(I did a complete survey on index cards, and then carefully arranged them on the bed. I forgot to tell
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shamelessthedog)
2. Our new house. It's beginning to LOOK LIKE A HOUSE!!!!
3. And finally, my babygirl of awesomeness, who survived her journey to St. Louis despite cancelled flights, blizzards, and many nights alone in a hotel with me:
Next post, after my emotional exhaustion wears off: THE EXCEPTIONALLY SUCCESSFUL MEETING OF THE GREAT-GRANDPARENTS!
that is all.
- Location:Embassy Suites, Lambert Airport, St. Louis
- Mood:
recumbent
so instead, a list of random facts:
+ Thursday, I had a lovely lunch with Riverhead Editress Extraordinaire, Megan Lynch. She is so fantabulous as to warrant the coining of new words to describe her fabulosity.
+ Tomorrow, babygirl and I are flying to St. Louis for five days so that she can charm the grandparents with her gums and her squeaks. In May, she will turn 1 and my grandpa will turn 100.
+ I have underlined my descent into the world of unshowered mom-dom by developing a serious addiction to Ellen DeGeneres. I LOVE HER. I'm not even that ashamed of it.
+ There are no words to express the feelings I have about fitting into my pre-pregnancy jeans. So instead, a sound will have to suffice:
YIP YIP YYYYYYYIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIPP!!
antonstrout's debut novel DEAD TO ME. first, the anton read from his REAL debut novel, which he wrote in the 4th grade, ingeniuosly titled THE MOUSE FROM THE CHEESE PLANET:
then, he signed books for his rabid fan-base:
next, we ate this VERY AWESOME CAKE that i got for his party:
and finally, we lived happily ever after, (mostly due to the open bar that anton's lovely wife
auraleehad arranged for the party):
the end.
I AM CURRENTLY WEARING TROUSERS THAT HAVE NOT FIT ME SINCE BEFORE I WAS PREGNANT.
AND THEY ARE BUTTONED!!!
- Mood:
ecstatic
i haven't been reading or posting for weeks. so if i missed some huge personal triumph or trauma or drama or diabolical doo-hickey, please forgive. and fill me in! i thiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiink i'm back now.
i've decided to do a re-write of my book, so methinks it's going to be a busy couple of months. here is a very apt metaphor i sent to a friend last night, in describing my decision to rewrite:
my book is like a red, leather, thigh-high, lace-up, platform boot with a rosebud motif on the steel-toe, and a hundred lace-up holes. it has been laced up, but ONLY VERY LOOSELY and it has NOT BEEN TIED AT ALL. so that when you try to swagger around in said stripper-boot, you fall RIGHT OVER and break your neck. which is NOT SEXY AT ALL.
so i have lots of friends who are so neurotic that they are unable to finish their books under any circumstances. i, apparently, am erring on the other end of the neuroses spectrum, handing in my book WILLIE NILLIE, looooooooooooooooong before it is ready. having read it again now, it seems insane that i would've turned it in in this condition. did i mention the lucite heel? TREACHEROUS!
how's that for some BLAGH. but if that metaphor doesn't convince you of the depths of my talent, then you're probably too smart to be on my friends list and you should delete me forthwith. meanwhile, i'm leaving for st. louis on monday, alone with the baby for a week (so she can meet my grandparents and others), including her first flight. so that should be really "interesting."
and in closing, i'd like to observe today, in happiest of happy newses, a CONGRATULATORY HAPPY BOOK DAY TO
antonstrout!!!!!!my baby daughter has a tooth now. harooooooooooo!!
i just realized that i was online, shopping for furniture, while watching The Secret Lives of Women: Shopoholics.
- Mood:
distressed
+ your second book gets unceremoniously rejected by your own colleagues
+ your team gets resoundingly whooped by the GIANTS in the second round of the playoffs
+ your dog almost dies twice in one day
WARNING! POSSIBLE ARROGANCE FOLLOWS!
(in my defense, it's only a rebuttal to THIS little piece of nastiness. in fact, i don't feel the least bit arrogant or even confident about anything right now. i'm only tryin to convince myself.) that said...
i think i'll take myself out to lunch now, secure in the knowledge that this little royalty check is rounder, more red-cheeked and attractive, more robust in EVERY POSSIBLE WAY than the pitiful sums garnered by the hackneyed (if beloved)
antonstrout.that is all.
- Mood:
exhausted
shamelessthedogwas three months old, and we took him for his first round of inoculations, he had an allergic reaction, went into anaphylactic shock, and almost died. my usually staid irish husband drove the wrong way careening down the streets of queens, laying on the horn, and we got him back to the vet in the NICK of time. he got an instant benadryl IV, and they were able to bring him back, quite literally, from death's doorstep.since then, i'm always inCREDIBLY scared and nervous when he goes to the vet, even though our doc is a very conscientious person who takes great care of him, and has written "BENADRYL BEFORE ALL VACCINATIONS" across every page of his record in gigantic letters so big they could be read from outer space. today he had his second-ever violent reaction to his vaccinations, even WITH the benadryl. there was instant barfing and peeing and leak-pooping, and all kinds of horrible combustibility, immediately followed by severe lethargy and non-responsiveness. the vet had to CARRY him back into the exam room and give him more shots to bring him around.
horrible, horrible experience. my poor little furball. we're home now and he's resting comfortably - snoozing at my feet. no more shots for seamus. the vet agrees. from now on, he gets the minimum vaccinations as required by law.
antonstroutby posting my FAVORITE picture of us:
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, STROUTY!!
so last night, myself and the lovely lisa, and the lovely
lillianleitzel all went to the amazing kylecassidy's amazing photographical extravaganaza, where we met my new girlfriend hennepin and also the ravishing daphnep. and it was all very wonderful (not least of all because of the macaroni and cheese at bubby's. YUMMMM). but i did not get home until midnight (GASP! SHOCK, HORROR!), and someone forgot to give the we're-sleeping-in memo to baby girl this morning. i am TIRRRRRRED. so when she started talking and blowing raspberries in her crib this morning (my very slobbery alarm clock), i dragged my ass out of bed with very little verve, and very little hope of developing any verve during the day ahead.BUT THEN! as i slothily approached the crib, i heard the following word:
MA MA.
suddenly i'm not so tired...
- Mood: ecstatic
okay. okay, i admit it. i've been watching CROWNED: THE MOTHER OF ALL PAGEANTS. it's the mother and daughter beauty pageant reality show, as if you don't already know. DON'T ACT LIKE YOU HAVEN'T BEEN TIVOing IT TOO. oh, alright. Lord knows i ain't proud of it! but i really can't help being just fascinated by people that have so little dignity as to put themselves through this kind of spectacle. it's astounding.
my favorite moment so far:
the mother and daughter team on the self-described "academic" team claim to feel like fish out of water because they're not your typical beauties [that's puttin it mildly]. they're trying to brainstorm a name for their team. the daughter says, "how 'bout the realists." the academic mama says, "hmmm. the realists. the realists. i like it! i like it." the academic daughter writes it down on her steno pad. the academic mama says, "is realist a word?"
let me type that again for you, just to make sure you got it. the ACADEMIC mama asked if REALIST was a word. i should give up tv.
68% Hillary Clinton
68% Joe Biden
65% John Edwards
64% Dennis Kucinich
64% Bill Richardson
63% Chris Dodd
59% Mike Gravel
53% John McCain
44% Mike Huckabee
39% Mitt Romney
38% Rudy Giuliani
31% Fred Thompson
30% Tom Tancredo
28% Ron Paul
2008 Presidential Candidate Matching Quiz
any guess which one's me? hint: it's all about the hair.
after we drew for a while, the 4-year-old girl started talking to me about her penis. and when I told their mom (my friend robin) about it later, she said, "huh. that's weird. i wonder what she meant. because scarlett knows she doesn't have a penis. she LOOOOOOVES to talk about her vagina."
then she told me the following story. one day they were in a restaurant, and scarlett told the waitress that mommy's vagina had a boo boo and it was bleeding. then. another day, they were in the grocery store, where robin had to pick up some tampons, and abe told the check-out person, "those are for my mom. she sticks 'em up her butt."
some days i'm grateful that aoife can't talk yet. i shudder to imagine...
Then we came home, and my dad performed a violin concierto (as he does every evening for Aoife), inexpicably casting some sort of magical shush-rapt-baby spell over her:
On Christmas morning, she actually enjoyed opening her own presents, much to everyone's surprise:
Then husband and I left our two charges with my parents and went to WISCONSIN. Yes. We went to Wisconsin in December. And yes. It was FRIGGING FREEZING. Here is what we did. First, we spent two nights in this wonderland, where they served homemade ice cream cocktails and coffee concoctions, and the whole hotel smelled of wood-fireplace smoke, and the rooms had jacuzzi tubs big enough to swim around in:
(the view from our room):
(the courtyard):
During the day, we drove from our Kohler hotel into SHEBOYGAN which is just as glamorous a town as it sounds, including this little gem. In case you can't read the sign through the pelting, driving snow-blizzard, it says Caribbean Heat Tanning Salon:
And then we trekked the hour north (our rental Pontiac threatening to snow-strike at every turn) to hallowed ground: Green Bay. And I'm not ashamed to say that I cried when we went to the Hall of Fame and I saw all those men dressed in their leather helmets, just like my great uncle used to wear, when they worked hard at the Indian Packing Company all week, and then played football on Sundays because they loved it, and not because somebody was paying them ridiculous amounts of money. I went and tried to find the house where my grandpa (the illustrious water boy of that first Green Bay Packers team) grew up but I ended up, typically, taking pictures of the wrong house.
I wore cheese on my head and made a sign. It was all rather dignified:
Our seats were ridiculous. We were practically ON the field:
My Irish husband claimed to be confounded by all these cheese-and-bib-front-ski-pant-wearing Americans, but he couldn't truly hide his admiration for anyone who could survive in such conditions:
Also, on television, we saw girls in bikinis shooting semi-automatic weapons. I wasn't quick enough to get a picture of the girl in the stars-and-stripes-string number, but I did manage to get this:
We made it back to the East Coast unharmed, and in plenty of time to ring in the new year with our dog and our baby, as all new parents do: we slept right through it.
The End.
!!!!!!!!
i mean, it's shocking enough that the "3-wheeled car" alliance still has only two members - but that i don't mind so much. otherwise, how would i ever have located and recognized the genius of
uzisuzy?but sebastian barry?! he deserves THRONGS of interested and adoring LJ devotees. i urge you, my LJ friends list: give yourselves the gift of sebastian barry this holiday season. you can't go wrong with any of his books, but my personal favorite is THE WHEREABOUT OF ENEAS McNULTY. if it doesn't mak you weep, then you're positively weepless. i do hope someone will join me soon. how joyful it would make me to see that little link-line appear under mr. barry's name in my user interests...
- Location:red chair
- Mood:
contemplative
and here is the proof:
this is the birthday gift that i received from my beloved penguins, at the party they threw me on thursday. it is a bracelet made out of VINTAGE TYPEWRITER KEYS. if that is not the coolest, most literary, glamazonian gift you have ever seen, you're a damn liar. seriously. mine even has a "backspace" key on it. soooooooooooo sheeeeeeeeeeek.
also, my Very Amazing Husband sent me to a spa for the entire afternoon on Friday, where i received a royal treatment befitting someone who owns things like bracelets made out of vintage typewriter keys, (and beautiful burnt wood pendants strung on black silk cords, and very lovely painted mini-canvases of snowy penguins, etc). i love birthdays. poor Jehoveh's witnesses.
- Mood:
satisfied
- baby is at sitter today. i'm supposed to be writing.
- i am not writing, because i am still in holding pattern with book at agent-man, and too weirded out to start something new (although i'm excited to start on a short story idea i have about a girl who tells all kinds of lies to her therapist).
- agent-man e-mailed monday to say he's out of the hospital, already reading (and loving! whooopeeeee!), and he will ring me on monday to discuss feedback and submission process. cannot wait!
- tomorrow is my birthday. today is my birthday eve. remember, you can't go wrong with diamonds.
- some of the things i intend to do with my slackerly, non-writing day include: a haircut, an inaugural post-baby trip to the gym, decorating for Christmas, cleaning the house, taking the dog for a long walk, and in actual fact, wasting most of the day watching beauty and the geek on TiVo instead of actually accomplishing any of those things.
i don't think i'll be able to concentrate on much of anything until after agent-man-talk on monday.
YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEG!!!!
- Mood:
full - Music:Beauty and the Geek
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