Jul
20
July 20, 2006
I was feeling unusually spiffy today in a semi-crisp white button-down shirt paired with a flouncy black skirt and heels (and sporting a rather cute necklace to boot); until, that is, I bit into my lunchtime sandwich and splurted a big old money shot of tomato all over myself.
I feel like the Fashion Gods have spoken. (“HEY SLOBBY! GO BACK TO T-SHIRTVILLE.”)
Lately I’ve been thinking about clothes more than I normally do; mostly because every time I go looking for a couple summery shirts to add to my pitiful wardrobe I get infuriated by the current styles, which in my personal experience can be described as “Suitable Only for Boobless Amazons”. Seriously, what is with the long, long, narrow-ass shirts – the preppy polo-y things, the Old Navy “perfect fit” t-shirts (perfect for rolling into a ball and being used to cram up the lower intestinal tract of the designer, maybe), the ruffle-fronted frothy button-up sleeveless blouses with high necks which are apparently meant to convey the confusing message “I am both contemporary and vaguely Victorian in my ensemble”, the plethora of horizontally-striped monstrosities – they all seem to hit at the same uber-unflattering top-of-thigh area on me, and I am of average height goddamnit, I can’t be the only one who doesn’t want to wear a fucking nightgown over my jeans, and don’t even get me started on the fact that nothing can be worn over an actual pair of human breasts unless you don’t mind walking around with 3,000 psi of strain happening at chest level, which as everyone knows could totally result in an eye injury.
I was at the Gap yesterday, in the Annoying Mall near my office (the Annoying Mall is so named because of the overabundance of chichi young mothers it attracts, I know this just makes me sound obnoxious but whenever I go there I see so many Gucci-clad urban hipsters pushing their bling-rimmed strollers around and half-watching Junior clambering on the baby gym while they shop for Abercrombie & Fitch tank tops that perfectly fit their macrobiotic-dieted frames and buy their children $78 onesies from Kid’s Club, I want to bite them all on their freshly waxed and tanned calves. Which probably means that YES, when it comes to these Pilates-toned iPod-stroller-holder Puma-shoe-wearing women whose husbands apparently hand them a pile of gold ingots every morning and tell them to have a good time, I probably AM bitter and jealous, JUST A LITTLE), and I think they had maybe 5 styles of shirts in stock. All Amazonian, All Boobless. I don’t get it.
Man. Wearing heels and tomato stains all day will make a girl ranty.
In other news, I had dinner with my friend Chiara yesterday. It was her last night in town, because she’s moving to, holy shit, New Zealand. For like a year at least, which I found impossible to believe as we ate mounds of italian food and talked nonstop about blogs and journals and writing and all the stuff we always talk about, but the proof that she’s really going was in the back of my car: two of her stuffed octopuses, given to me and Riley for safekeeping while she’s away.
Chiara! I’ll miss you, girl. Your octopuses – um, especially the really fucking huge one, because he or she is awesome – are in good hands, okay?
Jul
18
Walking on oak and eggshells
Filed Under Uncategorized | 36 Comments
July 18, 2006
I’ve been really pleased with how the floors in our house turned out, which is a good thing considering all the extra expense and headaches they entailed (unexpected staining resulting in replacement boards, several follow-up contractor visits to hand-sand and apply more finish, and let’s not forget the extra-long stint at Extended Hell Hotel, motto: “Free Semen With Every Blanket!”).
However, the combination of hardwoods and dog hair is not a pretty one. Oh, I know….you told me so. But sometimes you just have to see a fur-tumbleweed the size of a badger in order to believe it.
Since Riley is now semi-ambulatory, he serves as a rather handy Swiffer – if, that is, I don’t mind the front of my 10-month old child looking like a bearskin rug. Which, I’ll admit, sometimes I don’t, but he does tend to need a lot of picking up and handling, and I find it tiresome to lint-roller myself afterwards.
That’s right, I’ll endure having applesauce sneezed on me, poop smeared on me, and formula horked on me, but I draw the line at transferred pet hair, by god.
I’m hoping the dog fur problem will be alleviated somewhat when we get some area rugs, out of sight is out of mind as far as I’m concerned, but I’m getting more and more interested in a Roomba. Those of you who have one, does it really work? Do you program it with your room’s dimensions, or does it just figure it out as it bumbles around? Most importantly, does it terrify your pets in any particularly hilarious way?
I had worried about the potentially disastrous outcome, baby-safety-wise, of ripping out the carpeting, and to that end it’s been about what I expected. I’m positive Riley would be getting bumps and bruises even if we still had carpeting, but the resounding “CLONK” of his little head meeting with the wood floor never fails to dump a kegload of adrenaline into my bloodstream. (I’ve been working on suppressing my inevitable gasp of Dismayed Horror, because while sometimes he barely acknowledges the skull-smash, the sight of his mother making the Edvard Munch Scream Face and croaking “OH MY GOD ARE YOU OKAY” tends to freak him out, just a smidge.)
Things are only going to get worse, I’m sure, and no floor padding can save us – this morning I watched Riley crawl up to the edge of the hearth, use it to pull himself up, then start to swing one leg over in order to climb inside our filthy fireplace.
(The boy, contemplating his next sure-to-be-fraught-with-peril move. Not pictured: the seized internal organs of his parents.)
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