: mellow, purposeful, chugging along

4. what’s your life’s purpose?
"jump in the river" -- sinead o'connor
translation: just do it full force and eff everybody else!

5. what is your motto?
"eros' entropic tundra" -- of montreal
translation: no one loves you as much as you love them... or something.

6. what do your friends think of you?
"day o" -- raffi
translation: let's work hard and get outta here! seems apt given that i see most of my friends in a work setting.

7. what do you think of your parents?
"don't be afraid" -- aaron hall
translation: egads! i prefer not to think of my parents that way, but i suppose this, at one time, was probably quite fitting.

8. what do you think about very often?
"pelican narrows" -- caribou
translation: uhhh... pelicans? don't know -- it's an instrumental.

9. what do you think of your best friend?
"neutral"-- eliot lipp
translation: deep affection + rabid frustration = neutral?

10. what do you think of the person you like?
"royksopp's night out" -- royksopp
translation: these damned instrumentals...

11. what is your life story?
"iron man" -- the bad plus
translation: an elegant interpretation of a story about someone cast out from society

12. what do you want to be when you grow up?
"for the dishwasher" -- grandaddy
translation: a disgruntled, low-wage worker. neat.

13. what do you think when you see the person you like?
"minor detail" -- sondre lerche & the faces down quartet
translation: fear of losing someone so incredible? yeah, i get that.

14. what do your parents think of you?
"silverfuck" -- smashing pumpkins
translation: a heartless, heartbreaking manipulator? again, neato.

15. what will be played at your funeral?
"picture this" -- the beastie boys
translation: she lived life seeking the answers to questions no one else wanted the answers to... or something.

16.what is your hobby/interest?
"uptown" -- aya
translation: dance and think about loved ones. okay, i'll give you that.

17. what is your biggest secret?
"brush your teeth" -- raffi
translation: yes, this is my secret for getting otto to let me brush his teeth. i actually sing it to him every day as i scrub the moss from his chiclets.

18. what do you think of your friends?
"k (feat alison jear)" -- layo & bushwacka!
translation: no track available to hear. lyrics? uh... sun? some moaning and screaming? um... i have no idea. damned instrumentals.

19. what should you post this as?
"earth, sun, moon" -- love and rockets

houston, we have penis.

today was my 21 week ultrasound and yes, as i had initially guessed, el dos es verdad un hombre.

i realize some of you find ultrasounds just so dreadfully banal, but for the rest of you, please enjoy some of our finer shots of today's photoshoot. you can click to enlarge and view them in all their spendor.

on a different note, the tech said pictures turn out best when the mother isn't so big. my 200+/week minutes on the elliptical machine are paying off, and it doesn't seem as though junior juice is worse for wear: he's already over a pound [that's 65%ile]!












greetings from the cryptkeeper.













kisses to all my peeps. mmmwah! mmmmwah!













there it is: tha moneyshot.

where have i been?

well, i've discovered facebook. as any facebooker can attest, it can sure suck up your time on these here internets.

since becoming a member, i've connected with plenty of current acquaintences, but also some old friends from as far back as elementary school. i'm not ashamed to say i've done some lurking as well.

my findings? most everyone is fat and old-looking, which can only reaffirm my suspicions that i, too, am fat and old-looking. many old boyfriends aren't married -- how many gay men did i date? the big bellies, bald heads, and grey beards are positively shocking to me. are we that old? a lot of girls i knew in high school list themselves with their maiden and married names yet post only pictures of their children where their profile shot should be. seems like a strange dichotomy to me; clearly, they list a maiden name so they can be found, yet don't show you their face. without going so far as to upload their senior picture, do they only want to be remembered for the way they looked when that was their name?

some folks look untouched by time or gravity. lucky dogs. i've seen one or two that are just downright hot and i think, didn't we used to play together in middle school? why the hell didn't i make out with you in high school again? and then you remember the slight, brooding boy in the smoky concert t-shirt, leaning against the auditorium wall. you remember your broccoli bangs and your cheesy, handmade navy polyester circle-skirt and nude tights you wore on game fridays and realize you probably weren't much of a catch either.

facebook is strange, awkward yet freeing at the same time. how do you determine whom you friend-request? what's your threshhold for adding someone?

no, i didn't ghost-write the article

i receive the daily babble, a daily newsletter from a modern parenting website called babble. though i do receive the valuable [albeit sometimes bland, dumbed-down, extremely conservative, and alarmist] newsletters from babycenter, i cherish the daily babble for its progressive, whipsmart humor. it's like perez hilton for parents.

today, daily babble served up a link that made me laugh out loud multiple times, entitled:

granny manual: 8 things grandma needs to know about babies

in grandma's defense, things really do change constantly. i am noticing more and more dos and don'ts this second time around. now, i've gotta gobble down two giant, nasty omega 3-6-9 capsules twice a day. they take even more blood for the first trimester screens than last time [oh joy!] and crib bumpers are the devil.

rest in peace, jackson gumblequeue

late last night, we had to put gumby to sleep.

before we went to bed, we tried to give him his mirtazapine, an anti-anxiety, appetite stimulating medication he's been taking every three days since his diagnosis of lung cancer. normally, he sort of reluctantly gulps it down with a small smear of cream cheese, but he really fought it this time, as much as a cat with about 60% lung capacity could. he just wouldn't take it, and he stumbled away from our arms mouth open, panting. we could see that, of late, he just hasn't been his happy gregarious self. he just couldn't really breathe. he would just sprawl his wraith-thin body out and his lungs would pump in and out like bellows. we just knew this wasn't the way to leave your buddy.

after a few minutes of agonizing whether or not we should, casey decided it was the right thing to do. scott graciously agreed to act as sentry while we were gone. after he arrived, casey and i tearfully whisked jackson off to the emergency veterinary clinic on clybourn. he passed peacefully with his head tucked lovingly into his daddy's arm.

casey's off to mount whitney, just outside of los angeles today. though i know he's been swallowing back some fear over climbing the highest mountain in the united states, he surpassed one of his most dreaded moments last night. i hope he'll find he can scale those rocky heights, feeling invincible and at peace this memorial day weekend.

the aftermarket car alarm from hell

so far, i've had a very nice, tranquil pregnancy [knocking furiously on wood] and am amazed to be in my fourth month. no crying jags, no insane compulsions to cram as much food in my gullet as i can at one time, no nausea, you get the picture.

i have had several vivid, often violent dreams. they may not, however be from the pregnancy, as i recently discovered. of late, i find it hard just to get to REM sleep due to this bone-jarringly loud disruption each and every night. it's the kind of noise that makes you want to get up and just whack the shit out of whoever is making it. at first, i thought it was just some incredibly stupid person with both thumbs on the horn buttons of his car, pressing each button very fast in opposition for just a moment. i would awaken in a blind rage, ready to thrust my naked torso, bare pregnant breasts and all, out the window to find out where the ruckus was coming from. i'd then try in vain to quiet my monkey mind from formulating a plan to call the police and.... give the plate number? complain? how about find the car and write a note on it? ummm...

last night, after being shocked awake twice by this loud-as-hell, split-second atom bomb to my earholes, i figured out that it was someone's frigging car alarm being engaged. wtf! it's not the standard chirp-chirp or even the slighly obnoxious horn toot our hondas make. it's a full-on, full-force beebahbeebahbeeeep!

we heard it today again. i can hardly believe that there is nothing that can be done about this... short of moving, i suppose. any suggestions besides earplugs?

mixed blessings

it's been a while since i've posted, but it's been a crazy time. i am not a religious person at all but the most apt expression for our recent weeks has been the lord giveth and the lord taketh away. our family is dealing with two situations -- one very positive and one negative -- and they take turns eclipsing one another.

our negative situation is that one of our three cats, jackson [a.k.a. gumby] has been recently diagnosed with lung cancer. how weird, right? how does a cat? get lung cancer? smoking? we'd noticed he's gone from a robust black beast to a spindly, bony spectre. when we had him weighed, he was 13.5 pounds, certainly shy of his normal 18. his xray showed the top quarter of one lung was completely consolidated and two small tumors were nestling inside the bottom healthy parts. the doctors don't think he will see autumn. right now with the help of some appetite stimulants, he's able to enjoy the springtime and gorge himself on plenty of sloppy-good wet food. we just take every day as it comes and lavish love on the guy whenever we can. he gets right in there and snuggles hard against his daddy at night, happy as can be. otto gets in plenty of eskimo kisses, too.

our positive situation is... that we're expecting our second child! my official due date is november 5, and we are pretty much just referring to the baby as he until we know otherwise in two more months. our first trimester screening came back today -- important now that i'm technically of "advanced maternal age" -- and we're looking good! here are some ultrasounds below...

this one's at eight weeks...











... and this one's at twelve weeks.