Birthdays

When people talk about how I'm so disconnected from my friends and family, have low expectations and such, I like to point to the fact that I'm an only child but neither of my parents can manage to remember when my birthday is. And then I walk away, chugging from a bottle of wine a la Jessica Chastain:

It would be sad, but at 43 years old it's just comically stupid at this point.

A Poem From March 26th 2019

I saw someone on the street who looked like you today.
And then I remembered that you are dead
and could not be on 50th & 7th crossing the road wearing red, high-top sneakers.
And also that you never would have worn red, high-top sneakers.

Lilith

She awoke because a thousand million people cried out her name.
Her slumber, a millennia, ended with the jolt of their pain and fear.
She rose up out of a need so deep it was undefined -unseeable, unknown. A primal need that came from the bones of the people.
Deeper than bones, from within the strands of DNA that make up All Things.
Her wings, unfurled, cast a shadow one thousand miles wide, covering country, county, church and state.
One thousand miles wide and all who fell within her shadow could feel the might and splendor of her power.
They felt it and they feared it.
Or, they felt it and embraced it. Brought it into the bosom, swallowed it whole and made ready to change the energy into

Dance This Mess Around

It's easy to forget, you know? To forget the life you lived, the lives you led, before all of...this (waves hands dramatically, for effect.)

You were once something before you were mother, wife, girlfriend, woman.
Once, you were a girl who thought The Red Hot Chili Peppers were THE sexiest rock n' roll.
Beebopping along corduroy corridors. All curly hair and thunderous Doc Marten three-hole-steel-toe shoes.
Much later in this story the leather wears through and you proudly wear that patch of steel on your toe like a badge of honor. Fuck. Yeah.

You were once a girl who memorized the soundtrack to, and most of the dialogue from The Commitments AND Singles almost simultaneously. They are interwoven in your head and sometimes overlapping.

You were subversive by singing NIN songs aloud on the bus. But, sneaking off to Brooklyn for your first tattoo was set to a Beastie Boys soundtrack because of course it was.

And you WAITED IN L.I.N.E to see bands. Good bands. Bands who played instruments and then sometimes wrecked those instruments. Or also maybe just were awesome and loud. And sometimes you weren't, maybe, too sure who they were. But they had that one really cool song and, well, everyone else was there. Plus, you know, in like a week that cute guy is totally going to mention he was here and it would be sew kewl if, you know, you could say you were here too. Also? These shirts are pretty dope. I think I'll hang on to this one for, like, fifteen years.

You remember every painstaking second of intense timing it took to create The Best Mix Tape Ever. Hours of cigarettes and package-store beer bought on the way home from another night of night shift. It must have taken two weeks to get it just right. Because, see, you have to be very precise in the songs you chose and when you chose to play them. Then you have to edit them together like stitching quilt squares, on that janky, old dual-cassette boom box you used in the living room. That was back in the day you didn't have a TV. Before it was cool not to have a TV. You made everyone listen to that damn thing, over and over again. It was The Best Mix Tape Ever, for sure.

Once you were a girl and you took walks, on purpose, in the rain. You ate pints of ice cream on the porch steps after prom. And you felt a million feet tall singing along in the living room's full length mirror. Rock on with your awkward white girl dance skills.

You were that girl and then that woman who loved a man, became a mom and found this box of cassette tapes in the closet.

But I Play One On TV

Having a child has given me a convenient excuse to just settle into my addiction to television. Before this I sort of dabbled in it, teetered on the edge of addiction. I watched a little too much, with too little discretion. But I flatly refused to get attached to anything too serial. I didn't watch Lost, I didn't get all up on BSG or any of those other shows that required you PAY ATTENTION to every single thing in every single episode. There were a few seasons of 24 that I enjoyed, mostly because it was a social event. But I even managed to avoid the bulk of the reality and competition programming that were the zeitgeist for so long.

I can probably trace this addiction back to The Simpsons. That's the only Must See TV I've ever really had. Novelty shows have come and gone, most of them in the sci-fi/fantasy realm. Twin Peaks was great for thrills and head scratching for a season. There was that show American Gothic, Seinfield is way more of a must now, in syndication, than it was for me during it's first run. I went years and years without a DVR. People had no idea how I managed to do it. I just didn't have appointment TV, until now.

As soon as I got pregnant I got a DVR. That was pretty much giving in to the inevitable I think. Do you know how much a babysitter costs? And my husband works a lot of nights so it's not like I have a lot of free time to flit about town, sipping at the nectar of various mixologists. Or even getting out to the movies, or a coffee shop. TV is totally my new best friend.

And I hate it when we fight. This weekend, for example. TV, what the hell were you thinking scheduling the season finale of Walking Dead on the same night as the Season Premier of Game of Thrones? And in the same weekend as the new Doctor Who series starts up AND Orphan Black premiers on BBCA? Gah! Don't you know my father-in-law is visiting? And he sleeps on our couch?! PLUS the NCAA tournament is this weekend so my husband has HIS sports he needs to watch. We are coming dangerously close to the scheduling conflict error screen here people. This is living on the edge!

What's that? The made for TV movie of Stephen King's Under The Dome is on tomorrow as well? WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU?! Gaawwwd TV you are such a jerk. Where am I supposed to fit THAT in?

I don't even know what I'm doing, sitting here writing. I should be trying to finish watching last week's Syfy Saturday night movie (Chupacabra vs The Alamo, starring Erik Estrada thankyouverymuch) or any of the 5 episodes of Justified I haven't had a chance to catch up on...perhaps an episode of Lost Girl or Being Human that I'v been stock piling since their new seasons began uhhhh 11 episodes ago. Gah, 11 episodes of Being Human? I may have to send both my husband and child away for a weekend just so I can power through those.

And this doesn't even take into account my guilty pleasure programming - that would be your Castles, Boneses, NCISs and CSI (only the original and I think it's been on hiatus for a couple of weeks.) Those shows I mostly reserve for when I'm suffering from insomnia. It's not like I really care what happens, and the plots are usually pretty thin. It's easy to fall back asleep to those shows. OK I still kind of have the hots for Nathan Fillion (Captain Mal 4EVA!)

I also watch Criminal Minds which I stumbled upon after realizing I had literally seen EVERY episode of Law & Order in existence and I needed something to fill that procedural void. The problem with Criminal Minds is that a) Shemar Moore is too hot for my own good and sometimes I watch it only to see if he's going to a) take off his shirt or b) beat the crap out of someone because those two things are kind of equally hot. Also I tend to get caught up in their story arcs. Right now I NEED to know who the F it is stalking the team. Seriously. TELL. ME. It's not the same since Paget Brewster left though. She was the best of their rotating brunettes. I miss you Prentiss.

Remember when TV was simple. There were 5 channels. There was a single season that ran from September through May or June. You would get pissed off when your show was pre-empted by a Presidential Address or a sporting event, or maybe a Breaking News Story would interrupt one of your stories. But that was it. Now we have mid-season breaks. Mid-season replacements. Fall Season and then Spring Season with different line ups. We have networks pulling shows 3 episodes in....or letting them linger well past their expiration date, stinking up the airwaves. Jumping the dead shark, as it were. We've got them moving shows around so I don't even know where to find Happy Endings anymore and ...wait, what? It's on right now? Craaaaaaaaaaaaap.

It's too much. Oh man, I didn't even tell you about all the shows I save to watch on Hulu.

Hello, my name is Jen. I'm a TV Addict.

This is a Blank Page

This is not a blank page. This is not a blank page. This is not a blank page. This is not a blank page. THIS is not a blank page. THIS IS not a blank page. This is NOT a blank page. thisisnotaBLANKpage. This is not a blank page. This is not a blank page. This. Is. Not. A. Blank. Page. This is not a blank PAGE. ThIs Is NoT a BlAnK pAgE. This is a blank page. This is not a blank page. This is not a blank page. This is not a blank page. This is not a blank page.

She stared blankly at the page.
She stared at the blank page.
She started on a blank page.
The page was glaringly blank.
She had no fear of the blank page.
She would show the blank page no fear.
She stared staringly at the blankly blank page.

Thisisnotablankpage.Thisisnotablankpage.Thisisnotablankpage.Thisisnotablankpage.

Dude, this page is soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo blank. Look at all of that space. Void. Devoid. Ovoid? Ovid. Oblong. Obtuse. Optometrist. Eyes checked. Mic check. Check. Check. Is this thing on?

Don't look away. You may become distracted by something as insignificant as the luster of the knob on the bedside table. It could really use a polish. It's from Ikea, it doesn't need polish. Stop procrastinating.

This is not a blank page. This is not a blank page. This is not a blank page. This is not a blank page. This is not a blank page. This is not a blank page. This is not a blank page. This is not a blank page. This is not a blank page. This is not a blank page.     smudge on the screen.     This is not a blank page. 

If this WERE a blank page, hypothetically, if we were counting pages as blank or unblank, then how did you get all the way down here? Huh? Thisisnotablankpage. Thisisnotablankpage. Thisisnotablankpage.

18 Weeks

So this whole baby thing is really happening. There have been a few times in the past months that I thought maybe someone was wrong, or maybe it was all a dream that I would wake up from or a joke but this morning I felt the tell-tale bubbly movements in there and I know that it's real.

It was 6:15am and I had just hit snooze. The cat came in to see what the hold up was and decided to snuggle in for a few minutes if I wasn't going to be feeding him right away. He climbed in under the covers and curled himself up in a ball against my stomach and started purring.

For the past week I've been laying quietly at night and in the morning, putting the TV on mute and thinking little baby thoughts at it in hopes that I would feel movement and apparently all it needed was a cat because all that purring set off a flurry of movement. And then the cat freaked out and left, so maybe he felt it too.