One of those days.

When the first Lord of the Rings movie came out in 2001 I went to see it on opening night (the roommate of the guy I was dating had gotten tickets for all the guys in his apartment and their dates). I loved it, and gushed and raved about it at great length to my dad when I went home to visit the next weekend. My dad had introduced me to the books when I was in tenth grade and I could tell he was excited to see it, too.

My mom, because she loves my dad, took him to see it for one of his Christmas gifts. After their date, my dad and I joined in a mutual gush session, and at one point I turned to my mom and asked her what she thought of it.

Now, my mom is one of the cutest, sweetest, most awesome people ever. Period. She doesn't like to say bad things about people or things. She also, if given the choice, prefers to watch things like musicals and chick flicks where the swooning is more the result of hunky Mr. Darcy saying romantic things rather than because someone's head got cut off by a really ugly and probably very smelly orc. Just one of her little quirks.

So when I asked her what she thought of it, she paused for a couple of seconds and then said, "The scenery was really pretty." She thought for a moment. "And Bilbo's house was cute."

* * *

Flash forward to my day today. How was it, you ask?

Sigh.

Well, the scenery was really pretty.

And Bilbo's house was cute.



My mom once observed to me re: Viggo Mortenson: "Why does such an attractive man have to have such an ugly name?" She's got a point there. (Love you, Mom!)

Ungh.

I've been really lucky since the Little Guy was born in that I haven't needed to take very many "sick days," as it were. The problem with that is that when I *do* need one, it feels like several sick days all saved up at once.

Which is what today has been like. Seriously, it reminds me of the first trimester except I can absolutely guarantee that's not what's going on. But it means that all I want to do is curl up in the bed and sleep it off.

That's not exactly the Little Guy's idea of a good time, though.

He's just learned to walk and he's in the process of giving up afternoon naps and isn't exactly impressed with the brand-new-and-definitely-not-improved model of Mommy, The Lump! So I've barricaded us in the study (the smallest room in the house aside from the bathrooms, which makes it the easiest to keep warm), which incidentally has tons of books, a desk, a TV and a Love Sac, so I can sort of nap and sort of keep an eye on the Little Guy without going over the line into neglect. He loves the chance to sit on the Love Sac and eat animal crackers and watch PBS Kids (okay, seriously, Martha Speaks? THAT'S NOT HOW ANATOMY WORKS), so it's really not as rough for him as you might think.



So with any luck, we'll both survive until Daddy gets home from work. And with any more luck, tomorrow will be better.



And now, if you'll excuse me, I need to get back to solving the puzzling question of why on earth that dog is still alive if she's got alphabet soup stuck in her brain.

In a funk.

The post title pretty much sums it up. I find myself feeling sluggish about life these days. The creative juices are flowing but seem to be trapped under a sheet of ice.

Like they're a mosquito stuck in amber and I can see them there and I know there's dino DNA to be had, I just can't get to it. And that's frustrating.

Yes, I'm a nerd. Said nerd turns around after an analogy like that and says, well, maybe it's for the best. You don't want to breed raptors, after all. That never ends well.

And I say, you know what, inner nerd? You're right. Plus it's a lot of work breeding raptors. It takes a lot of energy. I would much rather just snuggle up on the couch with a good book or with useless interwebs.

Inner nerd says, let's watch Jurassic Park instead.

But then the annoying industrious side of me pipes up and gives the rest of us a guilt trip about being unproductive, so I can't even lounge properly until the funk goes away but my veins are too full of molasses to actually get much of anything useful done, so, yeah. (In the interest of giving credit where it's due, it's not just Industrious Me's fault. The Little Guy also contributes a LOT to the preventing-me-from-lounging fund. Especially now that he's walking.)

This is all extra frustrating because it's keeping me from really enjoying November, which is usually one of my favorite times of year. (Yeah, I know that just adds to the weirdness. Whatever.)

I'd write an angry letter to someone, but I just don't have the energy.

Maybe I'll put in that Jurassic Park DVD instead.



If you see my missing get-up-and-go, please kick its wandering little trash back home to me. Much obliged.

. . . we'll be right back. But not quite yet.

So I was going to continue the Words, Words, Words series today.

But that was before the Little Guy peed on me.

Four times.

In 45 minutes.

And then had a major blowout.

(Thankfully, not on me. It was pretty much contained by his onesie [which was like the sixth one for today; we've had some impressive eruptions from the other end today, too] but it was still very intense.)

So we graduated him to the next-size-up in diapers.

One hopes this will solve the problem.

Especially because I'm pretty much out of clean clothes (four changes of clothes for me today).

And my brain is kind of frazzled from all that and not really up for exploring the intricacies of vocabulary.

So we'll take this moment to celebrate the Little Guy's first, uh, graduation.

(pause for applause)

Thank you, thank you, you're too kind.

Till tomorrow, then!



Three weeks, baby!

You never know what a Monday will bring.

So today did not start out very promisingly. In short, things did not look good for Homestar Runner (read: the rest of my week). I got to work and found out that my little half-gallon of milk, whose sell-by date will not arrive for two more days, not only smelled rancid but had little bits of stuff floating on top. I don't know how a half-of-a-half-gallon of milk spoils that badly over a weekend (Shallow Man surmises that there was a power outage over the weekend and the fridge got turned off for a while), but it didn't make me happy in any event. This frustration was repeated when it turned out that half of my individually wrapped string cheese packets (whose best-by date is not until Oct. 30) had also started to putrify in their wrappers. This is not the way you want to start a Monday.

I'd rather not get into the story of how my boss's inability to handle looking at and sending out a 1-sentence document in less than 96 hours also started to send my blood pressure skyrocketing. Let's just say I'm not getting paid nearly enough. And that it did not bode well for the rest of my week.

Third trimester nausea is also back in full force and was really making its presence felt today, too. But I don't want to talk about that, either.

But then Shallow Man and I had an appointment for another ultrasound today, this one as a follow-up for the exciting new gestational diabetes issues going on. Baby is doing fine but was being a punk and hiding again so we couldn't see his face. But seeing the rest of him helped lower the blood pressure significantly. The technician took all his measurements and then took them out to the doctor, so the doctor saw Baby's stats before she saw us, and was a little worried about how big his head seems to be (not ginormous, but bigger than you'd expect). Then she came in and saw Shallow Man's large noggin, and heard how even I have a hard time finding a hat that isn't too small, and she was reassured. Yayy for crazy genetics rather than weird complications, I suppose. We also got a good picture of Baby's foot and determined for certain that he has what are referred to in my family as "Daddy toes." Very cute. (Can't tell yet if they're webbed like his daddy's or not, though.) So that helped make Monday feel a bit better.

And when we got home my Monday luck underwent a major change. I may or may not have mentioned in my last post that I like YA literature. And that I am anticipating the release of several awesome YA books this year.

Well, one of those books is the highly-anticipated Mockingjay, the final book in Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games series. (I must admit that this is not the number one book on my list of anticipated releases, but that's just because I haven't had a chance to actually read the first two yet. Law school managed to take up a lot of time, and then I figured I may as well just wait until the third one is out so I don't have to do the whole waiting-so-impatiently thing. But it was still number 4 on my list.)

Mockingjay is not supposed to be released until tomorrow, August 24, 2010. Or, at the very least, at midnight tonight.

Yeah, Amazon just delivered it to my door about an hour ago.

This means a few things:

1. Someone at Amazon made a shipping error.
2. This kind of shipping error would be considered lucky for the recipient.
3. I am that recipient.
4. That means something lucky happened to me, to wit, I have a copy of the year's most highly anticipated YA release in my hot little hands a full seven hours before I am supposed to.
5. This situation definitely calls for a diabolical laugh.
6. BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

This is not the kind of lucky thing that happens to me very often. I can't decide if this means that my week is not going to be as horrible as I was afraid it would be, that my overall life luck pattern is about to change for the better, or that the universe is simply giving me a small apology for a quarter-gallon of wasted milk and the fact that I had to eat my regularly scheduled peanut-butter-and-jam-on-toast with no milk to wash it down this morning.

I figure, whatever works.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a trilogy to read.

But Mother, I don't WANT to edit an article about civil liability!

(said in my best Wendy voice)

Argh.

I have two or three great posts I want to write up for the blog but I can't because I'm supposed to be editing an article for the law journal.

I don't LIKE editing articles for the law journal. First off, I don't think it's the editor's (namely, my) job to write your thesis sentence, roadmaps, arguments and footnotes for you if you couldn't do it yourself. Is this the way it works for all journals? Because with my limited experience in publishing, it seems like editors usually give the author ideas, suggestions and feedback about what work needs to be done and then make her do it herself. (And why is our journal accepting articles that have no discernible theses to begin with? Who knows.)

The point is, there are so many more interesting and useful things I'd like to be doing. Cleaning off the kitchen desk. Baking bread. Exercising while catching up on Gilmore Girls. Playing old-school video games. Blogging.

Come on, people! Don't you understand? There are cupcakes to decorate (a new-found love), scarves to knit (because I'm totally going to teach myself to do that now), hats to crochet, old blogs to read, new blogs to discover, recipes to try, offices to organize, houses to redecorate, numbers to paint by, and OH MY GOODNESS books to read.

SO. MANY. BOOKS. (Some of them written by highly attractive Welshmen.)

FOR THE LOVE OF PETE, THERE ARE BOOKS TO BE READ!!!!

And, unfortunately, at least one article on civil liability for misstatements in offer documents (yeah, you read that right) to edit.

With attendant threats of demerits if someone doesn't get it done in time. (Really, people? Demerits? Really?? Are we not past the elementary school stage yet?)

So the books by gorgeous Welshmen will have to wait.

And so will you, because my more interesting posts will not get written tonight.

BOY, you WILL . . .

That's how Shallow Man's theory of discipline starts out. I've decided I'm going to see how it works in semi-real life.

All right, take-home final. This is it.

You don't like me and I certainly don't like you.

But you're going to get done.

Today.

That's all there is to it.

In other words,

BOY,

you WILL

be written and printed

TODAY.

NOW STOP YOUR PRISSY WHINING AND PREPARE TO HAVE THE TRASH KICKED OUT OF YOU.

Thank you.

That will be all.


I'll let you know how it turns out, folks. Stay tuned.

Wouldn't You Know It; or, "It's Possible Pig."

So yesterday Shallow Man had an unpleasant sore throat. He even refrained from yelling at all during the football game we went to, and was popping cough drops for most of the day. But we didn't think much of it.

Until I woke up this morning with a really bad sore throat. And not the kind you get from yelling at a football game—I can tell the difference. No, this was the full-on sick, swollen lymph nodes, have-fun-because-you've-caught-a-bug type of sore throat. And I was all achy and my cough was a lot worse than usual.

I was ready to blame Shallow Man's stupid "my-immune-system-made-it-through-South-America-for-two-years" habits, which dictate that if there is an illness to be found, he'll have it for 8-24 hours and I will catch it twice and be sick for at least a week.

Except he was WORSE today. Fever, chills, sore throat, cough, etc., etc., etc., every single symptom listed on all those YOU WILL CATCH SWINE FLU AND DIE websites. Which means, if he's really sick, that 1) it is actually something, 2) I'm going to be even more of a melted puddle of misery in 24 hours, and 3) well, so much for school or work this week, since all the YOU WILL CATCH SWINE FLU AND DIE websites say you need to stay away from large groups until 24 hours after the fever breaks.

So we're staying home. Because even though I'm not [usually] the [extremely] paranoid type, if it involves something serious and contagious like potential swine flu or pneumonia or what have you, I believe you should stay home, even you don't care about your own health, out of consideration for those around you. Don't be like the girl sitting in class behind Shallow Man at the law school last week who was, between fits of coughing up a lung, telling how her doctor had tested her for pneumonia and the results would be in that afternoon.

No, folks, if you potentially have something serious, please do me the courtesy I am now showing you and stay far, far away from me.

Which is my short way of saying, we'll probably see you next week.

And now I'm going back to bed.


P.S. Many enthusiastic thanks to the MotionDeSmiths team for braving the nest of germs and bringing us all the essentials for proper recovery: delicious dinner, yummy dessert, and a bunch of old Star Trek episodes. You guys rock.

P.P.S. I also do be ashamed to own that yesterday passed without my sharin' a hearty chorus o' "Happy International Talk Like a Pirate Day To Ye" with me hearties. Here's a bottle o' rum lifted in hopes that yer plunders were bloody, yer wenches pulchritudinous, yer decks properly swabbed, and yer planks well-trod by scurvy lubbers. Avast, me mateys! Belay that yargh-ing!

P.P.P.S. And no, this post's title is NOT missing a comma.

And I ask myself . . .

Why is it, do you think, that smoke detector batteries only die, thus causing the smoke detector to beep periodically until you unplug it, between the hours of three and five in the morning? Why is it always during the hours where you are most likely to be in deep sleep mode, causing you to wake up to a beeping alarm in a state of intense confusion and grogginess, leading to disorganized panic? Why can't they ever die at, say, 6:20 p.m.? Hmmm?

The sad thing is, this happened very early Saturday morning and my sleep schedule STILL isn't back on track yet. Grrr!

Oh, now that just ain't right...

Why? Why? Why?

My soul just died a little bit.

Although I will concede that they got the look of the Wild Things right from the book. But still, I ask, why?

Overstretched and at a loss

My candle's burning at both ends,
It will not last the night;
But, ah, my foes, and oh, my friends,
It gives a wondrous light!

I have definitely overbooked myself this semester. I feel like Bilbo -- butter scraped over too much bread. I really need to cut back on a lot of stuff but I have no idea how right now. How do you tell the people who are counting on you for help that you don't have enough to go around? And who do you cut out first? Because the truth is that right now the light is not all that wondrous -- the wick at both ends is starting to gutter and sputter and pretty soon it's going to just go out completely. (I've had this happen before. My body will, from time to time, just inform me that we've had enough, thank you very much, but since you're not taking breaks on your own it's time for some ENFORCED RESTING. You'd think I would learn eventually.)

It's gotten crazy enough that when my creative writing class (really probably the only thing keeping me from completely keeling over right now -- this is NOT an option for the what-do-I-drop list) assignment was to write a sonnet, the only thing I could come up with was a case brief from my Wills and Estates class. Unconventional and kind of fun, but still a bit too much of an indication that I need to spend more time doing not-law stuff.

Does anyone have a spare three or four hours a day they can lend me?



On the bright side, at least I get to go see SYTYCD in concert tomorrow with my sisters.

Argh, or: L'il Orphan Ellie: the saga begins.

So Shallow Man is flying out tomorrow morning for Lima, where he'll be for the next two months. I get to go down on Aug. 8, but that's still six weeks that he'll be gone without me. Which is not really that big of a deal, I know, but when you take into account the fact that during the four years we've been married we've only spent one night apart, it seems like a long time. Grrr!

At least Lady Type and my Margot are going to come and stay with me for awhile during the summer, but I'm still going to miss my boy. *sniff*

Well, off to finish with packing, errands, etc. At least we found a theater with a midnight showing of Wall-E so we can see it together before he goes. :)