I can’t wait until I get a real budget and can afford a sound stage and Ron Jeremy!
 
In all non-snarky honesty, I love this thing. Which is why I’m poking fun at it — I tease because I love. I use it CONSTANTLY and it’s become a real threat to my marriage because my [...]

I search for my muse in coffee shops, on iPods, in friend’s faces. I sit and think, “maybe today, I will write like I mean to, like I want to, like I’m meant to.” But words get lost in Twitter streams, in frantic readying for this or that, in bottomless glasses. My ability to string [...]

For today, let’s pretend you’re ditching your current life. You’re taking off to a new town as a completely different person. Maybe you’re in the Witness Protection Program, maybe you’re just after a fresh start, maybe you’ve robbed a bank and are starting over, whatever it is…Where do you go? What is your name? What [...]

 
I vowed not to look at my phone, to Twitter, blog, talk, pee, or otherwise exist except to work. Nothing, not NO THING, was going to interrupt me. I planned to edit the document before me but good. With no distractions. I nearly made it too, but you know how sometimes you can “sense” the [...]

I have this friend.
 
And she is lovely. She really is.
 
Very fit, exercise-y, trim. That kind of crap.
 
Also, very motivational.
 
Offering to train me, help me eat right, be my health “sponsor.”
 
Which is awesome.
 
But really, she’s like the blondie, feathered-hair cheerleader sister you have, where never in six million years will you perform at the awesome over-achiever [...]

I don’t know about you, but I’ve been reading some good blog posts lately. Inspirational, thought-provoking, creative, funny, good.
 
Where would all this writing be if it weren’t for blogging?
 
I often wonder.
 
I might still be putting my words into my husband’s ear.
 
Or on a barstool.
 
Meanwhile as for YOU, please write a link post answering the following [...]

I have to admit I was nervous. I mean she is funny. Funny funny. The kind of funny where jokes fly out of her mouth effortlessly and often while you’re left thinking, “I have no witty comeback for that. So I will just listen and enjoy. Hope she doesn’t expect me to talk or anything.”
 
And [...]

 
Somebody call the cops! The weather is amazing! It’s madness…MADNESS I tell you!
 
After moving from the midwest to Southern California, my family would often lament the lack of “serious” news in San Diego. Especially when it came to the weather. We know it’s drizzling, San Diegans. But SUCK IT UP. It’s not 85 degrees below [...]

Go here! No, there!
 
I said, here!
 
Jump. Jump harder!
 
Not that hard!
 
Think, think, think. Get that brain going! Let the thoughts flow in, flow out.
 
Too much flow! Stuff going in wily nily. Filter the fluff!
 
Filter it!
 
You’re a Brita!
 
Have some caffeine. Take your inspiration up a notch.
 
That’s too much! Just a cup.
 
Have a glass of water.
 
Don’t pee. [...]

Do you know how you walk into a high-end store sometimes and get attitude from the salesperson? And you think: Aren’t I in essence paying your salary because if it weren’t for people like me you wouldn’t sell stuff? And you also might possibly entertain the notion that the salesperson lives with (a) their parents [...]

BlogHer. For years, YEARS, I’ve heard people speak of it. I remember reading recaps — albeit less of them than this year — from 2001 on, when it seemed like only Dooce and her friends attended the conference. I’ve long been fascinated by what actually went on at BlogHer. It seemed more like a giant [...]

Sometimes I neglect to do what I like to do. i.e. Read a book cover to cover. Other times, I do too much of what I like to do. e.g. Write everywhere else but in my manuscript. Many times, I choose one thing I like to do over the other thing I like to do. [...]

It was Friday when I lost my mind.
 
I couldn’t keep up, plain couldn’t keep up with the faces, the cameras, the tweeting, the shucking, the jiving, the talking, the branding, the sponsoring, the expo-ing, the walking, the waiting, the schlepping, the nodding.
 
I misplaced the ability to speak in complete sentences. To move. To do [...]

I am re-posting this for three reasons. One and most trivially, because I’m exhausted and lazy. Two, and more relevantly, because I just returned from BlogHer and met many women from my quirk tribe; and THREE, and most inspirationally, it is due to this post that I realized why I blog: because I love to [...]

Feet.
 

When I was 18, my family up and moved from Chicago to San Diego. Fresh out of high school, I thought I’d die leaving my friends and summer plans. My heart stayed broken throughout most of 1986. I no longer had things to do on the weekends and no one knew my name. And for [...]

Last week I wanted to send a Facebook message to a friend of mine and when I discovered he was no longer on my “Friends” list, I inadvertently realized he had unfriended me. In other words, I discovered the hard way that he probably doesn’t like me anymore. So…right. And owie. I’m way too insecure [...]

Man I feel like a crappy mom. I’ve taken to yelling lately (and not so lately) and it’s become my parenting technique. I’m so challenged by Toots especially and just don’t know what to do with her. So I yell. I have no parenting tools I guess. She talks circles around me and argues with [...]

It all started as I walked innocently through the outdoor mall toward Victoria’s Secret on a strapless bra quest. I navigated my way around the hundreds of mall kiosks, resisting the siren calls to improve my hair’s texture and heal my life. I sauntered confidently. I even snickered a little to myself. I could DO [...]

I originally posted this two years ago. And now our Verizon contract is up. Which means it’s time for new phones. Which means I am going to spend 18 days in a wireless store with my husband. Please send a straitjacket.
 
(I dial my husband’s cell phone, after a few rings, The Rock picks up)
 
Me: Hello? [...]

I’m the person who believes almost anything. If you tell me a ridiculous story you completely pulled out of your ass? I will ask with eyes wide open, “Really?”
 
Like:
Any Person: “Hey Deb! I have monkeys in my butt!”
Me: “Really?”
Another Person: “Deb! Want to borrow my invisibility cloak?”
Me: “Ooooo. Really?”
Or
Yet Another Person: “You should be a [...]

I’ve had occasion lately to think about friends because I’ve met so many new people since I logged online. Count up the folks I’ve encountered through blogging and Twitter and it’s easily hundreds of people I’ve made personal contact with in the last year alone. Some people I’ve hit it off with, others I could [...]

Today, write about something you miss. Is it a person? A time in your life? A house?
Your butt 20 years ago?
 
Whatever it is, please pen an ode to what you miss. Then…
 
…post your submission in the comments OR post in your blog and leave a link to your blog in the comments.
 
First time to [...]

 
There’s the running outside and breathless requests for dinner. The wandering on white carpets with dusty feet and jelly hands. The “stop touching mes!” and the Miranda Cosgrove CD blaring from the play room. I want nothing more than to unwind with the Real Housewives and a glass of Cab, but it’s time to [...]

My husband is a tile and stone contractor whose work is so famously awesome he’s had amazing jobs for 20 years strictly by word of mouth. I mean, he’s good. We’re talkin’ San Diego Home of the Year stuff. Classy, reputable shizz. However, with the recent economic slump, he’s found it necessary to do a [...]

(This is my PROMPTuesday submission)

 
Oh summer. What wondrous times of blue skies, bike rides, and 400 loads of chlorinated laundry. Such good, good memories. The house resounding with the chorus of “mommy can I?” and sibling rivalries. Visions of goldfish crackers and the Yo Gabba Gabba dild0 circling in your mind (which you unceremoniously lost [...]

I’ve had this list thing going on in my head for about a week or two. Lately I’m just walking around, minding my own business, and suddenly a list pops into my brain. Which means that now I’m thinking about everything in this weirdly organized listular fashion. It’s most unlike me, I assure you. Usually, [...]

Hi! I’m still feelin’ bitchy!
 
Please to enjoy my PMS-fueled rage so my husband doesn’t have to!
 
And the top 8 Twitter lies we tell are:
 
1) I own a very large company.
Based in beautiful Alsip, Illinois, my very large company has global offices in the Land of Honalee, Bedrock, and Orbit City. I employ 30 invisible [...]

The other day I made contact with an old friend through Facebook. It’d been years upon years upon Paleozoic eras since we last talked and so we used Facebook’s message feature to catch up quickly. Pretty soon though, it became apparent that I was being sold a perfect bill of goods. Terms like “loving wife,” [...]

Been a long time comin’
I hear it on the tracks
Slow train windin’
Breathing down my back
Put my thumb out hopin’ for a ride
Not looking back now
At those endless railroad ties
Still ignoring the signs
 
Spend all day running
You know I will and can
The train might be coming
But I’ll try to make a stand
 
Not backing down or getting off [...]

It doesn’t feel right. It’s not in the air. I’m not ready. I can’t do it. Not yet. Not yet. But when? My mind scrambles, nothing aligns, all’s a-jumble. It won’t happen tonight.
 
I put my head down. It has to happen. I’m not ready. Not yet. I think in shame: maybe not ever.
 
For a long [...]

It’s that time again! The weeks leading up to a flight I am taking. On an airplane. An airplane that leaves the ground. An airplane that leaves the ground while I am inside it sweating profusely, moistly clutching the hand/arm/face closest to me until I am safely to my destination.
 
Never mind that the airplane is [...]

TC to Glynn: do you love me, do you hate me, what’s going on?
 
To CL crib buyer: Heavy sigh, we just can’t get it together! It’s you, it’s me, it’s both of us. (Realizing foot in mouth) More me. I’m sorry. It’s not you. What’s up?
 
Asked man why he was crippled.
 
One word to describe celebs…do [...]

I like to think I know people. Like can tell right off the bat what they’re all about and what makes them tick. For instance, is my next-door neighbor a murderer? Nah. He barbecues on the weekends. Serial griller, maybe, not serial killer. Does that guy up the street cheat on his wife? Totally. Have [...]

(Inspired by this week’s PROMPTuesday.)
 
Among other things, Dr. Carolle hit the nail on the head when she drew this on a piece of paper, and said:
 

 
This is you.
 
It was at that point that I turned uflatteringly red. I huffed. I puffed. And then I stopped and thought: Well. THAT looks familiar.
 
There it was. My life [...]

Tonight I accidentally tweeted two photos of myself that I meant not to post. Also, I typed in www.t!tpic.com instead of www.twitpic.com. AND but.ly instead of bit.ly. You can imagine the consequences.
 
So here are the photos:
 

 
Nothing big, I get that. But still. They were supposed to be top secret until I posted them both on [...]

First. My dad is under supervision to bring his blood potassium levels down. Good thing the family is so concerned because when I called to ask how he was he said:
 
“I’m old. Old people die.”
 
I just love his charming ways. But for sure he said that with a glass of wine in his hand and [...]

My head? A ferris wheel with things to do in each bucket, whirling around like an out of control carnival ride. I can’t catch any of my thoughts, no kidding, and I wonder if it’s a side effect of my medication, an antidepressant I don’t want to take anymore, because among other things it makes [...]

Speaking of summer camp, the family and I are going camping this weekend. For me, it’ll be the first time since I was a kid, not counting that “camping trip” (where the “” denotes “make-out” trip) to San Filipe with an SDSU frat when I was 18. One whole week sleeping on the sandy beaches [...]

This week’s PROMPT is inspired by my friend Jennifer, who writes a Flashback post every Friday on her most excellent blog. Recently she wrote about her summer camp memories and I thought that’d make a great PROMPTuesday topic.
 
I, for one, attended sleepaway camp just two summers at the awesome and amazing George Williams Camp in [...]

I have a list. It is written in ink in my scrawlish handwriting and has a dead duck on it. Wait. Here:
 

 
This is a schedule of sorts. Things I want to write about. A few things from the list:
Welsh rarebit story.
My love of the underdog.
Circus @ Wisc Dells…Burned.
Shamrock Hotel.
Mrs. Seipkowski’s head.
 
I haven’t yet written/blogged (TWO [...]

So first day of summer vacation yesterday and…
 
…Is it August 25 yet?
 
Not that I don’t love hanging with my kids, because I do, but when you work from home? And try to fit in some of that work in between scooter time and dressing Polly Pocket for the 145th time? You start to wig out. [...]

For this week’s creative writing prompt all I ask is that you tell me everything you wouldn’t tell your closest friend. Also, in telling me, you will be telling ones, no dozens, of others!
 

Sounds tempting, no?
 

And if posting your dirty little secret weren’t enough, I must request that you do it in haiku.
 

It just must [...]

A few weeks ago, I received an email regarding my blog — and me — and this post — that made me simultaneously:
squirm
wince
blush
and cry.

 
It wasn’t “hate mail,” no, it was more like “concerned mail.” Concerned for my soul kinda, and for my life outlook, and in a nutshell? The email writer said…
“I really enjoy [...]

I plan to submit something for PROMPTuesday soon, because I can’t stand letting a spooky “what’s in the basement” story go unexplored, but first: let’s talk more superficial things.
 
Like clothes and shoes and miscellaneous knicks and knacks.
 
So maybe you know about my passion for thrifting? I took it a step further last night, but wait:
 

 
A [...]

I went to college in a smallish midwestern city with a gorgeous lakefront, gritty urban streets, and crazy lunatics roaming the alleys (campus was two blocks from the Rescue Mission, a psychiatric hospital, and the Pabst Mansion open to the drunk public). Most of my classes were held next to the Y on the city’s [...]

STACY won the Sony Digital Camera!
 

 
Toots at the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art. Create little girl. Create and explore and discover and trot into this wonderful world wanting to know more.
 
Earlier this year Toots went on a field trip to get to know our community. This meant visits to the Stater Brother’s meat [...]

Remember this?
 
Well it all worked out, thank the heavens. Seems Blue Shield read my blog and got me in touch with a smart person.
 
But now? A medical bill has been put up for collection due to an admin snafu and when I called the collection agency to dispute it, I had the extreme displeasure of [...]

(Inspired by Mama Mary…)
 
You know how you’re driving, and the a-hole behind you is riding your butt, and you’re trying to put some space between the two of you but every time you speed up, they speed up? And then they angrily whip around your car and give you a look because apparently, going 80 [...]

 
My pastoral backyard. Where probably killer rabbits and diabolical rattlers abound.

 
I have a friend who is a biologist. She’s taken me on the most delightful adventures where we encounter all manner of wildlife that I ran away from and bitch about, much to her chagrin. The time we went hiking in the desert? She made [...]

He didn’t care, just didn’t care. They could do whatever they wanted. Didn’t bother him. Not one bit. He averted his eyes as they walked past, pretending to be absorbed in the kid’s street basketball game. They probably didn’t spend enough time with their kids anyway. He bet they didn’t.
 
“Hi Ben!” Someone called.
 
“Hey.” [...]

Lots to update on! But! Because I only have one minute…let’s play a game!
 
I did this last night on Twitter because…
 
Hmmmm.
 
{{{{Thinking…}}}}
 
Well turns out that like most things in my life, I don’t know why I did it.
 
So meanwhile!
 
Watch this pretend pendulum swing and follow my every command:
 
GO TO YOUR BLOG’S ARCHIVES.
 
CLOSE YOUR EYES.
 
CLICK.
 
CLICK AGAIN.
 
Post here [...]

Yesterday at the breakfast table, Toots looked up from her Cheerios with a sudden urge to tell me:

Mom! You DO NOT want to get into a fight with Abraham Lincoln!

 
To which I non-thinkingly replied:
Why? Because he’s dead?
 
Prompting her to roll her eyes and say:
No! Because if you disagree with him, he will talk for two [...]

 
I was a moony kid. At the tender age of six or seven, I’d be found under a tree, looking through the branches at the clouds in some deep daze it took 85 mom-shouted
“DEBORAHS!” to shake me out of. I read books while I walked to school, inadvertently wandering off the curb and into oncoming [...]

Plain and simple, here’s this week’s PROMPTuesday creative writing prompt:
 
When is the first (or last) time you felt like a square peg in a round hole?
 
Post your submission in the comments OR post in your blog and leave a link to your blog in the comments.
 
First time to PROMPTuesday? Read a bit about it here.
Want [...]

I’ve previously alluded to the fact that I once attended a “psychic party” in 1995 Chicago, where a group of us girls paid to have our past, present, and futures read by a reverend who had ESP abilities, right? I say “alluded” because for some reason, I don’t like to talk about it much even [...]

A bit of background: My new insurance plan with Blue Shield of California was effective April 1. My premium was $589.30. I paid $864.26 on March 30, which paid me through May 15. Two weeks later, the dopes at Blue Shield debited my account $589.30. I alerted them to the problem and said I’d be [...]

The objects listed below, while provided free in a swag bag from Mom’s Night Out recently, are included of my own volition because:
 
a) They saved me time
 
b) They made me look efficient or otherwise put together to people who don’t know better
 
c) They delivered coffee into my mouth at high velocities
 
And while the swag bag [...]

 
Remember how The Rock and I went to Los Angeles to celebrate our ninth wedding anniversary?
 
Yeah, me neither.
 
Already those memories of alone time and afternoon nookie have been covered with back-to-real-life goings ons such as wiping other people’s butts and packing borderline-nutritious school lunches.
 
Still, I’d like to see what I can dredge up from that [...]

You know how you look back on your life and recognize certain moments that changed things forever? How you could have gone this way or that way, but you choose the way over there, and you’re a different person because of it?
 
For me, that moment was when I moved from Chicago to Los Angeles in [...]

 
A soft-bodied marine animal without a backbone.
 
Slightly adjunct to last week’s post is that Toots had a jellyfish report due today. An oral report. Of facts she had to memorize. Accompanied by a poster board of pictures she drew to illustrate her supporting points. Points like jellyfish lifecycles and animal classification.
 
She is in kindergarten.
 
Actually, if [...]

Why didn’t you people tell me about the overachieving parents at elementary school? Was it a hard lesson you thought I should learn myself? Like how no one tells you your butt will hurt four years after giving birth?
 
I don’t know, I guess I thought that kindergarten would be more low-key. Like maybe the parents [...]

 
WHY, OH WHY INDEED
 
“Why are you doing this?”
 
It was a simple question, surely. Referring to something I’ve been doing continuously for nine years, but why, WHY? What do I hope to get out of it?
 
That was his next question.
 
He and I were sitting at a bar in a swank LA eatery enjoying drinks and nibbling [...]

If I even TRIED to craft anything remotely worthwhile, it’d take me weeks to chip through all the brain mucous, so…
 
Bullet points it is.
 

 
My Mother’s Day present from Holly Marie Jewelry arrived. You can’t see the detail because I need photography intervention, but Toots’ and Booger’s names/birthdates are on the silver discs, and their respective [...]

 
I’m currently lazing in bed, sick tissue at the ready, listening to the most majestic wind outside my window. The shades, pulled down to soften the sunlight, undulate against the window and there’s a subtle whooshing, not unpleasant, letting me know that the world is breathing and all is well, all is well. It’s very [...]

As a sworn hypochondriac, it’s my moral duty to distinctly remember every time I was really sick, not the in-my-head sick of every other day. And oh how I remember in vivid, technicolor detail. Let’s see, there was the time I was 13 and felled by some mysterious virus flu microbe that made my eyes [...]

This morning Toots asked me if we could live in our house forever. Given that we rent the place, I knew the answer would be “no,” but I didn’t have the resolve to say it. As a kid who moved and moved and moved, I understood her question on a deep heart-level. Luckily, when I [...]

I spend a lot of time in coffee joints that offer free wi-fi. It’s where I do the majority of my work. As any freelancer knows, if you’re a mom who works from your physical place of residence, you’re totally screwed. There’s the laundry calling, the counter crumbs collecting, and the vacuum sitting; ain’t no [...]

I went to dinner with a friend the other night and couldn’t help but notice the new enormous diamond ring on her finger.
 
“Wow that’s beautiful!” I said. “Truly.”
 
A rock of monumental size, the diamond sparkled like a thousand very expensive stars that cost a lot of very expensive money.
 
She blushed a little, and said, [...]

Do you know those people who take everything very seriously? And you have to watch what you say because they offend so easily? And more often than not you say something completely innocent and they take it the wrong way?
 
Take for instance an acquaintance named Lamey. She is single and having a great time. She [...]

I love thrift stores. Love, love, LOVE thrift. Stores.
 
Love ‘em.
 
If you want me to have a multiple O, first take me to the library, then to Rubio’s and finally, to the Goodwill.
 
I would O all over the place. And not the Oprah kind.
 
Serious.
 
So…Given that it’s Wednesday, that wonderful wacky time of the week known as [...]

 
I took this picture at my mom’s 50th birthday party in 1991. Who knew then that 19 years later, two of the smiling people would be dead, my dad remarried, and the house sold.
 
The day I snapped this photo was a happy one. My mom had overcome breast cancer, my parents were [...]

 
She runs inside to where I am at the sink, washing the endless dishes. I hear her fling her shoes off and soon she’s before me in a puff of anxiety.
 
She’s breathless and wild-eyed.
“Mom? Is my head going to fall off?”
 
I know who this is coming from, and I’m gonna kill him.
 
“Has Garth been telling [...]

I can’t stand choosing separates. I don’t know what goes with what and so tend to wear something like what I wore today: off-trend gray capris, shapeless yellow tee and a baggy puce-y sweater. With moccasins.
 
Moccasins that had flowers on them.
 
Please do not send the fashion police to shoot me in the face.
 
That’s [...]

{{Hey look at me! Doing my own PROMPTuesdays and shit}}!

 
I wasn’t supposed to fall in love with my husband.
 
No see, because my friend didn’t plan it that way. I was supposed to fall in love with her brother.
 
Thing was, the brother was 100% not my type, but he had this wonderfully smart and [...]

 
And you thought I was classy (Right?): These retail for upwards of $300. Yet I procured them from Goodwill for $12.
 
You know how you see those Oprahs? And the tear-weary woman being interviewed didn’t know for years that:
 
a) Her husband was gay
b) Her husband was a woman
c) Her husband was cheating with her best friend
d) [...]

{{THERE USED TO BE SOMETHING ELSE UP HERE. IT’S BEEN REDACTED DUE TO A THIRD-PARTY’S OVERSHARING CONCERNS.}}

 
Let’s atone for last week’s absence.
 
I promised a helpful tip, did I not? And let me just say that most of you probably already know this household hint I’m about to share because YOU likely do things such [...]

To hold to my “editorial calendar,” I owe you all a tip and a Stuff I Like. I know you’ve been waiting. I bet there’s even bated breath involved. Possibly some anticipatory anxiety (the good kind). Am I right? Huh?
 
Is this thing on?
 
Sometimes I feel so alone.
 
Be back with the tip and Stuff later today.
 
I [...]

This is my PROMPTuesday submission for this week. My writing group started back up last night and I made the commitment to do my own prompts — something I’ve neglected to do for a year. So here we go…
 
She first appeared as my mother’s twin when I was seven. I heard her gravel voice echoing [...]

My childhood memories are peppered with images of the freaky paintings my mom hung on our walls. I don’t know how she didn’t the hell factor in any of these pictures because to me, they’re the stuff nightmares are made of and they’d keep me awake just thinking about them. Truly, any self-respecting kid would [...]

“How are the kids?” he asked during a routine work conversation.
 
I try to keep it short and sweet. “Good,” I say. “Toots turned 6 last month and Booger will be 4 next week.”
 
I could add more, so much more, but don’t want to bore him.
 
Turns out I can’t help myself and go on a bit [...]

 
I have big pores. That must be why nearly every fragrance I’ve ever tried has sunk into my skin never to be smelled again. It’s frustrating: I POUR perfume on and 3.5 seconds later it’s as if I washed it all off with a fire hose. No scent remains. It’s weird. Where does it all [...]

 
Getting ready to storm the stage.
 
Would you look at the time? It’s “Tip Day” already! I think this setting an editorial calendar for my blog stuff is kind of panning out maybe a little.
 
It’s nice to have boundaries.
 
Of course, it’s nice to not have boundaries too.
 
But in other news, TODAY’s tip is:
 
Download musical show tunes [...]

I admit it. I’ve given brief pause to retiring PROMPTuesday from my blog. What once used to be a joy and a challenge, has now turned into something “I must do” and that concerns me. But after careful reflection, I decided to be a tough old broad who hangs on until the last breath. You [...]

As I sit laptopping in the local coffee shop, just tip-typin’ away, wearing my favorite gray moth-eaten sweater, misshapen tunic and faded jeans, I can’t help but think back to my full-time working days. Oh lo, those days. I could visit three cubicles in six seconds wearing 3-inch heels and an 85-lb. Franklin Planner. I [...]

{{Mamarazzi Knows Best won!}}
 
Here’s my newest favorite thing:
 

 
The above is part of a skincare line developed by a bloggy friend who suffers from super-sensitive skin, rosacea and “general dermatological malaise.” When she contacted me to ask if I’d give some of the products a trial run, I practically begged she send it all immediately because [...]

Let’s see. According to my records, Wednesday is Tip Day. (As in helpful hints, not monetary compensation.) (Although…) (Nah, forget it.) Now I’m the first to tell you I don’t hand out tips wily nily, other than “Don’t Smile at a Crocodile,” or “Don’t Wear Granny Underwear with Low-Rise Jeans.” (Wish I had taken THAT [...]

Just a one-word prompt today. I’ve written the word below and ask that you write a paragraph, a poem, or even? post a photo on what the word means to you.
 
The word is:
 
JUDGMENT
 
Perhaps you write about a situation where you were judged — or are judged — or where you judged someone else and turned [...]

In my early 20s, I worked as an advertising coordinator for a Chicago-area bank. I took the job right after I moved from L.A. where I was an editorial assistant for a video game magazine. Like I do, I pretended I knew way more than I did during my bank interview, and so became responsible [...]

I need more structure in my life. There’s ENTIRELY too much random abounding in my daily goings-ons and as such, I must impose boundaries and guidelines on myself. Not only will these circles of propriety give new meaning to my bouncing from thing to thing, but my blog posts will now have purpose. PURPOSE!
 
I [...]

I’ve been online too much. Too too much. There’s the Twitter and the Facebook and the blog and the other people’s blogs and the Skype and the email and the other email. I think in terms of “can I blog this” and when my mind is blank of post fodder, I wallow in existential misery. [...]

Birds leave shadows
on the grass
where a blanket is drawn
 
Close by, clouds skitter
Blacking out
The wings
 
It’s like this
On the ground
Where light and dark intermix
 
A speckled mosaic
Of wondering and cursing
Not sure what it should be
 
What should it be
A shadow, a bird
And must both fly away?
 

…I’ll be busy.
 

I love my two little girls. Deep down-to-the-soul, lift-my-heart, in-every-last-fiber love. It’s no different for those of you with children. Now imagine if your child were sick — not needs Tylenol every four hours sick, but sick-and-might-die sick.
 
I’m sorry to make you go there in your head, but someone in our community is there for [...]

Not too long ago, my brother sent me a link to Elizabeth Gilbert’s TED speech on creativity (which I’ve posted here several times) and told me, “This woman reminds me a bit of you, and I think you’ll probably enjoy it if you haven’t seen it.”
 
Well of course I was semi-flattered, because as the author [...]

Oh the things we do.
 
Last night, Booger coughed constantly and continuously and for the frack ever. Like as in and for example, ALL NIGHT LONG. She obviously had a tickle in her throat that wouldn’t quit and it plagued her throughout the ENTIRE EVENING AND INTO THE DAY.
 
As a concerned mother and sleep addict, [...]

Seems there are a lot of people who want to get to know me better and send me Canadian medications through the U.S. mail. Really, these people must be very lonely. I feel bad for them. I’m thinking of visiting them personally so they can know firsthand the warm connection of real human interaction. I [...]

This PROMPT is lifted entirely from my friend Eden’s brain. Eden (I call her Stephanie) is the founder and editor of an amazing literary journal, AND the creator of a fiction workshop that I signed up for and didn’t finish. (More on that last part later.) Eden also is a great writer (can we share [...]

This is my semi-annual and infrequent “Stuff I Like” post that I write every so often to fill up the blank spaces in my mind. That’s right. Today? I can’t think of a darn thing to write. Other than this.
 
Still. These things, this “stuff I like” really moves me. All these items were purchased by [...]

 
Notes:
1. I lied. I will tell you: I was on San Diego Channel 6’s Saturday morning news. There is no link though, thank the Lord in His starry heaven above.
2. The “Lia Sophia jewelry rep lady” is Elizabeth (link here).
3. I never actually said the names of the products I demo’d (that’s bad, [...]

Mama Mary won the stuffed pig treasure chest and We Sit by Fire? You won the MyPlate-Mate! Congrats! You wanna email me your addresses? Or shall we arrange a pickup day?
 
You remember that TV thing, right? As in, I’m going to be on it?
 
I’ve got my Secret Extra Strength ready to roll and a six-pack [...]

Scene: My husband walks in the door from work. I need validation and assurance. We are in the family room. It is night.
 
My husband: Hi, honey, how was your day?
 
Me: DO YOU EVEN LOVE ME?
 
My husband: Sounds good. I’m going to take a shower now.
 
Me: What is that faraway look in your eye? Are you [...]

Since I’ve been thinking lately about boundaries, I thought I’d explore the serious side. As a woman who never learned to set personal boundaries, I’ve paid a price. Luckily, the cost hasn’t been too high - other than lack of self-respect - but I’ve been in some situations that could have turned out much worse.
 
In [...]

So this woman I barely know, whose daughter was my daughter’s daycare buddy for a year in 2006, calls me out of the blue a few months ago and leaves me a message that sounded semi-urgent.
 
“Hi Debbie, it’s Betsy. Can you call me back?”

 
So I do, even though we’ve never spoken socially on the phone [...]

I’ve decided to come right out and get the following down. I’ve been agonizing over how to word it, how to do the experience justice, how to stylize my prose. But in the end, all that is stopping me up, so I’m going to recount my Dr. Carolle visit best I can without engaging the [...]

 
Curriculum Vitae: A banana brain, nose job candidate, constipated, 34C.

 
I’ve lived a lot of places in my life, and nowhere has seemed as small town as the suburb I call home today. Everyone knows everything about everyone and Good Lord, you don’t want to make a wrong move…kinda like when a married someone I know [...]

I’m appearing on television in about a week. As is often the case with me, I am freaking the frack out. So I thought I’d “practice” being on camera so I don’t look like a weirdo dough-face on the morning news.
 
After making the below video, I am happy to report that I learned the following [...]

“Come in,” she said. “This is your home.”
 
And that’s how it began.
 
I’d come to Dr. Carolle in a last-ditch attempt to understand what was happening to me: the anxiety, the forgetfulness, the bodily changes. I had no where else to go, that’s how it seemed. Until she welcomed me home.
 
I entered her house in San [...]

Just a quick update on yesterday’s meeting with Dr. Carolle:
 
It was transformative and probably life-changing.
 
I simply can’t wait to tell you EVERYTHING. Even if it’s embarrassing to me.
Like that’s anything new.
 
XO.
 

YEP, I’m re-running last week’s prompt.
 
There are acorns! Acorns. If that’s not a story starter, I don’t know what the hell is…
 
So….
 
Here’s the genre: Cheesy romance.
 
Here are the prompts: Butter knife, roaring fire, acorns.
 
You know what to do. (But if not? Click here) And if you don’t want to click, here’s the gist: WRITE!
 
Cheese me [...]

If you’ ve read this blog for any length of time, you’re no doubt aware that I’m having major hormonal issues. At the risk of boring everyone completely, I am again documenting my struggle in this space. The imbalances in my body continue and I am truly, truly at the end of my rope. For [...]

 
Hello there! Where have you been? As for me, I’m back in the green after spending a week in Big Bear battling frigid 60-degree temps and pouring endless cups of hot chocolate. We’d promised the kids snow, and by God, He complied, even if the balmy weather belied the alpine vibe just a tad. Still, [...]

I’m making PROMPTuesday a day late. It’ll be posted this time tomorrow.
 
The reason is? Snow. Lots of it. Also I’m squirreled away in a mountain cabin and still in bed.
 
I do think I smell coffee downstairs though and is that bacon wafting on the cool alpine wind?
 
Why I believe it is.
 
See you on Wednesday.
 

I’m pretty modest. As in I don’t usually walk around naked or talk dirty, which was a real problem for me in the early ’90s when I shared a house with a “budding” actress who’d stand freshly showered in my bedroom door and flash me while feeling herself up. Turns out I’m not too progressive [...]

Look, I’m as irritable as the next person. Or the 10 next persons. So I get it. I understand wanting to tell the screaming kid next to you in Panera to shut up, or shouting at the idiot in the turn lane who is texting and ignoring the green GO arrow. I really, really feel [...]

Here I am! Late, I know.
 
So let’s get right to it…
 
Finish this story:
 
I gripped the steering wheel with both hands as flat white land rushed by, punctuated by the occasional scrawny tree. After three months of winter, the snow had hardened into a slab of gleaming marble…
 
Please post your story in the comments OR post [...]

Seriously, what are us forty-somethings doing about hormones run amok? Is it just me? I’m a leaky little boat bucked about on the hormone tide and I have had quite enough.
 
The latest is:
 
Continual night sweats
 
Boobs that hurt
 
Joints that hurt
 
Head that hurts
 
Uterus that hurts
 
Heat waves of hotness
 
Intense irritability of epicness
 
General feelings of suck
 
I’ve been to so [...]

Today before Toots’ kindergarten day began, I found out that she’d ripped the head off a toy that belonged to her friend’s sister. As the mom told it, Toots snapped the head off and laughed evilly when the little girl who owned it turned red. The story was corroborated by Alexa’s friend. Now, the mom [...]

It’s been about a year since I last posted Elizabeth (”Eat, Pray, Love” author) Gilbert’s TED talk on creativity. Her take on the creative process is fascinating and liberating, and begs the question posed for today’s PROMPT:
 
What is creativity to you?
 
This is a boundary-less and limit-less prompt. You can write what you believe creativity is, [...]

“I have waited so long for my ship to come in, finally now that it has, I hope my pier doesn’t collapse!”
–My dad.
 

 
My childhood was noisy. There were four of us kids first of all, and secondly, my dad was a loud, boisterous, emotional man. When he was home, which wasn’t all that often because [...]

Ali at Pickle Sugar Plum won the Corner Bakery card!
 
Go Ali, go Ali, go Ali, go, go!
 
I can’t help the lame things I say sometimes. It’s an affliction I have. Weirdness. My teachers said I’d outgrow it.
 
Well here I am teachers of yore! Forty-plus and still flush with the weird.
 
But way more importantly, congrats [...]

The healthy eating post went well! I’m happy to report that I’ve followed many of your suggestions in the last few days and feel…sick as a mangy dog. But I’m sure that will pass, so to speak. It’s probably just toxins being released into my system for elimination. In the next few days, I will [...]

The Rock helped me out with this one. Tired and spent last night, I couldn’t put a PROMPT together for nothing. So my husband got on Ffffound and procured several images to inspire my thinking. I am including most of the pictures here. This week, I’d like if you were to pick one and write [...]

Back when I was thinner and concerned about things like double chins and large butts, I used to mentally calculate the calorie count of everything I ate. In my mid-20s, I even went through a “candy corn dinner” phase, where I’d eat handfuls of the stuff because it was fat-free. No meat and potatoes, just [...]

This stream of consciousness brought to you by sugar and a teaspoon of Tylenol for kids.
 
**********************************
 
Mom? Would you still love me if I killed someone?
 
I would NOT be happy that you killed someone, but I would still love you.
 
What if I killed a devil?
 
Well……
 
Actually, I just thought about it and I would try to teach [...]

 
Like last year’s Christmas stuff on the guest bed, so too are the days of my life.

 
I really want my blog back. And my life. I’m spinning so fast right now that I can’t keep up with anything. How do you moms do it? Is it just me?
 
If you’d allow me to whine for a [...]

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
 
{Deep cleansing breath, deep cleansing breath.}
 
I’ve missed you.
 
{More breaths. More breaths.}
 
Very busy.
 
{Breathing…breathing…}
 
WHERE THE CACKALACKY IS MY BROWN PAPER BAG?
 
{Gasping, gasping.}
 
Good Golly Miss Molly Almighty in Heaven Above with the Infant Baby Jesus.
 
{Re-evaluating priorities. Re-evaluating priorities.}
 
Work doesn’t have to consume me.
 
Oh frack. Forget it. I’ll deal with my inner anguish later.
 
Here’s a PROMPTuesday I made up [...]

{{{A week late}}}
 
I saw her first. She fidgeted in the coffee line and continually checked her reflection in the display case. A pair of black bike shorts barely cupped her buttocks, revealing far more than just tanned and toned legs. A sports bra worn as a top, white waffle socks, and black high-tops completed the [...]

Nice of me to check in, isn’t it? Truth is, I’ve been paralyzed writing-wise. There’s been so much I want to write, but am over-thinking due to people I know now read this blog. There’s so many to please! Or at least not piss off. The one friend over here hates when I self deprecate, [...]

 
Many days I forget her crooked smile, how she loved Jeopardy, her potato soup. Unless I’m prepared, I get either upset or downright angry if I have to think about her and me. The way we were together, or more often, apart. Our arguments are legend, still. Truth is, my memories are like an autopsy, [...]

Do you do this too? Assemble a mental list of things you absolutely need to have in order to be 1) More interesting 2) Less zitty 3) Younger 4) Hipper 5) More enlightened 6) Skinnier; and last and sometimes least 7) Healthier?
 
I’d say the my personal list compiles at the rate of one thing a [...]

Thank goodness for this blog. For days, I couldn’t remember what I did last New Year’s Eve, and through the miracle of archivedom, I discovered that on Dec. 31, 2008, I fell asleep at 9PM and didn’t give up the booty. THIS year, I fell asleep at 11PM.
 
Again, I managed to keep my ample underwear [...]

Was it something I said? Maybe the intestinal reference?
 
No matter. Here is today’s PROMPTuesday…late and unshowered.
For two days.
 
So it seems appropriate to talk about monkeys.
 
Today’s PROMPT is:
What is the monkey on your back?
 
Maybe it’s a monkey you’d like to push off for the New Year. Or maybe you want it around because it keeps [...]

Merry Christmas everyone!
 
It’s very pink over here. Also, I decided to go off my brain medication.( Well, not “decided” really as much as “forgot to take for 5 days.”)
 
Whooo! Let the holiday glee commence!
 
On a serious note, thanks for being my friends and readers.
 
Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a Barbie to rescue from [...]

Here’s what’s happening lately:
 
I’ve been crafting all my blog entries in my mind at around, oh, 3:30AM. This morning was a real hamdoozle of a post about the media’s role in shaping public perception, and that the media needs to be mindful of that great responsibility and not continue to F it up through [...]

 
I thought to come back and write more about things that uplift me, happy things that don’t involve death and ectoplasmic soda pop. As such, I’m going to list some of my uplifters here. A few I’ve referenced before, so I suppose this could be a compendium of those songs, foods, etc. that are happy [...]

You remember how I balked at moving to the suburbs, right? Well, looks like I’m seeing more social action here than I have anywhere else I’ve ever lived at any other time in my entire life, with the exception of a raucous sophomore year in college. Seems lots of moms are itching for connection and [...]

 
Just a representative example of what my Christmas dinner will not look like.
But just for fun, let’s mentally re-arrange it to look San Diego Mommish.
All right. Take away the turkey, gravy, and cranberry sauce; knock over a Christmas candle, and place the wine in the center of the table.
There you go.
 
Ah, Thanksgiving. A well-loved holiday [...]

You know that game “I Never?” I’m the absolute worst at it. Mainly because I’ve never done anything outlandish or too illegal or controversial. I avoid the game at all costs without fail, because at the ripe old age of 41, I still end up looking like a lame Puritan. It’s embarrassing.
 
I mean, I [...]

Certain images stay with me a long time. Pictures in my mind that will forever define turning points, give a face to a particular time in my life, demarcate the moment of “this is me now,” right before I jump into “this is who I’m going to be.” I tend to look back at those [...]

Should I put it on her car?
 
**********************
 
Hi:
 
As you know, we (the moms on this street) have an issue with how fast you drive down our cul de sac.
We know that you feel that because you are driving the speed limit, you are being safe.
However, we want to share that California law states the following:
 
“You may [...]

I don’t often enter into chick fights. In fact, I tend to avoid altercations altogether if I can at all help it. I’m a people pleaser in that way, and it totally blows. That said, there have been a few times I’ve had my rankles up, talked some smack and got ready to rumble. One [...]

I have a guest post up over here. It is probably the only cost comparison I will ever do in my entire life.
 
And a teaser: I get to give away a holiday dinner package! For people to eat! There will be eating by people. Of the holiday package. Of course, someone will need to cook [...]

Toots: Mom? There’s something I can’t tell you.
 
Me: OK. Don’t tell me right now.
 
Toots: Enrique tried to kiss me last week at school.
 
Me: And?
 
Toots: I told him it wasn’t a good time.
 
Me: When did you tell him would be a better time?
 
Toots: Later.
 
Me: Like later this year? Or later in 2025?
 
Toots: I KNEW I shouldn’t [...]

I used to do this Playlist thing on here, and I miss it, so today I am resurrecting it for my own amusement.
 
Recently, I decided to give a listen to some “world” music and other tunes completely foreign to my element because I wanted to jump out of my skin a little. I tend to [...]

Back in 1996, I moved to Los Angeles from Chicago. I had lived in LA before, from 1991-1993, but in the married-with-children Valley, and as a young single woman, I vowed never to make that mistake again. So this time around, I found a studio apartment in Brentwood, bought a used Lexus, and tried to [...]

Seems I’ve been outed. Not gonna say by who, but her name rhymes with this link. It took me by surprise too, until I was called into the living room last night (unceremoniously I might add) and asked to explain my blog to a room full of woman who know me only as Toots’ mom.
 
And [...]

I’ve been having blogging issues lately. Some existential, some not. I especially hate the way I’ve neglected my very own PROMPTuesday and after much reflection, believe it’s because I don’t want to do much reflection. More specifically, I haven’t really wanted to plumb the depths of my subconscious. Or, more realistically, just haven’t had the [...]

Sometimes the simplest things nudge us irrevocably in one direction or another.
 
That’s my thinking this week as I introduce today’s PROMPT.
 
Start off with an uncomplicated, “I never knew…” and see what path you travel down as you write.
 
Please post your submission in the comments OR post in your blog and leave a link to your [...]

Usually our postman thrusts the mail through our slot, haphazardly and dismissively, leaving envelopes, catalogs, and unemployment checks splayed every which way but neat. Once, I found a wedding invitation, weeks later, dustily bent behind the water heater.
 
Anyway, today, as I aerobicized to “Digging Your Scene” by the Blow Monkeys, I spied our erratic mail [...]

I’ve decided that I overstimulate easily. Too much “stuff” and I shut down. This came to me one day when I was getting ready for a night out and couldn’t process or assimilate the kids asking for a book, the husband wondering what to wear, and the babysitter wanting to know bedtimes. I laser focus [...]

It’s 5:45AM and the weight of my daughter’s shadow teases my eyes open. Her nose brushes my ear, and a beat later, a soft tug on the covers tells me she is waiting to gain entrance to our bed. I open the sheets and she slides in, placing her head like a Jenga under my [...]

Have you read The Book Thief yet? I really want you to.
 
First of all, it’s epic. Second of all, it’s told from Death’s point of view. Third of all, it’s historical fiction set during the Holocaust. Fourthly, the writing is unique and raw. Also charming, just not in the expected places. Fifth and foremost, the [...]

Here we go! This week, use the below in your first paragraph somewhere:
 
“You’re not going to win you know.” She couldn’t look at him when she said it.
 
“Maybe not. But I take heart in knowing that neither one of us will be the same when it’s all over.” He pushed the papers across the table.
 
She [...]

FYI! I’m amending my PR policies, the ones that exist solely in my head and often change without due notice, as follows.
 
I will engage in a PR relationship with a PR person in a PR-y way if:
 
1) There is cheese.
 
2) The product/service reminds me of when I was young and bouncy (the good kind of [...]

So the swine flu.
 
I’ve observed for myself and heard from other moms that in many cases, pediatricians are not testing for H1N1 in their patients with flu symptoms.
 
When Toots went to the doctor last Monday with fever and arguable fluey stuff going on, my pediatrician, whom I respect and trust, told me he “thought” she [...]

 
Toots’s cure for the flu. It’s important that the green cylinder be placed ONLY on the left foot, second piggy from the big toe. Also, the plastic eyeball MUST be affixed firmly to the left shin. Not the knee. The shin. Furthermore, be sure to use only pink and orange Bendaroos for the criss-cross. Needs [...]

…Find out that it’s “probably” NOT the swine flu as the pediatrician initially speculated. Learn that it’s “probably” just a virus. Dedicate rest of life to the abolition of the word “probably.”
 
As a secondary life mission, decide to insist on stuff like swine flu tests because assertive people have more peace of mind.
 
Probably.
 

So today my pediatrician says, “Influenza,” and I say, “Are you thinking H1N1?” and he says, “I AM thinking H1N1 because it is the only strain out there right now,” and I say, “But H1N1 isn’t supposed to be real…it’s supposed to be a construct of my imagination that slowly drives me insane until April,” [...]

First she asks how Johnny Appleseed died, then Christopher Columbus. Eager to encourage her learning, even if it is morbid, we look up the details. Appleseed gave in to pneumonia at age 72; Columbus suffered a heart attack at 55. She’s not satisfied. What is pneumonia, she inquires. How does a heart ‘attack’ you?
 
We answer [...]

As a blogger you all look up to for travel tips and theme park reviews, I thought I’d take this time to outline a few “Do’s and Don’ts” for Disneyland.
 
Also, since I visited both California Adventure and Disneyland last weekend, I feel I am eminently qualified to offer my opinions on how you should tour [...]

Allright, look. I’m sick of pretending. Here’s the straight-up: I’m a nutcase. I guess you’re now going to have to refrain from offering me that job and asking me to watch your kids. I’ve also got to tell you that my crazy is growing. It’s not quite OCD — yet — but I do dream [...]

It started with the legs. An ill-timed kick here, a knee toward the groin there. Pretty wicked for someone who is unconscious. Then your fingers. Usually the pointer, as if trying to show you. The way it jerks suddenly but with purpose. See? see? X marks the spot. Right there in front of you all [...]

Today’s PROMPT comes courtesy of Mama Mary, and it’s a doozy. In a good, thinkey kind of way.
 
I’m going to let her explain your mission for today (actually, you’ve got several days to do this…):
 
“Let’s say I am casting for a new reality tv show/web series called “Woulda, Shoulda, Coulda.” Either write or webcam your [...]

My suggestion is that tables and chairs not be positioned close to the bathroom. Like not right on top of the bathroom practically, where diners can see people go in and out and sometimes if the door swings just right, see them on the pot (or the floor as the case came to be). And [...]

As school gears up, I find myself scheduling more and more playdates (a word I’ve only just come to terms with…it sounds so Real Housewives) and I’ve discovered that for a successful playdate (one in which you do not stick your face in a case of Grey Goose afterwards), one’s home must be prepared.
 
I’m not [...]

Nita Tenshyn @everybody So if you tweet in the forest and a tree falls, does anyone hear you?
 
Nita Tenshyn @everybody Ha! If I were a tree, I’d be deciduous.
 
Nita Tenshyn @everybody No, a pine. They’re evergreens. right? Anyone know?
 
Nita Tenshyn @everybody I love granola! Who’s with me?
 
Nita Tenshyn @everybody [...]

I’m itching for a good old fashioned style prompt and so I’m going to indulge myself today.
 
In 200 words or less, describe a day in the life of an obsessive twitterer.
 
I know it’s been done, but the Twits in Twitterland are so asking for it.
 
Please post your submission in the comments OR post in [...]

Yesterday a new mommy friend came over for a play date. Her son, Red Bull, is in Toots’ class, and her daughter, Demure, attends Booger’s preschool. Our kids perfectly pair off, because Toots and Red Bull are human energy drinks in a kid bottle, and Booger and Demure remain content to read books and play [...]

After a recent evening out, The Rock and I arrived home at 12:06AM and wondered aloud what to pay the babysitter. She’d arrived at about 7PM and since we were between hours, the payment protocol was all off. Should we pay her from 7PM to 12AM? Or, 7PM to 12:30AM? Or 7PM to 12:15AM? And [...]

Hi my friends! I haven’t been around, I know. But just so you know, I talk to you every day in my head. We share meandering stories, randomedies, and nutty anecdotes. Oh yes we do. There was the alopecia thing and the coupon debacle and the Starbucks affair (still) and so many other tales. As [...]

Here is today’s prompt, courtesy of She, who had the idea, and Toots, from whose fertile imagination the words sprang.
 
(A sweltering Toots told me the other day she wished “hot” had never been invented.) (More head-scratchingly, after The Rock told her he didn’t feel like going to work, she helpfully suggested he “kill himself” [...]

Ooops.
 
Stay tuned…
 

My sophomore year in college I roomed with a Crazy Cajun named Michelle. A dark, swarthy, greasy-haired bobblehead, she drawled, blowjobbed and shit-talked like no one I’d ever met. She hated my innards. I don’t know if it were because I transferred mid-year and ruined her solo dorm vibe, or if she thought I were [...]

I’ve got an awesome prompt.
 
Last Saturday see, my friend Paul told me about The Moth and intrigue swept my heart. (I love when that happens). The best part? Turns out The Moth (a compelling storytelling concept and podcast series) became a “thing” after the founder used to have people over and “forced” them to tell [...]

The summer wound down with a pop. We knew it was coming, but when those balmy Chicago nights ended with a cold snap, it took us by surprise. Lis and I spent the entire warm weather months doing what twenty-something single Lincoln Parkians did — attending street festival after street festival, Cubs games, and rooftop [...]

Please describe a blind date.
 
Make it up or give us a little truth is stranger than fiction.
 
Bonus points and adoration from afar: If you make it up, include “Finland”, “chenille robe”, and “casserole” in your submission.
 
Please post your submission in the comments OR post in your blog and leave a link to your blog in [...]

Annoyingly, I didn’t want to like the suburbs. Instead, I prefer to align myself with eclectic Aaryn, whose vision is to buy an urban loft with open common areas for diversity and individual expression. I thought (hoped?) the suburbs would be too plebian, too vanilla for my delusional hippish tastes and if I didn’t [...]

 
Olivia “Youthton” John and Toots, before school drop-off.
 
Toots started kindergarten today. In the days leading up to this morning, she periodically admitted she was “nervous,” a revelation wholly unlike her, the social girl who tells strangers about the time “daddy had a weiner operation and laid on the couch all day.” Either way, I monitored [...]

1. Who are you?
2. Where did you come from?
3. Where are you going?
 
Please post your submission in the comments OR post in your blog and leave a link to your blog in the comments.
 
And also — First time to PROMPTuesday? Welcome! Read a bit about this weekly writing exercise here.
 
(Want to see what’s been [...]

 
It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s an experiential overview!

 
I’m still not sure how to incorporate product reviews (henceforth referred to as “experiental overview” into my blog yet, or if I even want to, but I have found that I’m game if the following four bullet points are addressed:

 
1) The product to be reviewed is [...]

I feel pretty safe in my new home. Unless the crickets mount a full offensive, I don’t think I’ve got any to worry about breaking-in-wise. This is really saying something, because I’m the girl who imagines nightmare scenarios of robbers jiggling the front door handle while I hop into the girls’ room, drag a heavy [...]

You’re in a mental institution. What finally drove you crazy?

 
Please post your submission in the comments OR post in your blog and leave a link to your blog in the comments.
 
And also — First time to PROMPTuesday? Welcome! Read a bit about this weekly writing exercise here.
 
(Want to see what’s been written in the [...]

The problem with waiting so long between posts is there’s so much to say and not enough time to say it. There’s no logical way to string together an essay combining stories of my plane rides to and from New York, my slow introduction to suburbia, the weird thing happening to my right boob, and [...]

I’m going for two prompts today because I can’t make up my mind. Truth told? Ambivalence follows me in many aspects of my life…and it’s hard for me to settle on just one thing…always (and THAT’S the one constant). So to honor rather than decry my wobbling, I’m bequeathing double prompts. Choose one or do [...]

[A photo essay with very few wisecracks.]
 
I returned home from New York last night and absolutely needed to show you some of Jill and Marky’s wedding ASAP.
 
You’ll see why.
 

 
(How’d this get in here? It’s weird. It’s like some crazy loon made a random guy take off his glasses, give them to her immediately and [...]

 
My brother’s almost-wife and my brother.
 
So I leave for New York City first thing tomorrow. Please send happy hippy safe trip vibes. I’ll be a better blog friend in August. ‘Cuz you know, the family is getting settled and hopefully, my flying phobia will be behind me.
 
To keep my mind busy, I am now going [...]

“I’ve got a pit in my stomach.”
 
I nodded because I did too, but hadn’t said it aloud.
 
“It feels so isolated and quiet! Where is everybody?”
 
I didn’t answer. I’d been thinking the same things, but we made the move and now the best must be made of it.
 
We sat ensconced in beach chairs, right there in [...]

Three words today:
 
Ancient, visionary, coma
 
Extra bonus points: Incorporate words into a dream sequence.
 
Please post your submission in the comments OR post in your blog and leave a link to your blog in the comments.
 
And also — First time to PROMPTuesday? Welcome! Read a bit about this weekly writing exercise here.
 
(Want to see what’s [...]

For the first 10 years of my life, my family moved annually. My dad was a video game salesman in the early days when Space Invaders and Asteroids ruled the arcade, and business was flush. In the ’70s and early ’80s, video game companies sprung up like weeds, only to die much quicker, usually in [...]

I’ve been dying to write something. You know, wax eloquent on the suburbs (we’re still moving! taking little bits out all week with big exodus scheduled for this Saturday! also, I thought crickets were extinct?), expound on how I make my friend, Michelle N. sad because I self deprecate too much (leaving me to wonder [...]

Lately, I’ve found my pockmarked brain really enjoying children’s programming. (Except for Yo Gabba Gabba. Do not watch Yo Gabba Gabba. My friend, Island Girl, is right when she says that show is like a kid rave.) That, and Kidz Bop, are why all our children are making out in second grade bathrooms.
 
At any [...]

Hello, my friends.
 
Guess what?
 
I’m on a cliff right now. Hanging by my fingernails. But it’s so exhilarating up here! The wind is very refreshing and you should see the view!
 
Goodness, how I inappropriately love my stupid metaphors.
 
OK really, here’s the thing. I’m so busy (I edited yesterday from 10AM to 11PM. Totally true story. Then, [...]

Hi, it’s me. No, don’t worry. I’m fine. It’s just there’s so many holes to patch (oh, metaphor), and paints to brush, and cartons to pack, and whines to have, and frozen dinners to artificially warm that make me feel like less of a mom.
 
What? When will I ever not have an issue or something [...]

…Can we do PROMPTWEDNESDAY instead this week?
 
I’ll make it up to you.
The prompt will be up tonight.
 
Thanks in advance for your understanding and gentle, tolerant natures.
 

Stay tuned! PROMPTuesday is coming! However, due to an unprecedented show of packing and inner strength, my fingertippal region is sore and needs a brief refreshment period.
 
PROMPTuesday will be up this afternoon.
 
And guess what? The Rock repacked all the boxes I so diligently populated yesterday. Something about not good use of space and organization is [...]

Because I’m sick of my existential self and emotionality AND needing to write about feelings every godforsaken second, let’s go superficial instead.
 
What do you say? I think fluff could be fun and I’m real good at it.
 
So as you may know, I will be attending my brother’s wedding in Manhattan in early August. And [...]

{{Two nights ago… (– or, three? Last night?) …I sat on the couch with The Rock, watching Kathy Griffin’s Life on The D List. We were laughing. Laughing hard. Then I did this thing where I laugh so much I kinda cry. Except it was a real cry. A burst of unexpected angst and unfounded [...]

I got the below line from somewhere and can’t recall from where. Can you imagine a greater treason if you’re a writer? Still, it’s a great prompt starter and I can’t resist, even if I’m unable to give the original author credit.
 
So please, write a story using the line “Flying through the streets like a [...]

So, moving sucks.
 
And I haven’t even done anything yet. But just thinking about it stinks.
 
Speaking of, I can’t get over the fact that I’m moving into someone else’s space that has (1) Their hair in the drains (2) Their poo ethers in the toilet (3) Their skin cells in the carpet.
 
I’m obsessing. And so I [...]

Why haven’t bathing suit designers realized that if they’d only lobby against the sale and manufacture of florescent lighting, they’d sell a hell of a lot more bathing suits?
 
There should be lobbyists on Capitol Hill. Yea, I see it now: shade-walking flabby 30-somethings, sweaters tied around their waists, who never use public restrooms. What a [...]

Saturday night was a total fluke, because originally I was to join Jenn at FOUND, but The Rock cast his Father’s Day vote to listen to some music and spend some couples time (poetic license on that last part), and so off we went to a complete dive lounge in horse country where his cousin [...]

I’m scared to fly. Best of all and super exciting is that I get to do it next month for my brother’s wedding. In New York. (Can’t you people get married where there’s easier ground transportation? And in a city of closer proximity not necessitating air travel?)
 
For God’s sake.
 
At any rate, the whole Air [...]

If you are asked to showcase your cheap, used thriftwear on another website, shower first.
 
That’s all I got.
 

How come you people never tell me to just shut up?
 
Why do I need to go to my dad for that service?
 
Because when I called him yesterday, all crestfallen and lame about moving to the suburbs, you know what he said? He said I was a Drama Queen. A Drama Queen!
 
You know what else?
 
He said [...]

 
The suburban Chicago house where I lived for 8 years, so I should just shut up.
 
***********************************************************************************
 
Dudes. Oh, dudes.
 
It’s pretty official.
 
We’re moving to the ‘burbs.
 
I know I say this like I’m some elitist hipster who can’t deign herself to live in two-story houses next to greenbelts, but no. Rather, I’m saying this like WHY IS IT [...]

We got a meme this week, folks. And I’m going with it because the topic intrigues me and I love to lie for sport. So by way of Green Girl, this meme/PROMPT is as follows:
 
“Sometimes you can learn more about a person by what they don’t tell you, or from the things they make up…”
So [...]

I saw two movies this week I want to tell you about because they’re the type of movies that will strike a chord if you’ve ever:
 
1) Waited to take a risk, then took it and were so so glad you did.
2) Felt like life has passed you by.
3) Worried that when walking through a construction [...]

The Rock and I are in the process of making some major decisions on our future. Really BIG decisions. Ones that can change lives. Alter the trajectory of our existence even.
 
We might move to the suburbs.
 
I know.
 
But this is good, right? Costco proximity? Cul de sacs? Girl scouts? Crazy obsessive PTA moms?
 
I know.
 
Oh God. I’m [...]

I went to an event recently, and the party was altruistic because it raised money for women in Kenya through $14 martinis, but the venue blew. Not because it wasn’t gorgeous, it was: all rooftop deck and blue pool and cabanas and crimson lounge cushions. But because the staff apparently took too seriously their employee [...]

 
We’ve got all kinds of friends, haven’t we? The serious ones, the anal ones, the silly ones, the lost ones, the distant ones, the ironclad ones.
 
Today, let’s write about the fun ones. Do you have a friend who makes you laugh and is a guaranteed good time? Write about this friend. Tell us a funny [...]

We sat near the back fence framed by hammered mirrors and garden spiders; she was on her 24th cigarette. She spoke with a thick tongue and sometimes indecipherable accent, but I knew she’d given something away years, most probably decades, ago. She’d come to America in 1999, from Russia, told fast money could be found [...]

 
(Photo taken in New York’s West Village, October 2008)
 
A few months ago, I joined a writer’s coaching meeting that consisted of myself and two other people (who are near and dear to me). The ringleader for this meeting was Paul, who made it very clear that we ARE NOT TO READ OUR WORK ALOUD. No, [...]

I imagine that every person in the world at one point or another, says, “I should write a book.” Whether it be a how-to parenting guide, a memoir about your life in the circus, or a good old-fashioned murder mystery, we’ve all thought it, right?
 
“I should write a book.”
 
Or maybe you are writing one? [...]

As I may have mentioned, I was recently invited to the San Diego Zoo (thanks, Mel) to preview the new Elephant Odyssey exhibit, and as I also may or may not have mentioned, I don’t know yet how to incorporate “PR” content into my blog, so as I am wont to do, I wondered agonizingly [...]

About to get crabs.
 
I’ve had sex with exactly five (5) men in my whole entire life and one of them is my husband. Don’t get me wrong, I was kissually active, having touched lips with probably 8,500.02 males — and that’s in college alone — but I couldn’t “give” myself to someone unless I liked [...]

My skull feels like it’s full of packing peanuts and my brain is taped in cellophane and bubble wrap all the way at the bottom of the box. So many peanuts! So much digging! And still right when I think I finger a bubble, it’s just another styrofoam peanut. Why so many peanuts, head?
 
Good [...]

The below song was inspired by a poem that Stevie Nicks wrote about an…
 
…Well, I’m not going to tell you yet. I don’t want to put premptive ideas in your head.
 
I don’t know about you, but I love imagining a writer at work. Often I picture a silent back bent over paper or a keyboard [...]

 
Yesterday, the girls and I walked to the beach. We’ve discovered the most wonderful “secret” passageways leading down to Sunset Cliffs and are spending our time exploring them. There are rusty, rickety metal stairways, cement blocks crumbling into the sea, huge boulders piling the beach, “Do Not Enter” and “Beware” signs, and labyrinth evil count [...]

Today I’m reminded why do prayers work for some and not for others. Why I’d rather just know, and punch hope. Screw the experimental medicine and the new treatment and the wait and see.
 
Today in December when I knew you would die and you said no you wouldn’t (NO! YOU WOULDN’T!) I saw so [...]

So the Mom’s Nite Out thing, right? Big news here in San Diego Mommason land for quite some time now, and as such, I’m just itching to show you how it all went down.
 
But first, as I am wont to do, a little self-deprecating textual overview.
 
Let me just say that I love people. However, [...]

 
Thanks Tonya. My one true self has never been rendered so perfectly. It’s what my brain would look like if I wore it on the outside.

 
I wish I could say I have a San Diego Mom’s Nite Out update just waiting for me to finishing touch it before I post, but that would be a [...]

 
I didn’t expect to live there long. We never stayed in one place. Maybe a year at the most, and so I remained unsettled. Not in a bad way so much, more like a hummingbird moves from petal to petal, finding nectar in each color, yet keeping in flight, ready to dispatch itself any minute.
 
Each [...]

Do you know that Mom’s Nite Out thing I’ve been talking about all over the place? Well, because It’s something close to my heart, so I’ve made you the below video to explain why it means so much to me.
 
And because I feel SO strongly about the healing nature of girl time, I made this [...]

 
My friend, Eden, is among 100 semifinalists who’ve been selected for the next round of the 2009 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award. Now she’s in the quarterfinals and would love reviews of her first chapter. Partially based on these reviews, Amazon will announce three finalists for the Grand Prize on May 15.
 
Eden is a wonderful writer. [...]

I think I’ve said before that I consider myself perceptive. I like to think I have people’s number at first sight, and after I internally sum someone up I confidently tell The Rock what “I know” about the person. “Oh, they’re bluffing,” I often say about buffons, for instance. “All bark and no bite. Very [...]

These lovely and haunting photos came from my friend, Da Goddess, whose pictoral mastery inspired today’s PROMPT.
 
I don’t want to lead you so much this week, as I want these photos to elicit a reaction that you explore with a story or a poem.
 
So for PROMPTuesday #53 (Holy almost 100 sorta!), gaze upon the imagic [...]

Despite resistance from my non-linear brain, I like to be organized. I despise clutter and for mental sanity, need everything in its place. However, nothing has a place in my home, because I am unable to classify stuff. In addition, I am genetically engineering to be unorganized. Actually, I believe that my brain is not [...]

 
(Top): Aaryn, Me. (Bottom): Jenn, Cheri, Jamie, Kate.
 
So last year around this time, I didn’t know many people online. And because I tend to shun attention, I didn’t put myself out there. Too shy. Insecure. Nervous about my sensible shoes. But then, Cheri invited me to attend Kate’s house for the Bossy Road Trip and [...]

He was the first I knew of romantic love. Those beginning hours and days, for that’s all it turned out to be in truth, imposed a gentle panic on my life. When would I see him again? Does he really love me? Is he coming back? I drank up every single saccharin word he blabbered, [...]

 
Toots says “Happy Earth Day, everybody!”
 
…And she also says:
 
Happy Beak Heart Day!
 

 
And…
 
Happy Graffiti Spider Femme Day!
 

 
Also…
 
Happy Picasso Day!
 

 
In addition and finally…
 
Happy LoveBob BoobHead Day!
 

I don’t know that this qualifies as a travel adventure per se, but I was in another country when it happened, so I’m going with it.
 
It was the eve of my 19th birthday and my crazy, crimped-haired friend, Shana, decided we must celebrate in Mexico. Tijuana to be exact. Now, we’d been to Tijuana before, [...]

Have I done this one before? I’m way too tied up with my soy taquitos to check. Also, The Rock has raging infections in both eyes and I’m trying to nurse him back to health by sitting way over here at the kitchen table while berating him to wash his hands and not fling bacteria [...]

Does anyone know what Elijah did when he left Babylon? Because again I randomly smiled at some moonbar in Starbucks this morning, and got an Elijah reference in return.
 
What happened was I’m just sitting there, being my friendly and tolerant self, which I must stop immediately, and after spotting a wild Buffalo Bill lookalike lugging [...]

We loved dive bars, the old geezers, dollar drafts, gummy pool tables. Most weekends, we’d visit somewhere else, the earlier, the better, and make new best friends with the characters who peppered the naugahyde. There should’ve been plaques above each seat with the names, bronzed and indelible. Because nothing much changed from bar to bar.
 
Sometimes [...]

This week, I wanted to return to the first line prompt, because I’m feeling all fictiony and sublime and I have no idea what that means, so ignore me.
 
Still here?
 
Oh good! I love you people.
 
Here’s PROMPTuesday #51: Please finish the story begun with these sentences:
 
She lifted the smudged glass to her lips, stopped mid-raise [...]

Spring does this to me every time.
 
I think I hate it — since I much prefer darker days, less blue and more atmospheric fretfulness than Spring cheerfully delivers. Actually, Autumn is my season — the Autumns of butternut squash, soups and breads and books taken to read before the fire. Spring? Bleh. Too sunshiney. Too [...]

The other night I lay in bed quite unable to sleep. Nothing was wrong, as it usually is when I wake up in the middle of the night, no racing heart or sweaty boobs, I just couldn’t sustain drowsiness and so awoke at one a.m. open-eyed and bushy-tailed. And then I did what I [...]

 
Because I’m late today, I kept it easyish. This one comes from my friend, Paul, with whom I’ll be attending a weekly writing coach meeting, but that’s neither here nor there*.
 
Paul’s idea is to riff on the popular six-word memoir idea captured eloquently in this book here. So just like it’s asked in the book, [...]

I’ll have PROMPTuesday up tomorrow morning. This evening, a complicated algorithm involving tart frozen yogurt destroyed by Agave Nectar (next time use plain honey) topping, an illegal smiley face drawn on an orange ottoman and dark shadows moving about my sinister bedroom last night, lowered my energy level enough to preclude an early PROMPT posting.
 
Plus, [...]

Me: The car is running a little funny.
 
Him: How do you mean?
 
Me: It sounds corroded.
 
Him: Like how?
 
Me: Like it’s riding rough and uneven and weird. Also, it doesn’t start right up in the morning.
 
Him: Well those are two separate issues. One could be the battery, but since we just got a new one, it’s probably [...]

I’m in Starbucks sitting next to a crazy loon, and as such, I find myself wondering how I would know if this guy might go batnuts and perpetuate some kind of violence upon my person.
 
How will I know? So far, he’s just sat in the chair next to mine and when I moved to give [...]

************************************Interlude****************************************
I have a problem. I am keeping house with two sinus-infected-and-spewing hooligans and sleep has not been aplenty. As such, please disregard me and my bizarre forthcoming allusions to Central American indigenous peoples.

************************************************************************************
 
I’ve been meaning to tell you that I tried out a new recipe I made up. And the reason I was called upon [...]

 
I don’t normally do book reviews — and with good reason as you may come to find — but when Barrie Summy asks me to do something, I cannot refuse. So it is in good faith and crossed fingers that I embark upon my very first book review, the format of which I will lift [...]

Here’s the thing about my purse: there is not just one thing.
 
I could not sooner pull one item out of there then I could yank a rabbit out my ass. Stuff gets stuck together: socks intermingle with soy sauce packets, paperclips cling to handmade business cards by men (man) who ask(s) me out, and Starbuck’s [...]

 
Hi-ho!
Good to be here. Of course, my eyes water and the head swims from over-editing of businessy documents and such like, but I think I will survive with the creative salvation that is PROMPTuesday.
 
So, this week, let’s look in our purses and billfolds, poppets. Pull something out. Tell a story about that something. Where [...]

I’m bogged down with 540,903 pages to edit before 5PM, so this will be quick.
 
Here’s a picture of me and my dad.
He wasn’t allowed in the delivery room.
I wish we still had that couch.
 

 
Here’s a picture of my mom and dad at their wedding shower. He’d just said something a) dirty; b) inappropriate! or [...]

UPDATED: She said yes!
 

 
This man has no idea. Poor sap.
 
After eight years, I think I’ve managed to distill my marriage advice (ha ha ha ha ha! those three words sound funny together!) into one sentence:
 
“Be willing.”
 
Be willing to work. To make things better when they’re not so hot. To stay open. To try again.
 
I [...]

UPDATED:
If you left a link in the comments, consider leaving it here too, and participate in an online wedding proposal event!
 
This is a special one. Someone I dearly like a lot is going to get engaged soon — she just doesn’t know it yet. To celebrate, this PROMPTuesday is all about love.
 
Please write a [...]

I’d always suspected I was wordy, but never more so than after I had a kid. The Rock tried to tell me, colleagues tried to tell me, my family tried to tell me, but it’s the innocence of a child that finally got through to my wordy brain.
 
But first: some background. Anytime The Rock and [...]

Last week, before I started my anti-depressant and took the mental rocks out of my backpack (Thanks Jenn for the analogy), my best friend came for a visit from Chicago.
 
I can’t tell you the load of good it did me to talk to someone who’s known me for over 20 years and says she’ll continue [...]

So an update. I’ve taken my meds (Celexa) since Monday. And because I’m still me, I’ve only taken half the pill to monitor any errant side effects, but I will take the full pill (20mg) soon. Still, I’ve found that I’m not feeling so much like sitting in a corner shooing my family away like [...]

 
Had to go all Wordless Wednesday on you…but I’m coming BACK with my regularly scheduled drivel shortly.
 
Thanks for all the kind thoughts and emails and support and loveyness.
 

Hi, and things have been hard. I’m waiting for my universe to right itself again. Or rather, I’m working to right it again, but meanwhile, I’m popping in with a PROMPTuesday.
 
Because gah, I’m sick of thinking about myself.
 
This week’s writer’s helper comes from Toasted Cheese, a website for writers founded and edited by my bloggy [...]

“How does it feel?”
 
I wish he’d ask.
 
Because it feels like staring out a smudged window and no matter how much you lick your finger and wipe, you can’t see out.
 
It’s like sitting in a corner and not because you have to.
 
It’s the heat behind your eyes and the wanting to shut them, always.
 
Or sometimes. [...]

(Amazingly beautiful photo from Chad Pollpeter)
 
I’ve got something to tell you…and will write it here tomorrow or soon after, but the gist is humility. So in honor of humbling myself today to (please God) be better, I’m adopting the theme for this week’s PROMPTuesday.
 
Here it is:
Write a story about when you last were humbled, felt [...]

One day, at a job I grew to hate because the executive director was replaced by an incompetent woman who wore too-small stilettos and carried teeny tiny purses (I don’t trust woman who carry teeny tiny purses every day — it’s unnatural), I did something decidedly San Diego Momma-like, before there ever was such a [...]

These are some posts about me. This should have been up last week but see, I didn’t post this in time to win a $250 Target gift card, so I’m putting it up anyway to fart in the face of my inability to differentiate between 10:30PM EST and 10:30PM PST.
 
Now I’ll never be able [...]

I’m just gonna write, despite crippling “I suck today” ethers circulating about my person. By the way, did you notice I didn’t do this week’s PROMPT? Despite private email exchanges with Cheri urging her to stop being a pansy ass, I myself pansy assed out. Still, I’ll do it. Really, I will. But am I [...]

 
So I’ve revived my manuscript-in-progress, quite surprised to find I’m further along than I thought. Plus, I’ve corralled the journals, scraps, and napkins that link my plot like a cotton candy locomotive, and I’m incorporating the airy tufts, making them real. Best of all, I started to muse again. Gosh darn, I love this [...]

I’ve oft professed my undying love for music. As an angsty adolescent, I laid in bed with earphones every night, my yellow Sony walkman clasped in my hands, listening to the Little River Band’s Help is On the Way or Chicago’s I’ve Been Searching So Long. Way before that, as a new-to-school third-grader, I stuck [...]

Thanks to all who participated in the Fodder extravaganza! It’s still going, if you’re up for it…Click Here to leave a comment suggesting a post topic. For a list of those who’ve written posts inspired other bloggers, Click Here.
 
Also, thanks for the PROMPTuesday submissions. I’ll be working on mine a little late, but it will [...]

[This is my contribution to the blog post tag team. [CLICK HERE FOR A PAGE SHOWING ALL TAG TEAM PARTICIPANTS AND THEIR POSTS.]
 
Anyway, MommyTime asked that I write about an animal dream or an unsuccessful high school outfit, and for now, I’ve gotta go with the latter because it requires the least effort. I’ve [...]

So I’m putting PROMPTuesday up early this week. For two reasons. One: It’s pretty much done for me with the whole post tag team thing we’ve got going, and Two: I expect to be up all night busily searching boxes for old high school photos of me wearing pajamas to class (un-ironically and intentionally).
 
So [...]

Great! I’ve drawn you in with a clear, concise title to further explain the labyrinth post I wrote last week.
 
I think I’m beginning to understand why my husband sighs so heavily when I ask “to talk.”
 
So look. I’m just going to sum up with quick and clear sentences.
 

According to my records, I am to write [...]

Just so you know right off, I love PROMPTuesday. What a supportive little thing we got going there. I adore the new voices and the people writing and the humor and the honesty and the prosetasticness. Still, when it’s not Tuesday, I find myself wondering what to write…and then idea-less, I run off and pen [...]

“Come as I am
With you I don’t need to pretend
You accept all my quirks
You’re never afraid to tell me when I’m being a jerk
 
Thank you thank you thank you again
Thank you thank you for being my friend
Yes I win everyday
That we spend together and I’ve got to say
That the truth is never unkind
‘Cause it comes [...]

I’m writing this in bed, listening to the occasional rain, trying not to barf all over you.
See, somewhere between noon and 1PM, I suddenly and violently came down with a burny stomach/bloody sinus malady, and it’s not been attractive nor amusing.
 
Still, PROMPTuesday must not suffer. No instead my husband will bear the brunt of [...]

 
Happy birthday to my dear little Toots, who turns 5 today. I’ve got so much to say, but I’ll start with:
 
Oh my Lord, 5 already?! This leaves me precious little time to help you grow into a secure, confident, empathetic, contributing and contented member of society.
Wait. Did I say “member of society?” Just so you [...]

Other dimensions fascinate me. I admit to believing in the possibility that perhaps we live parallel lives. One of us is on this plane, living according to the decisions we made throughout our life, and our doppelganger is somewhere else entirely, a product of the choices we might have made, but didn’t. Rather, I’m not [...]

 
(The man on the right is the reason I think butts are funny.)
 
Toots: My name is Iliana.
 
Booger: My name is Iliana.
 
Toots: I’M Iliana.
 
Booger: No, I’M Iliana!
 
Toots: I thought of it first! You didn’t even know Iliana could be a name!
 
Booger: Yes, I did! Il-eeee-aaannnn-nnnna! It’s my name!
 
Toots: It’s my name. MY NAME! I made up [...]

This happened so fast, every last bit (it started when?) and now you’re dying, you are dying. A Saturday night and it comes down to this: a cough, rattled breath, and love you don’t hear. We’re next to you, we circle you, we avoid you, we sleep on the floor to be near. Because you [...]

Music — such lyrical salve. My cell nuclei thrums to beautiful, raw words set to pounding — or rolling — melody, and my white light positively beams at live shows, where I sit somewhere close to the amplifier, each piece of skin, bone, plasma, pulsing, exploding. I bear witness to a singer’s true face, soul [...]

Do you have one of those friends who go on and on about something — the same thing — over and over and over until you just want to stick them in a hole and fill it with dirt? Just shovel ‘em over and release them only when they promise to shut up about the [...]

I’ve got a great idea. Not only do I think it’d be an interesting social experiment, but I also believe it’d make a lot of people happy. In fact, that’s my idea’s first purpose: make happier people. My idea’s second purpose(s) are to cure cancer, terrorism, and obesity.
 
Here’s what I’m thinking:
I want to build a [...]

It may interest you to know that my period came today. And this is especially riveting because I am happy about it. Happy. Happy! Do you know what that means? My dark descent into depression is reversed. Why, I feel positively alive. And no longer desirous of wading into the San Diego Bay.
 
Despite my husband’s [...]

This week (all exhausting day-and-a-half of it) has been rife with ups and downs, bumps and glitches, despair and redemption, so I’m making this PROMPTuesday akin to comfort food. That means I’m returning to a traditional prompty set-up, where I issue a situation and a word and you go to writer town.
Yes sir, I [...]

I’ve pretty much resisted writing what I’m about to post, because I don’t want to bring anyone down, but I’ve got to tell you, I’m having a very difficult time. Maybe as some of you know, when you are low, it’s not so easy to blog because you worry about your readers’ reactions or that [...]

This post originally ran in my “other blog,” and I avoided re-reading it for years because a San Diego journalist who obviously had too much time on her hands and felt she had to comment on a blog that had no readers and no direction and wasn’t even newsworthy anyway, happened to review it, and [...]

“It’s time,” my mom announced at the dinner table, and I knew just what she meant. For months, she’d insisted I look for a job and that evening over the phone, her church buddy told her the Jelly Bowl Bakery needed a counter girl. Being 15, I felt sure I’d never get a work permit, [...]

So tonight I basically asked a man why he was in a wheelchair.* If “basically” were “I did.” And since I’m still toothpicking toenail shards from my teeth, I’m phoning in an easy PROMPTuesday this morning.
 
This week, tell us about your first job. As I recently twittered, I worked at the Jelly Bowl Bakery in [...]

I would like you to know that in my continued quest to make this blog smell less like ass, I am committed to my new and improved “Shake It Up, Dammit” Project.
 
And today, what this essentially means is that I am going to Trivia Night at Shakespeare’s Pub, when all I really want to do [...]

Part 1: The Prologue
(Thursday, Jan. 22, 9PM. I am at a Cocktails in Historic Places event, sitting alone at a table, nursing wine and texting The Rock. Please note that I did not publish his responses, requiring you to use your super powers of deduction to fill in the blanks.
Footnote: Rhonda is The The [...]

 
I’m worried. Lately, I’ve been feeling uninspired and lame. Also, non-creative. For the past year or so. And it’s as if I can sense my creativity conduits drying up, akin to hardening of the arteries. Fresh synapses refuse to fire and I’m stuck on a track and I can’t even come up with words for [...]

San Diego Momma (SDM): Hi, My Creativity! It’s nice to finally sit down with you. You’re always coming and going.
 
My Creativity: Yeah, well I hate to be tied down.
 
SDM: I noticed. So let’s get started! Where were you born?
 
My Creativity: I was born in the fertile peat of your imagination, under dark red skies, over [...]

This week, let’s do something fun! And fakeducational! Or loopy! Depending.
 
My friend Kizz inspired this PROMPTuesday, even busy as she is working her way through all the PROMPTuesdays of yore.
 
So Kizz’s idea was to do something funny. And THAT came to her as she watched Inside the Actor’s Studio with Ricky Gervais. Now put [...]

I often accuse my husband of not thinking things through. It’s a lame thing to do, because I’m no full-circle thinker, God knows, but I guess it’s easier to point the finger than to look at it wiggling back at you. I tell him he needs to set goals, make plans, move ahead in doing [...]

Macs are supposed to be wonderful, right? So can someone tell me why I’ve spent more on my 18-month-old MacBook Pro than if I’d bought four PCs? And can that same person tell me why my freaking track pad and keyboard are stuck and don’t work for nothin’ and why I’m contorted on my [...]

Shhhh. I’m not supposed to be here. I have reports to edit and copy to write and miles to go before I sleep, miles to go before I sleep. But it’s time for a new Awesome Things installment, and so away we go.
 
This list comes courtesy of my friend, Cocktail Maven. She has [...]

See, this is why I don’t do serieses. I don’t serieses because I’m not serial about it. I let some little distraction, like a backlog of eight 50-page reports to edit, to sidetrack me and screw the whole consecutiveness of my serieses.
 
But here I am anyway, because thank God I made people I like write [...]

So obviously, I’ve veered from my typical PROMPTs these past two weeks. But that’s all part of being creative, right? Departing from the norm? Mixing it up? Puttin’ on the ritz? (I don’t analyze this stuff, folks, I just blog past my bedtime and hope it all makes sense in the morning.)
 
Either way, this week’s [...]

I’ve long wanted to poll my favorite people and ask them about stuff they like (I apologize for clunky writing. Still a bit under the weather and all.) And then I wanted to post their answers for everyone because you might see something new and cool to try.
 
So today, I’m starting the “My Awesome [...]

There’s all kinds of things wrong here today. There’s the urinary tract infection, and the sinus infection, and the barf infection. The barf infection is particularly loathsome and detrimental to my person. And I’m not even barfing yet.
 
I meant to write muchly today, and as I made my way to the shower, I couldn’t wait [...]

So I learned how to post videos to Vimeo. You fortunate people. So now you get to hear Toots read a bedtime story! May its soft melodious nonsense soothe you to a sweet slumber.
 
Also, be ye warned: I sound mannish, and say chaste things like “Speak slower so God can hear you.” Because sometimes he [...]

Don’t forget the Children’s Place Gift Card Giveaway!
 
*************************************************************************************
 
On July 5, 2007, I decided to quit a lot of crazy things cold turkey. These things included caffeine, sugar, white flour, corn syrup solids, sucrose, fructose, lactose, and whatever the hell else I decided to lump into my insane dietary experiment.
 
At the time, I was 14 months [...]

This is a little more unorthodox than my usual PROMPTuesdays, only because I recently saw a list of 101 Things For A Mom Blogger to Write About, and the starter “The Best Book I Ever Read Was…” jumped out at me. Now I know it’s not a fresh topic, nor bawdy nor random, but [...]

Don’t forget the Children’s Place Gift Card Giveaway!
*************************************************************************************
 
I’m having a hard time making friends at my daughter’s preschool. Because I tend to be the sort of person who hangs back a bit a first meet, I just can’t integrate into the group. It doesn’t help that I get nervous around “new” people, say silly, nonsensical [...]

Oh sigh. There’s nothing to see here. No New Year’s epiphanies, nor advice, nor inspiration, nor anecdotes, nor scintillation even, seeing as I and The Rock fell into a sexless sleep at about 9PM, waking only briefly to the sound of midnight fireworks, too tired and lazy to even mumble “Happy New Year” to each [...]

Well, well, well, here we are again. It’s PROMPTuesday time already. I’ve got to tell you…this week’s is one of my favorites. For two reasons: the picture below has always intrigued me, and I love the song that accompanies it.
 
I know I’ve done the whole study a photo thing before, plus I’ve included the listen [...]

Goodness, I’ve missed you.
 
Come back soon for when I wonder aloud if I have a drinking problem.
 
Meanwhile: Stay thirsty, my friends.
 
It doesn’t have to be for alcohol.
 
Although if you’re me, it probably is.
 
But I’m getting ahead of myself.
 
So for now, here’s a re-posted picture of my stepmom’s bathroom:
 

 
Despite its inclusion in my alcoholic post, this [...]

Thank you for your input. This whole exercise in thinking I’m always right reaching out to the community for backing up of my less popular opinion feedback has been very humiliating valuable.
 
I’d also like to thank The Rock for his gracious acceptance of being right. When he first said that most of America opens their [...]

Please help me out here. Someone in my family thinks that his tradition is overwhelmingly practiced across America, and someone else in my family thinks that her tradition is more common and awesome.
 
So: do you open presents on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day?
 
I will reveal the less awesome Christmas tradition practicer upon answer tabulation.
 

Tip #1
If you like to go thrifting, and your hunting and pecking takes you to the book section, which is just across from the public bathroom, take a deep breath about five minutes prior and hold it for the duration of your stay. In case of pass-out, be sure to wear a med alert bracelet [...]

Lex won the Kookeys!
 
FADKOG won the Tracksters!
 
That’s all I got today.
 
Seriously. You’re lucky you got the exclamation points.
 

I do this thing where I’m sure I’m not doing enough for the kids and so rope The Rock into nefarious schemes to make me feel more parenty.
 
This past weekend, I thought we should be doing more holiday things, so I scanned the Internet and found a community theater production in a quasi-questionable part of [...]

(One more day for the Stocking Stuff Giveaway!) It’s over, baby.
**********************************************************************************
 
I apologize for delaying publication of this week’s PROMPTuesday. Thank you for the notes threatening me with non-specific injury to my person if I didn’t get on the stick. It’s just that I needed to know someone loved me. I know, I know, I’ve dragged [...]

The Stocking Stuffer Giveaway is alive and kicking! Enter here!
(It’s not a pony.)
***********************************************************************************
 
I am such a tool. All month long I’ve seen commercial after commercial promoting this princess and that doll house and this ‘Lil Pony and that Easy Bake Oven and this pooping baby and that Scooby Doo Mystery Game. And each time [...]

Instead of reading this, why don’t you enter my giveaway? I’d erase this post altogether, but that would be in direct opposition to my Tip #1 included below, in the midst of this drivel I’d rather you ignore.

 
How to write. I ask myself this question almost every day. Because I overthink, and because I second [...]

The Dream
I’d applied cucumber-cranberry mask to my eyebags and when I looked in the mirror, I happily saw my bags had retracted so completely that they were concave, as if someone had scooped my eyebags out with a teaspoon. It WAS a dream, but still, I should have been alarmed, right? To my credit, the [...]

 
I loved meeting kidlit author Barrie Summy Tuesday night at Warwick’s Book Store. Her new middle grade book, I So Don’t Do Mysteries, launched just that day and I wanted to come out and give my congratulations.
 
The thing is? I just found Barrie online (she blogs too) (thanks for the tip, Vodka Mom) and discovered [...]

The crank cloud has not yet lifted, and it’s heavy with a chance of rain. i’ve been so pissy that it’s in complete opposition to all that is good about the season. I’ve even desecrated the cheerfulness of “Rudoph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.” It went something like this* (please look away if you are a good [...]

Look, I’m sorry to do this to you, but it has to be done.
Why, I can’t say. I don’t tend to examine my inspiration. It’s so often demented and idiotic.
 
What I regret perpetuating upon your writerly person is this:
For today’s PROMPTuesday, please compose a holiday limerick.
 
As you may or may not know, and probably [...]

WINNER ANNOUNCED TOMORROW!
 
Oh OK, I’ll do it now, but make it official tomorrow. It’s Auds! Which is cool, because I think she is my exact undisclosed age!
 
“Suppleness” is a disconcerting word that reminds me of those gel nipple shields I wore while breastfeeding, but I thought it’d grab your attention. Because who doesn’t want to [...]

I’m a little nutso about home security, as in completely insane. I always need the doors locked and at night, I only leave the bedroom windows open a crack in case an enterprising burglar rock climbs our sheer walls to gain access.
 
I absolutely must have our home alarm at all times and have an escape [...]

I often pretended Maura Dominiak’s nooks and crannies house were mine. Big, rustic, rife with wood, and usually empty of parental supervision. Full of antique stoves and stained glass and porcelain knobs. After fall’s football games, we’d drive up to the detached garage with the warped edges that never shut properly, park behind the Peugeot, [...]

I’m not going to cease to exist if I don’t update my blog every day, right? I mean, I CAN disconnect from Twitter, Facebook, WordPress and e-mail for a day or two while I capture the holiday spirit, finish some work, and domesticate myself.
 
It IS possible. What’s important is my family.
 
So why do [...]

Just checking in to say that my husband and I are not divorced yet. Oh, it’s OK, probably. I’m crossing fingers that we will weather Project “Tidy House in Sequence Beginning (with) Large Obvious Wrecks & Stains” (THIS BLOWS), also referred to pseudo affectionately as the “The Huge Intrepid, Super Ballsy Long Overdue Weeding-Out Strategy” [...]

 
(Custom graphic hand rendered by Ray.)
 
I promise that this will be the last time I mention “40″ colloquially. After this, it’s gonna be all “Age is just a state of mind in New York City. I know it’s crazy, but it’s true,” and “40 is the new black.”
 
No more 40 stuff after this.
 
I promise.
 
But [...]

I took today’s PROMPTuesday from One Word to keep it simple this week (especially after the labyrinth-like PROMPT from last Tuesday.
 
So this week, write on this:
 

 
Just look at the word. And write.
That’s all. (Oh were but it that simple, right?) (Or — “but were it that simple?”) (Is that even a phrase?) (Moral: [...]

UPDATED TO ADD:
Cheri at Blog This Mom! is the winner!
 
The Kelly Meeker $50 gift certificate giveaway is winding down (kinda like me all day yesterday, but with Egg McMuffins and Ghiradellis) OVER! So don’t forget to enter! Kelly’s offered to give away a $50 gift certificate to her site, applieable (not a word) [...]

Well. I’m just about 40. And you know what? I’m much less this:
 

 
And way more this:
 

 
To tell you the truth, I wasn’t too bad off with the 40 thing, it’s just made me more reflective. There’s been a whole lot of living in those years. I’ve grown up, I’ve regressed, mourned the death of people [...]

 
I’ve been thinking. (Collective groans commence.) I’ve been thinking that I’ve been thinking too much. You know? I’m trying too hard. It’s messing me up. Not every post has to have a point. It doesn’t have to be witty or wise or even logical. I mean, random is my thing, babies. It’s what I’m known [...]

When I was a junior in high school, I attended a spiritual retreat called Kairos. It was a big secret, and every year, scores of juniors went to the retreat and came back from their week a little quieter, a little calmer, a little changed. Before I went on my Kairos week, I always wondered [...]

I was thinking the other day about my emotional development, and why it’s not as far along as I’d like it to be. My emotional maturity is pee-sized, when I’d really like it to be at least as big as a salad beet, or a medium-length tuber.
 
I thought that maybe I was making some progress [...]

Let’s see if I can write this without getting my tongue tied:
 
This PROMPTuesday, write a story about someone faking a skill to gain the attention of someone else, which only forces him/her into a situation where s/he must use this skill in order to save him/herself from a bigger threat.

Include:
a cast-iron lamp
and
two nuns giggling in [...]

Today turned out to be one of those days. Running from thing to thing, speed dialing my pretend maid, wondering if wine could be considered a Jamba Juice boost.
 
THEN! Frustrating delays, mental breakdowns, rapid breathing.
 
So, let’s talk about more halcyon days. Winners! We have winners!
 

 
For the customized kid’s art book, Michelle (commenter #1) takes the [...]

 
Would you like to avoid the blank stares you get when you tell people about your blog?
 
Do you want to legitimize the hours you spend Twittering and commenting?
 
Would you like to educate your friends in the “real world” that “blog” is not a rancid swamp or tasteless British ale?
 
Then, welcome to my next giveaway.
 
My good [...]

 
Congrats to Stef, who won the music giveaway extravaganza. Stef? If you read this, e-mail me!
 
Meanwhile, there’s one more day for the personalized kid’s art book giveaway, so have at it!
 
Also! Tomorrow is a brand new giveaway from Moon and Back Studios. You won’t want to miss it.
 
I’m liking this spreading the birthday love thing.
 
And [...]

NOW CLOSED! Stay tuned for the winner!
 

 
Sorry to be obtuse. What I’m trying to say is that I’m glad to be alive! So, let’s celebrate! (You can either wade through all my puffy prose below, or scroll down to the bottom for the giveaway details. I won’t even know you ignored me.)
 
In other news, I [...]

People, you’re hurting my feelings. I’ve got an awesome giveaway going on down here, and it’s going nowhere fast. Out of 9 entrants, one even opted to not be put in the giveaway entrant mix.
 
Is it my 40ishness?
The 12 garlic cloves I ate for dinner last night?
The fact that I poke my poo with sticks?
 
What? [...]

 
(Painting by Rebecca)
 
This PROMPTuesday, make up a story inspired by the picture above. Include the link to your story/post in the comments or feel free to leave your submission here, also in the comments section.
 
I’ll be back to submit my take on it tomorrow, but…
meanwhile…to bone up on PROMPTuesdays, read a bit about it here. [...]

So it’s been crazyish around here today. First, Rebecca’s family doesn’t seem to know what to do from this point, so they’ve been calling me, and as an unofficial representative and only person she knew well in San Diego, I’ve been trying to iron out what happens now. Rebecca’s wishes were to be cremated and [...]

 
Rebecca passed away this morning at 4AM. Same day, same hour as my mom 11 years ago.
 
I don’t know if you remember, but I often mourn the fact that I don’t “feel” my mom’s spirit. I’m happy to say that today, driving home from the hospital, I felt Rebecca all around me. I was like [...]

I had all kinds of things planned for today: a giveaway, a rumination, a weekend update, but my beloved Rebecca is back in the hospital after being in the convalescent home for two weeks.
 
I don’t think it’s good, it’s looking like renal failure, and the blustery November wind that I love so, is blowing extra [...]

I was 15 and working at a gift shop in a charming restored early 19th century village. I often worked alone and when business was slow, I hopped next door to waitress at the Peppermint Stick, where I’d cheerfully spill coffee on strangers and get ice cream orders all wrong.
 

 
One Sunday afternoon, I sat behind [...]

 
Those were the days.
 
Dear People Who Read My Blog:
 
In a little over two weeks from now, I will be ever-lovin’ 40. So for a moment, I’d like us all to forget the soul searching and epiphanies I’ve shared on this space and tell you: I’m freaking the frack out.
 
I’m sorry that I can’t be [...]

History’s being made, can you feel it? The bubbles in the atmosphere? The sense that when they pop, the air around them will change? Or else the they’ll float into space, bouncing like sound waves, carrying the news of today into tomorrow?
 
So where were you when history was laid down? Was the TV playing [...]

I came home from a haunted house tour Thursday night disappointed that I hadn’t glimpsed any ghosts.
It must’ve been about 10:45PM, and I tramped upstairs, surprised to see The Rock awake and alert. I’d been waiting to complain to someone and now I had a readymade audience. He looked up from the TV, waiting for [...]

 
Sometimes I mistake it for melancholy. And maybe now and then it is. She absorbs moods, energies, feelings instantly and spits them back out like a crazy spigot, but after the initial flood, she settles into quiet reflection. It’s almost as if she’s saturated by the sheer intensity of her emotion and can’t take more [...]

Chris gently reminded me that I haven’t updated on my chemical peel yet, and by George if she ain’t right.
 
So here’s the thing: I don’t look like this anymore.
 

 
Now, I look way more like this:
 

 
I don’t know how to explain it. It’s like I had the peel, and suddenly I emerged from my crusty shell [...]

I think this started as a meme. I’ve read several outstanding versions of it over the last year, and I thought I’d like to offer it as a PROMPTuesday, so…
 
I am.
 
This week, tell us who you are, what’s inside, where you’re from. Share your memory fragments, those visions in your head, those figments that make [...]

Words elude, weary of running.
 
But I will continue to write.
 
The luster is dim, the veneer chipped and dinged.
 
But I will continue to write.
 
I fear what’s next, barriers busted, re-erected.
 
But I will continue to write.
 
I avoid the spark, embers cool, then darken.
 
But I will continue to write.
 
I thrash, I rail, tumble, concuss.
 
Still continue to write.
 
Threaten divorce, [...]

Man! First the pre-flight anxiety and now Rebecca. The humor gods seem to be conspiring against me. So I guess I’ll give an update instead of going for the funny.
 
Rebecca is good. She’s taken off her ankle bandages (herself!) (in the middle of the night!) and defiantly pulled out her IVs. Her ankle swelling has [...]

 
Found out this morning that my teacher, muse, and mother figure, Rebecca, is in the hospital. I didn’t know for a week, and when I got there this morning, seeing her prone took my breath away. I
knew when I started seeing her 7 years ago, when she was 87, that she might get sick one [...]

 
There’s so much to say. First of all, I’m going to write about my pre-flight anxiety in a separate post, because it was big and bold and ultimately, beautiful. One thing I almost wrote here before I left, was that I’d rather die in the air, than live afraid on the ground, but the superstitious [...]

For today’s PROMPTuesday, I ask that you write about a trip or an excursion that left you changed in some way. Did you conquer a fear on your trip? Learn something about yourself? Learn something about another person? Break up? Get together? Consider hospital time for the largest walking blister this side of Manhattan?
 

I look [...]

 
(I took this picture from my plane with my eyes closed. No need to remind myself that I was 39,000 miles up in the air.)
 
Thanks so much for your prayers and good thoughts! I’m home and that means I actually got on a plane twice. TW-ICE.
 
Thanks to my guest posters, too, who I’ll index for [...]

Cheri at Blog this Mom! is the first San Diego blogger I read after starting San Diego Momma this past winter. She be-charmed me with her dry wit, quiet genius and spectacular writing. It was through Cheri that I met the Blog Bitches and I am forever haunted by thankful for that. I believe that [...]

 
(Steph’s “professional pic.”)
 

 
(The one I prefer.)
 
I love my Steph. I could leave it at that and be perfectly happy. But then, you wouldn’t know how we met, or how we fell in love, or any of the saucy details, so I’ll continue. I began San Diego Momma officially in January-ish, and Steph’s blog was one [...]

You know when you read someone and instantly you’re aware that you’re in the presence of amazing grace? That person for me is Tinsenpup. I found her through Five Star Friday, several months ago and I’ve been bugging her ever since. I can’t express how I feel about her writing — it’s just heartbreaking and [...]

Guest poster, Da Goddess, was my first blog friend WAY BACK in 2002. I was just six months into the blog that won’t be named and I reached out to her for support and advice. She adopted me right away, unselfishly sharing links, help, companionship, anything I needed to make me feel more welcome. The [...]

What can I say about Mommy Pie that you haven’t already heard me go on and on about? Let’s see. I love her? No. I’ve said that before. Hmmm…She’s my psychic twin? Also, probably heard me say that. Gosh, I’m running out of glowing new commentary. Let me leave it at this: Mommy Pie was [...]

OK, I’m leaving for New York in less than 10 hours. Would you all think happy thoughts for me and say a prayer or two?
 
I’ll tweet my safe (I hope! I hope! I hope!) arrival…
 
p.s. Some fabulous guest posters are lined up during my absence. Can’t wait for you to read them!
 

In light of my upcoming trip this Wednesday, today’s PROMPT is short and sweet (and selfish).
 
Can you tell me a story of a fear you’ve overcome? Fiction is of course, welcome. As are poems. Or one-liners. In fact, anything goes.
 
Anything.
 
Go!
 
(And thank you.)
 

 
I don’t care who you are, when you watch your kids light up at Disneyland, your black heart is sure to turn gray, and if you’re lucky, it might go completely pink on you.
 
I didn’t really feel like fighting crowds, to be honest, or waiting in lines, or missing nap times, or paying for [...]

Good. That ought to help.
 
(You’ll never guess where we’re going tomorrow.)
 

Hi. I’m drunk. Sorry, but that’s just the way it’s gotta be until next Wednesday. Which is the day I board my plane to New York.
 
I tried to hard to vlog today because I’m pretty much unable to write, think, drive, eat, sleep these days and I really wanted you to see the depths [...]

Would you guys bear with me for a few more weeks? I’m sucking, I know. It’s just that I’ve been so busy. (And you know, panicked.)
 
Annnnyyywayyy.
 
Here’s the thing. My mom used to collect wine corks from dinners or parties with friends, which she’d ask everyone at the dinner or party to sign as a memento. [...]

Well it’s 6:30AM, which these days is the best time for me to blog. Toots lays in our bed, after having a nightmare, Booger is sleeping off her temper tantrum, and The Rock is showering downstairs (and he’d better bring the razor up this time.)
 
My phone rang a few short minutes ago, and it was [...]

We talked at breakfast, arguing politics, healthcare, the economy. Dozens of people nursed coffees, poked their eggs, and gazed out the window at the water. Families waiting for a seat paced outside, while the hostess scribbled name after name. Kids ran between their parents’ legs, teen-agers smoked, uncles sighed, ailing mothers whimpered, bums curled in [...]

Excellent writer and super cool blogger, Tap Dancing on the Edge of Reason, provided me with her son’s writing prompt, which I think will work just fine for this PROMPTuesday. Just fine indeed.
 

It is:
 

“You are in a corn field, with your dog, when all of a sudden, a plastic…”
 

Imagine the possibilities! A plastic what? Why [...]

Hi.
 
Yeah, I know it’s been awhile. I’ve been busy.
 
It’s not you, it’s me.
 
I just needed some time.
 
Time to ponder why I voluntarily agreed to get on a plane in two weeks when everyone knows I’m terrified to fly and I can’t sleep, concentrate, focus, talk normally, or write until I am back on the [...]

 
Breaking news bulletin (that I’m just getting around to posting):
 
Shimmer the Bulimic Fish passed away (last week). Currently, the San Diego Mommasons are pondering life, death, and whether Fish Heaven is an ocean or just a giant fishbowl (which would suck enormous tasteless fish flakes for Shimmer the Bulimic Fish).
 
There’s a lot of existential angst [...]

I saw a pretty funny movie on Showtime this weekend. TV Set. Have you seen it? It’s not the best thing since a burn-free face, but it IS a delightful, fluffy romp. It’s about a writer whose TV pilot script is “revamped” and “restructured” by television producers who don’t know what they’re doing. In short, [...]

 
UPDATED TO ADD:

I am working on ordering you all roses and a chocolate fountain, but meanwhile, thanks for your kind comments and general awesomeness.
 
As is my way, I’m suffering a blogging crisis. I’ve been evaluating and reviewing and comparing and ACK! I hate when I do that.
 
Anyway, I was thinking no one cares about my [...]

Today, write a poem including the following lines in any order:
 
“I tie a ribbon in a foolish way”
 
“The delicious fragility of this travesty”
 
“Where we still laugh and wish”
(Prompt courtesy of CreativeWritingPrompts)
 
Go for it! And really, you’re all so good, I don’t want to hear any about this intimidation crud. Also, we’d sure love to read [...]

The thing about burning your face off is…….that you’ve burned your face off. So, you’re not as likely to go in public and show your melting nose and chin to the neighborhood. (Although I WILL say around these SoCal parts, I’ve seen much worse.) As such, I stayed in my house all weekend, wearing old [...]

Today I’m having my face burned off.
 
I’ve often heard that when you’re 40, you must decide between your face or your ass. So I’ve decided to take the face out of the equation to give my ass a fighting chance.
 
I’ll post the before picture this afternoon.
 
p.s. Although I probably would have attempted this myself [...]

I did this one awhile ago…
 
First, she introduced us to the man on her porch. Resembling an Orthodox Jew with his black hat, and beard — also black — he shuffled away in knee-high sports socks and Adidas gym shoes. Next, she welcomed us into her faded apartment. Two fat cats scurried out of the [...]

“The universe is full of magical things, patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.”
–Eden Phillpotts
 
*************************************************************************************
 
“Mommy, is Peter Pan real?”
 
Toots asks me a question like that every day. And used to be, I floundered with my answer. Of course, I want to tell her “yes,” unequivocally, indubably, resoundingly yes. Yes! God yes! Please. [...]

He’d fallen asleep at the wheel. Must’ve been just a second or two, because his truck never strayed from its straight course. Then again, since he crossed into Wyoming’s Great Plains, he’d been going straight. He shrugged his shoulders, squinted at the road, and stuck his left ear out the window as far as it’d [...]

My apologies. I’ve been out to lunch. I haven’t commented, twitted, read, socialized, met up, schemeezled or schemozled for days going on days. Can I just say? So. Much. Work. My fingers have been glued to this keyboard — and not in the good way — for weeks now.
 
Thanks for still coming by even though [...]

 
I have an eccentric friend. You know the ones? They’re so delightfully weird, that you just could listen to them for hours. I haven’t talked to my friend for awhile now, we’ve been so busy, we live 150 miles from each other, and general life gets in the way.
 
We spoke for the first time in [...]

Today marks back-to-school time, and when I was a kid, I loved this time of year. It’s why I adore autumn. All summer, I anticipated the week before school, when I’d hurry out to buy my school supplies, stick pennies in my loafers, and carefully cover my textbooks.
 
But I was a geek.
 
How about you? [...]

In my other life, I was a Broadway star. And I’m pretty sure I loved it. Maybe I met my end when an overzealous Charleston kick took me off stage into the orchestra pit. Or perhaps an ill-mounted light fell on my head. Either way, I didn’t get off that stage willingly. In fact, I [...]

 
Yeah, I know. Obvious much? If the dismembered female didn’t tip me off to the crazy, the overalls should have done the trick. Plus, the eyes. Maniacal right?
 
Man, looking at this picture now, I feel like the stupidest tool in the shed.
 
Anyway, I don’t want to post his name. I’d worry that a Google search [...]

Part 1 Here.
Part 2 Here.
Part 3 Here.
Part 4 Here.
 
 
“A man and a woman, they asked me what happened, surveyed the destroyed door, and wrote on their pads of paper. There wasn’t any sympathy, which I didn’t expect, but found curious. I hoped that this latest incident would put my stalker away for good, but [...]

Note: I’m unbelievably busy these days, and I apologize for not reading your blogs, responding to comments, answering questions, and just generally being incognito. I write/edit for a living, and have the most laughable backlog of work this month that it’s completely ridiculous. And the work just keeps coming. So while that’s good for my [...]

I kicked off this morning with the persistent words “A Book, A Thought, A Candle,” blazing in my mind. And since I don’t often get omens or messages from above, I thought this is one I should heed. So I’m going to give my addled brain what it wants.
 
Let’s start with the book. Have I [...]

It looked like a wolf had bounded across the road. I blinked and thought, “Mind’s playing tricks on me.” Everything looks like a wolf at 3AM. That hour’s reddish-black darkness had bewitched me, and I wobbled on the road for a bare instant, wondering if I should go back and check. Maybe it was a [...]

In just a few short hours, I’ll be watching my great loves, the BoDeans. And all I got to say about that is: I hope they don’t remember me. In years past, I’ve called their hotel rooms countless times, waited for them by the backstage door, stalked their band limo, infiltrated their dressing room trailer, [...]

Today Mommy Pie unwittingly reminded me that if I don’t get to Matter of Fact Mommy’s “10 Random Things” meme, Matter of Fact will kick my butt. Which she could totally do, as she is a soccer player and my butt closely resembles two (or six) overinflated soccer balls.
 
But I have a problem. I’ve told [...]

So among my other stellar personality characteristics, two stand out: impatience and laziness.
 
And when I found myself facing my mother-in-law’s birthday yet again without a present or card in sight (don’t EVEN get me started on my husband’s lack of preparation), I panicked. Because last year, we didn’t get her anything and boy, did we [...]

It may surprise you to know that I’m unmedicated.
 
I’ve flirted with the idea and the substances before, but it’s something I can’t embrace, for whatever reason. I even hate taking Advil or aspirin. If I have to take an antibiotic, I usually Google its side effects, freak myself out, and then either don’t take it, [...]

Mind bereft. Soul uninspired. Situation tenuous.
 
Here’s something from 2003.
 
I tend to get very inspirational and New Agey when I drink. Everyone is so beautiful with lots of zippy color lights emanating from their auric beings.
 
Also? I can get a bit controlling, wanting to orchestrate my surroundings to my liking, perpetuating some goodwill fantasy my fevered [...]

I’ve got nothing, absolutely nothing today. No ideas, no pending posts, no creativity, no-thing. I pure and simple cannot come up with a topic, or a rant, or a commiseration, a story, a lament, a dirge, a whine (my specialty), a joke, a ramble, NOTHING. NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING!
 
Like, did you ever see that Friends where [...]

Today’s PROMPTuesday is lifted from Naomi Epel’s The Observation Deck, and is sponsored by the dog days of summer, the lethargy unleashed after consuming three urns of buttered popcorn, and menstruation-induced anemia.
 
So, from the Observation Deck:
Show, don’t tell! — a cardinal rule of writing — is another way of saying “be specific.” Don’t tell us [...]

It’s funny how stories are passed. You hear a detail here, a detail there, and sometimes one aspect gets enlarged and becomes another story altogether. If you’ve heard a family story as a kid, often times the tale becomes just that: fireside folklore lacking even the faintest hint of truth.
 
Inspired by my post the other [...]

Today, I’m compelled to write more about Going Geico™ — because its roots run deep, and referring to it obsessively is the nature of the disease.
 
First of all, let me say, I’m no stranger to this affliction. I learned it well from my father, who pretends to know everything about everything. He’s the best bluffer [...]

This blog saved my life.
 
Not in a suicide prevention way, well not really, although my creativity was dying a slow, self-induced death, but in a letting in the light kind of way.
 
For many, many years, I denied my creative urges. There was never enough time to take that adult ballet class or break out a [...]

 
Because I am too busy poking my perfectly normal-sized poo down my toilet’s too-small poo hole with my white linen reed diffuser sticks, I’ve decided to hand this post over to Toots, who has a story to tell.
 
It’s called “Witch Boo!”
 
(And it starts in the middle, right where the action is…)
 
…So the witch took Rapunzel’s [...]

Neil Kramer’s “Great Interview Experiment” is sweeping the nation, and as a nationeer, I thought I should participate. So, to whit (most probably not used correctly or in proper context), I share the interview I conducted with Amelia Sprout, which I at first thought was the name of a Harry Potter character. (Is it?) Either [...]

The wonderful and very thorough Mary Beth interviewed me yesterday as part of Neil Kramer’s “Great Interview Experiment,” and the results are up here. Right here! Luckily, she didn’t ask if I knew She-Ra’s real name, because then I’d have to kill her.
 
Later this week, I will be continuing the Great Interview chain with my [...]

“Mommy? Do you love me?”
 
I cringe. Not because I hate the question, but because I hate she has to ask it.
 
I used to ask my mom the same thing, over and over again, every day, and I never received a satisfactory answer. Seems my daughter isn’t either.
 
I’d always thought my mom was too guarded, too [...]

Dearest The Rock:
 
I know you’ll read this, so I thought I’d put it here. As you know, I’ll be gone this evening, and if I don’t write these things down when the mood hits me, I may never get to it. And things need to be said.
 
But first of all: you’re not in trouble.
 
So [...]

Mommy Pie’s leaving for Hawaii tomorrow and wrote a post about how she’s nervous to travel, being that she’ll be away from her daughter for five days. And what a coincidence that was, since I planned to also write a post about an upcoming trip and why I’m afraid to travel (hint: has nothing [...]

In the neighborhood coffee shop…

 
Balding Man with glasses, early 50s, wearing casual clothes in the manner of someone not used to wearing casual clothes, sits unnaturally erect and makes several phone calls to people along the lines of, “How can you be watching the baby and sleeping at the same time?” and “Hey! I know [...]

Last night, on the way home from a movie, The Rock and I mused about creativity. A Matchbox 20 song played on the radio, and The Rock called it “formulaic,” and I responded that all of their songs are that way, even if I do enjoy them. He semi agreed, but said that 10 years [...]

Yesterday, propelled by a PMS cosmetics buying binge, I purchased some “wrinkle-reducing” face powder, my latest must-try in an arsenal of age-denying make-up products.
 
The label doesn’t describe exactly HOW it reduces wrinkles, which I’ve always found a little suspect, but whatever it does is “time-released” and cumulative. I did see something named “Gaba Compex” listed [...]

Guess who’s starting the downward PMS spiral? My God! Can we go one month without the steel trap of hormonal hell clasping my — what? endocrine system? fragile brain? pseudo-together life carefully constructed with smoke and mirrors? Only my turbo extra strength PMS can make a grown man cry.
 
And so I thought it’d be a [...]

I went ahead and drank the Pero again, because I craved something coffee-like. But in my haste I forgot all about how Pero is used as a lobotomy anesthetic, and now I’m Pero-lyzed.
 
So please accept this list of stuff I’m going to write about soon, but not now:
 

My toilet and its limited access poo hole
Domestic [...]

Toots, a confirmed nightmare-haver, cornered me in bed a few mornings ago and told me she’d had a good dream for once. Being 6:30 in the morning, I didn’t immediately share her excitement, but she could barely contain herself, so I indulged her story.
 
Turns out this dream started with her little sister, Booger, who was [...]

I’m a big fan of using music for writerly inspiration, and so I thought I’d try that here, with you.
 
To evoke your own inspiration, listen to the song here, then write the pictures that appear in your mind. You don’t need to craft an entire paragraph, although of course you can. Rather, let the images [...]

Keep the party going! (Songs courtesy of Modern Single Momma and Single Working Mommy. BlogHerNot 2008 courtesy of Mommy Pie.)
 

SeeqPod - Playable Search
 

Most Sundays I take the girls to the library. It’s an unexpected day for the library to be open, so it’s often empty and uncrowded. Usually, we start our excursion with a coffee/smoothie/chocolate milk pick-up, then make it to the library when it opens at 1. Sometimes, we wait outside on the lawn in the [...]

Today is Opera Day for San Diego Momma.
I do not know why. But it came to me in a dream and I don’t like to mess with my higher consciousness.
 
So….
(***tuning up****) la la la la la la la***** ****do re mi fa so la ti do***** ***tru tru tru*****
 
Nah. Forget it.
 
Now watch. A man [...]

 
Don’t mind me! I’m just hurriedly preparing for all the other things I’ll be doing this weekend instead of BlogHer.
 

 
I’ve got BlogHerNot 2008: The Revolution, and BitchHer 2008: The Devolution, and all kinds of things in between. Like shopping for a bathing suit that is not Gap, circa 1995 (the last time I bought a [...]

Please note that the below represents my perspective and is not reflective of any well-adjusted, unmedicated bloggers out there.
 
I call this piece, The Arc of a Blogger
 
Stage 1: Denial
Examples - “I can live perfectly well without my blog.
It has not consumed my life.
I do not live each day wondering, If I [...]

So Myra at We Make Three does this incredibly cool segment called Mixtape Mondays, where she picks a blogger and asks them to share some of the songs they’ve got on their iPod. And this Monday, she asked me to do it…
 
So in honor of Mixtape Monday, I’d like to share the titles of [...]

Today, I’m participating in Manager Mom’s “Open Your Office” Blogoopalooza, which asks bloggers to let readers into their office, where all the blog addiction writing happens.
 
So to that end, I’m posting a few photos of my inner sanctum, my special place, my out-of-the-way retreat located smack dab at the…
 

 
kitchen table.
 
I’ll pan out for you, so [...]

One day last June, I wrote a post about things I like. Kind of like Oprah, but with way less mass appeal and melanin.
 
In particular, I liked this necklace:
 

 
And I threatened to pretty much dismember anybody who bought it (“now you have no neck! mwah ha ha! how you gonna wear that necklace without a [...]

I’m quite unable to complete thoughts today. Also, yesterday. Not sure why, but I’m flat-out ill-equipped to connect subject matter or compose sensical paragraphs. It’s as if my brain waves are spiking and dipping and each time I try to catch one in my net, it flutters away. Thus, I did not complete yesterday’s prompt…and [...]

So my friend The Cocktail Maven, book clubber extraordinaire and creator of the ever popular “Cocktails in Historic Places” group, e-mailed me with the news that PROMPTuesdays inspired her to complete a 2,000-word short story.
 
And I was pleased.
 
So pleasured was I that I thought she should create this week’s PROMPTuesday prompt.
 
Which she did.
 
And it [...]

So I will.
 
Turns out we enjoyed a pretty eventful week around here. Not really on the Fourth of July front, which mainly involved fending off pot smoke, errant marshmallows, and a high tide, but the rest of the time? Pretty much a lot going on.
 
It started Wednesday night. We ambitiously took the whole family to [...]

Imprints of youth:
 
Stretched out on a blanket, stomach packed with homemade ice cream, holding my breath as silver sprinkles explode, dropping tentacle by tentacle into the horizon.
 
Watching fireflies dodge between sparklers, hearing the distant shouts of other neighborhood children, whooping with delight in answer to their parents’ murmured caution.
 
Red and white checkers, hot dogs burned [...]

Since the discovery of a “SID’S Baby Furniture” in Los Angeles in 1992, I’ve found the names of things interesting. (And SID’S? Baby Furniture? Who didn’t do their research?) Then there’s Sum Yung Guy Chinese, and the famous “Donut Touch” here in San Diego. Talk about compelling advertising. THAT donut shop obviously knows something we [...]

This week, please humor me by writing an infomercial for this product:
 

 
OK, go! (But first: Are you going to make this an infomercial for a super-duper jumbo turbo vibratron? Really? Me too!)
 
Well, before you proceed, here are the “rules” (YAWNNNN):
 

You must write your entry in 10 minutes. This encourages top-of-mind, primal thinking before the ego [...]

Part 1 Here.
Part 2 Here.
 
Far From the End
 
So he’s trembling on my doorstep, clutching a ridiculous and probably stolen, bottle of wine. He’s sweat-soaked, too, which I discover is because he walked the 16 miles to my apartment in the late August sun. I’m surprised to see him, really, I thought it was over. But, [...]

I’ve been blogging since 2001. For many years, I remained content to write in my little corner of the universe, rarely reaching out to other bloggers and vice versa. In fact, I never promoted my blog, included its link in comments, or spoke about it much at all. Part of my seclusion arose from the [...]

Intro to the Craziest Story on Earth
 
In the Middle
 
I returned to my friends at the bar, exactly at closing time. I clutched the artist’s phone number in my fist, and swooned in the back seat of the car, bedazzled and buzzing. That night he called to be sure I made it home OK and we [...]

This past PROMPTuesday, I wrote a little snippet about someone hiding under my bed. In the story, this person was an undesirable someone. A someone you’d most definitely NOT want to find lurking under your bed.
 
And it really happened.
 
A lot really happened those 12 years ago, stuff that I’m going to write about now. I’ve [...]

Every morning now as I prepare her breakfast, Booger asks me for “sumting elf.” Not a species of fairfolk, no, rather, two-year-oldese for “something else.”
So when it comes to food, a play destination, or outfits, I’m a magician with a hat, hoping to pull a rabbit or flying gerbil from the depths in an attempt [...]

I went to a San Diego Blog Bitches dinner last night, and all I got was this lousy link to the most hysterical recap ever.
 
I was going to post my own summary, but there’s no way I’m following this act.
 

The other day, I pushed learning-to-swim Toots into the pool.
I know, I know.
 
It’s just that she wanted desperately to jump off the edge into the shallow end (I’m not a total monster), hesitating time and again, yearning to jump, really struggling with herself and her fear of the unknown. And, suddenly, I flashed back [...]

Welcome to PROMPTuesday! Glad you’re here. So, lucky number 10, huh? Right? Holy cridoodle. There’s been 10 PROMPTuesdays already! You’re all growing up right before my eyes. Soon, you’ll be pouring whiskey into Clinique trial hairspray bottles and sneaking into the janitor’s bathroom during your high school homecoming game to get buzzed. But you’ll forget [...]

Management regrets to inform you that San Diego Momma has dissolved into a puddle of gelatinous body tissue, unresolved neuroses, and iced Soy Lattes.
 
We’re working on putting her back together bigger, stronger, and faster than before. Well, maybe not bigger. But definitely without a vagina.
 

Lots of frolicking on the beach today! People everywhere! Toddlers running, kids romping, teens lounging. Wow! Just throngs of humanity. And you, there in the thick of it all, real close to the beach, up front where everyone can see you, just gallivanting, gallivanting. Splashing to and fro, chasing your kids, jumping up and down. [...]

Today’s PROMPTuesday keeps it simple.
 
Read this poem (one of my favorites):
 
Disillusionment of Ten O’Clock
by Wallace Stevens
 
The houses are haunted
By white night-gowns.
None are green,
Or purple with green rings,
Or green with yellow rings,
Or yellow with blue rings.
None of them are strange,
With socks of lace
And beaded ceintures.
People are not going
To dream of baboons and periwinkles.
Only, here and [...]

But first, some photo notes:
 
–I’m growing a bodybuilder neck. And I don’t lift weights. Or work out (much). Thoughts?
–I don’t intentionally dress my children as hobos. It just turns out that way.
–Costco does not sell enough Kirkland wipes for Toots.
–We do not beat our children (although we sometimes submerge them in ice baths) as the [...]

There’s so much to do on my agenda (more shopping links, a 6 degrees of bloggeration post, and following through on my commitments ), but ding dang, I’m tapped.
 
I even went to the Dinner Studio Wednesday night to save me time, precious moments I could use to exercise and figure out why my daughter [...]

My Grandma Hazel — God love her — used to do this thing with her mouth, where she’d smack her dentures after every sentence. It sounded like a wet cross between a gum chew and an orange suck and it grossed me out no end. And that’s really saying something, because as a kid I [...]

Do you remember how, last week, I promised to list my favorite websites for stuff this Wednesday? And do you recall how I blew off listing my favorite soft rock hits from the ’70s? Even though I knew that post would be big, BIG!, babies. I’m telling you. And maybe you thought that I’d forget [...]

This PROMPTuesday is about what lies beneath. So this week, I’d like you to look at this picture:
 

 
…and very quickly write down the first three words that come to mind. Now, start writing, using those words anywhere in your story. (Be sure to name the three words in your post or comments for our FYI.)
 
Oh! [...]

I know I skipped right over the 70s soft rock hits, but I figured you’d probably forgive me, or more specifically, thank me profusely, for not posting it yesterday. Instead, I’m skipping right to my Monday agenda, which was to post two story intros from the manuscript I’ve been working on….
 
I’d hoped you wouldn’t mind [...]

{After hearing from several people that they’ve seen these movies, I’m going to deny that I’m hopelessly out of touch and instead re-name this post to:
Non-Blockbuster Movies That You Might Want to See Again, like Box of Moonlight.)
 
So I don’t know, some of you may have seen these movies. Probably have, in fact. But these [...]

Well, this painful bit of writer’s blockage persists. So, to keep me posting, I’ve come up with a desperate clever plan to keep me blog accountable.
 
What will follow over the next few days are slightly generic, but borderline interesting posts on stuff. I don’t plan to write about personal things, because I’m just blocked on [...]

You wouldn’t believe the enormous writer’s block I’m battling right now. My brain’s shut down. Maybe to devote its energy to raising my serotonin levels. Seems like every sentence I write is clunky and humorless. So, let me just tell you that I’m walking along oceans, listening to music, and eating healthy. My mind and [...]

Just want to say thanks again for your e-mailed and phoned support during my mental breakdown.
 
Me thinks that some of my psychotic break came from hormones. How I hate them sometimes! Seriously. How do these little molecules have so much power? What havoc they wreak on my system. I’m pretty sure hormones dictated some of [...]

The Mom Crowd is giving away a conference pass to BlogHer (worth $348).
 
Check it out here: Win Me.
 

 
(Thank you everyone who called and e-mailed me, I’m humbled. I really am. I’ll update on my mental state soon. The news isn’t all bad.)
 
On to this week’s PROMPTuesday. So as I was thinking of what to do this time, my wise and creative friend, Kristine, reminded me of the “first sentence” writing prompts, and [...]

 
The one where I bare all. And even show the dead skin flakes from constant nose blowing.
 
I suppose I’m depressed. I don’t know. Maybe what I’m feeling is a combination of mental and physical exhaustion, existential angst and hormonal flux. But what I do know is that I’m near tears, snapping at my kids, perpetually [...]

 
Taken last night, this pic is symbolic.
 
First, we’re a little blurry and off-center. Then, I’m not directly under the Buddha head (and I need to be, metaphysically-speaking). Finally, all around us is a mess. (But we’ve got our arms around each other. That counts for something, right?)
 
Suffice to say, Toots is still sick. On both [...]

I’d kinda hoped for a brief respite today. Oh sure, I needed to edit my reports, stick something in the crock pot, and do a cursory housecleaning, but I’d have loved to punctuate my day with a little mindless TV, perhaps some popcorn, even a nap. Each day fills with obligations and chores and I [...]

I walked down the aisle to this song, sung by a friend of mine (not the original artist) and I can’t believe I just found it after all these years.
 
Really, I thought I’d never hear it again. i just couldn’t locate it anywhere. And the only place I’d ever hear it was if I watched [...]

I hate when people take too long to continue a story. I refused to watch miniseries on network TV for that very reason. I could not stand to wait until the next day or week for a story to be completed. But hypocrite much? Nearly three weeks later and I’m finishing the Coretta story. (Not [...]

Wow. You PROMPTuesdayers are GOOD.
 
I’m honored to have you participate.
 
And if you haven’t read the submissions yet, take a minute to do so. You won’t be disappointed.
 
p.s. My early morning wake-up plan was foiled by nighttime pee and cereal requests.
 

There’s so many things I want to tell you.
 
Like, why I haven’t done this PROMPTuesday. (Answer: Because it’s too hard.) Or, why I’m sipping wine in the dark (Answer: because the kids can’t find me.).
 
There’ s just many things I want to write. Things about labels and rituals and why both are necessary. Or not. [...]

Happy Memorial Day!
Hope it was a good one.
I, for one, percolated over PROMPTuesday.
This time, I wanted to do something unique, something block-busting, something random and ridiculous…and I feel confident that what I came up with will confuse and befuddle you. But that’s OK! Because confusion leads to creativity! You’ve read that somewhere, right?
 
This is [...]

In a pink plastic car sits a child of two, singing for the extra assurance of her daddy’s hand as she steers down the boardwalk. Mom licks an ice cream cone, bending down to share when the girl looks up, with chocolate mouth and magicked eyes.
 
A merrily painted bungalow sits behind a handmade gate of [...]

This meme comes direct from Matter of Fact Mommy, who made it up herself, and since I think it’s genius, I’m jumping on the bandwagon.
 
So straight from Matter of Fact’s mouth, here is the meme:
“I want to hear which specific post got you hooked on the blogs that you read regularly. You only have to [...]

Also, the spooky atmospheric ’70s and ‘80 thrillers, “Burnt Offerings” and “Still of the Night.”
 
And then, there’s also “The Eye” (Japanese version) and “The Descent.”
 

Please note that these are not horror (although “The Descent” has some gore), they’re just spooky. Whole different vibe.
 

Not that you asked.
 

No really, you didn’t. So I’m just putting my scary [...]

Thanks so much for helping raise my daughter right. Really, it’s comforting to know that not everyone believes in over-scheduling, and that random play and frolic are valuable and swimming is fundamental; T-ball optional.
 
And so while I praised the heavens for wise sages such as yourself and for your generous sharing of the wise sage [...]

Do you remember how I went on and on about this, and then this?
 
How I so smugly threw about the words, “chickpea?” and “organic” and “no white sugar” and bladdedy blahblah?
 
Well, today, this happened:
 

 
OK, actually the three things on the right happened on Sunday. And also today. And it’s looking favorable for tomorrow.
 
I would like [...]

I’m wondering if I’m a crack mom for not enrolling Toots in any classes this year.
Last summer, we tried ballet, and she’s been on and off in Gymstars…but have there been any classes you’ve put your kids in that you’ve loved and/or that taught them discipline and to stop talking about killing things?
 
Maybe karate or [...]

I have but few dreams. Firstly, I’d like to finish my middle grade book, sell it, make enough money to live comfortably in San Diego, have a pool like Cheri’s, and support my family churning out Harry Potter-esque books in my fully automated custom-made sunlit writer’s/inventor’s (just because) loft.
 
I’d also like to open a drive-thru. [...]

Me, at the dinner table: OK, everyone tell me about their day.
 
My four year-old-daughter, Toots: A real day or an imaginary day?
 
Me, playing along: An imaginary day.
 
Toots: OK, so there was this monster, and… (pausing)…Mommy? Can I say the word ‘killed’ just this once? (holding her finger up in the form of a “one”)
 
Me: No. [...]

It’s noon here in San Diego and everybody in my family is asleep. I tried to close my eyes for awhile, but had so many things running through my head and then Merle Haggard did gone and woke me up for good.
 
I wish you could see me now: laptop perched on lap, bear blanket [...]

I totally got into a fight at Legoland.
 
Wait, let me word that in a more mature fashion: I entered into an altercation at Legoland.
 
I’ve always been one to champion the underdog.
 
I’ll have to write about this later. Right after I pick the curly straws out of my butt.
 
Today: Sea World.
 
Tomorrow: Drug-induced coma.
 

I’ve been out in the real world for days now, with no Internet connection, Twitter, or e-mail access and it’s been weird. I’m actually not speaking in acronyms or hitting “Enter” after I make a comment.
 
And I wrote a long post all about how I went to the zoo and the beach and how today [...]

Sinus Infection: Manufactured enough snot to feed an entire colony of bone-eating snot flowers. I realize that for this sentence to work, it should be: snot-eating bone flowers. But I’m not a scientist. (Or a marine biologist?) If I were, I’d opt for a totally different naming convention for weird things, like “Weird Thing with [...]

Here’s my PROMPTuesday submission:
 
I shuffled through the milk crates stuffed with LPs. My knickers chafed uncomfortably, spurred by the hot sweatiness of the St. Mary’s gymnasium. Wet slicked down my back as I pulled out Supertramp’s album. The one with “Goodbye Stranger.”
 
I planned my outfit with him in mind. We had the same last name [...]

No intro today.
 
Just this: Write about your first love. Work the phrase, “Beauty in the shadows,” into the piece. This one can go to 250 words.
 
Other “rules” (air quotes implied and used ironically):
 
You must write your entry in 10 minutes. This encourages top-of-mind, primal thinking before the ego and judgmental brain kicks in. Just set [...]

Well, let’s see.
 
I don’t think I’m a planner. I try to be, really, really try to be, yet there’s some synapsal tangle in my brain that prevents me from actually following through on said plans, or rather, I follow through, but not in that perfectly logistical way you see other moms do.
 
I’ve seen women make [...]

I met Coretta T. when we were both in the fifth grade. She told great jokes, had a typical Italian family and an enormous pantry filled with Little Debbie snack cakes. I’d moved to Chicago the year before, as little girl lost, it was nice to find a friend who adopted me instantly.
 
Together with a [...]

No more morosity.
 
Today is sunshine, puppies, no funny substances stuck under my toilet rim, a full belly of eclectic and nourishing food, chai tea (without sugar), and an effective hard water de-mineralizer.
 
Yea, today there is no fuzz on my sweater coat, no ambivalence about my discipline methods, and plenty of butterflies, even the ones that [...]

Disclaimer: Abandon hope, all ye who enter here, of carefully constructed sentences, relevant points, or peaceful easy feelings.
 
If I were a cartoon or bit character in “Bewitched,” there’d totally be a dark cloud hovering over my head. I really need to look into this Sag-Scorp cuspy deal, because now I’m thinking there’s something to it. [...]

PROMPTuesday came around quick, didn’t it?
 
And here I was, just a few short hours ago, sitting at book club, innocently forgetting that shortly, a new writing prompt must be posted, so I, without a care in the world, poured myself another glass of wine…
 
But: I’m BACK, suckas!
And as such, a new writing prompt [...]

If you only knew the trouble I’ve seen today. My sign (Scorpio-Sag cusp) must be in opposition to some planetular alignment, because nothing is going according to plan. Not a thing has gone smoothly, or on time or in accordance with my wishes.
 
Today I should work, but Booger slept in big time this morning and [...]

Do you think there’s a world where one can actually say “Calgon, Take me Away!” and instantly you’re transported to a warm bubble bath, open waterproof book, glass of champagne (or fruit smoothie, your choice, lame-o), and a babysitter paid through three days?
 
Or do you think in that dimension, “Calgon” would be a carnivorous Mingkowborn [...]

“MaaaaaaMaaaaaaaaa!” Booger wailed it from her crib this morning. I prayed, as I pulled the covers over my ears. Sometimes, she’s a one-hit morning shouter and I don’t hear from her again from a good hour.
 
Ah, but it was not to be and she continued, now playfully: “Mom! Moomoo! MaMoo! MoooooomoooomooooMA!”
Her vocabulary’s increased ten-fold in [...]

 
On Monday, The Rock and I celebrate seven years of wedded sticking togetherness through thick and thin, midnight arguments, beautiful and complicated births, misunderstandings, understandings, trying hard, sailing through, near misses and never quitting.
 
I’ve told you before that we don’t have an easy relationship, but I thank my stars we’re together. It’s like God decided [...]

I’d like to do something light and rainbows now. Especially after the heaviness of the below…
 
SO here you have it:
 

 
Thanks to Absolutely Bananas, I’m going to have some fun and list some of my favorite beauty products.
 
First, please know that I have brows. And by brows, I mean BROW WOW WOWs. Heavy, thick, Frida Kahlo [...]

I’ve wanted to write, yet I haven’t.
 
I’m doing that second guessing thing I do, hesitating to put anything down because what it might reveal about me — things I’m not too sure should see the light of day — or what you would think — but then I know this is for me, and an [...]

Thanks all for participating in PROMPTuesday. And those of you who e-mail me instead of posting (YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE), your stuff is very good. But I will keep your good secret if you want me to. And go ahead and continue to e-mail, I’ll understand.
 
I’m going to post more later. I arguscussed with [...]

Allrighty oh! It’s PROMPTuesday again!
Time to rev your writing engines. Lube your brain. Check your filter at the door.
(What?
I don’t know.
I just blog here).
 
OK. For your background and historical reference, here is a primer on PROMPTuesdays.
And here is the first PROMPTuesday exercise from last week.
 
And now, without further ado, or musings [...]

This is perhaps my most superficial post.
Right after this one, and this one, and this one.
Oh, there you are!
This one was hiding.
 
Anyway, I’m using you.
But only because you’re so fabulous.
 
In other words, please decorate my house.
 
I’m serious my Internellies: please, please decorate my house.
 
I’ll try to explain: I’ve long been distressed by [...]

 
If you come across a tall, decomposing man with his back to you, do not say, “Hello, kind sir? Can you help us?” And when he doesn’t answer, don’t keep pushing, asking again, “Hello? Kind sir?”
Kind sir is a zombie.
 
Do NOT play “flip a coin” with Shaggy.
 
Mops on heads make convincing decoys. Same with [...]

 
This is our bulimic fish, Shimmer.
 
Shimmer throws up/poos/sullies herself often and as a result, her fish bowl looks trampy and boggy almost every day. So I clean it a lot.
 

 
These are the two red plastic cups we keep by the kitchen sink. We have 1,009 in our pantry, but we only put two out at [...]

I wish there were a better solution than to split up all these children and scatter them throughout Texas.
 
From the Salt Lake Tribune:
“The hundreds of children from a polygamist compound taken into state custody are on their way to group homes, shelters and residences, but experts and lawyers fear their transition may be much harder [...]

THE IMPORTANT:
 
It’s MommyPie’s 40th birthday!
 
MommyPie was the first person to e-mail me after I launched San Diego Momma, and was so warm and funny that I’ve been following her blog ever since. Plus, she loves Ghost Hunters AND Paranormal State, which in my book, is an instant guarantee of best friendship forever.
 
THE NOT-SO-IMPORTANT:
 
It’s Cocktails [...]

Thank you to those who participated in PROMPTuesday. I loved reading your poems and am wowed and cowed by your lyrical talent. (Here’s a little PROMPTuesday background.)
 
Thanks also to the people who read the poems, left comments, and laughed surreptitiously.
 
If you missed it, check out the nonsense poem submissions here: Greormeoeprkeadocious.
 
I’m putting another prompt on [...]

Look, I know: shut up already about your intestine and what may or may not be inside. Just keep quiet about fatty livers and polypy gallbladders and for God’s sake, lady, you already told us you were a hypochondriac and you really expect us to believe you’re sick?
 
Well, fine. I’m just writing this for me [...]

Here we go! It’s out first PROMPTuesday! And remember: ANYONE can participate. This is for fun. Even if you don’t care a hill of beans for creative writing prompts or, for that matter, creative writing in general, you are welcome in this place of non-judgment and happy color rainbows! Yeah! Miss Mary/Barry Sunshines all over [...]

In my early 20s, I blind dated a man who, upon seeing a tiny puppy yanked mercilessly on its leash by a teen-ager, jumped up from our shared frozen yogurt to confront the kid.
 
We’d watched the dog yelp for a few seconds and I, not wanting to make a scene, said nothing, while my date [...]

 
Let Your Imagination Bear Fruit.
 
So I want to be a writer. How about you? Or, maybe you just want to play with words, take pleasure in the creation of something thought-provoking, humorous, insightful?
 
Either way, I’ve decided to do something on San Diego Momma to inspire me, flex my writing muscles and make writing fun again.
 
To [...]

 
This Sunday’s Playlist is dedicated to my mom, Angela, who would have been 67 today. (Please note that if you do follow that link above, I included it in the interest of full disclosure. I wasn’t all light and rainbows when it came to my mom. In fact, after she died, I was still angry [...]

I don’t know where I’d be without books.
 
I moved a lot as a kid, and books quite literally were my best friends when I didn’t have any others. I cried myself to sleep many, many nights, comforted only by my friends Ginnie, Trixie, and Nancy.
 
If I hadn’t read that other people feel lonely [...]

This happens EVERY TIME! I get memed right when I need blodder (blog fodder) most.
 
First, Matter of Fact Mommy, asked me to list seven random things about myself, which I’m happy to do, although it will surely reduce you to sheer and utter boredom.
 
And secondly, Mommy Pie, my favorite ghostbuster, tagged me with a book [...]

It’s just that I’m frustrated. I haven’t wanted to post because I’m irritated, disconcerted, and befouled (does that mean I crapped my pants?). I’ve been bemoaning the state of the medical profession in Southern California, the U.S., the world, although I think healthcare is better in France? Also, maybe Germany? I don’t know. I still [...]

(Almost everything is from my favorite site, Artful Wears)
 
THIS
 

 
THIS
 

 
OR THIS
 

 
WITH
 

 
The print tee above, I’d also wear with:
 

 
Which I could pair with:
 

 
(Look at me! I’m mixing and matching!)
 
And I’d also love to wear:
 

 
And for a neutral to jazz up with accessories, this:
 

 
Then, there’s this:
 

 
OR, this:
 

 
Which, I’d pair with one of these:
 

 
OR, these trouser shorts:
 

 
Which, I’d wear [...]

…PLUS! One of our store stylists will kabuki makeup your face AND apply your very own beauty mark haphazardly! FOR FREE! Ooo La La! So Spring 2008!
 
(Vapidity not included.)
 

 
The hell, Benetton?
 

I’m taking a break from my dinner preparation:
 

 
My children are paying the price of my PMS. And my PMS wants ham.
 
 

 
Beans to work out the PMS bubbles.
 
 

 
Fries, because? Fries.
 
 
Where was I? Yes, a break from my dinner preparation to tell you that I received the results from my ultrasound. And I have a polyp in [...]

Last night I dreamt that my husband died. And clearly, painfully, I regretted not saying goodbye.
 
We’d ended the dream night with tense words and when I woke the next morning, he’d passed away. My mom came to the house to help with the kids. Thank God, because I was useless and mute, and couldn’t hold [...]

Here it is in a nutshell:
there are two winners of my totally awesome kick butt Miss Mix-a-lot CD contest.
 
I’ll try to explain. Mainly, it’s that I’m complex. I can’t make things easy. (Can you hear my husband’s voice faintly emerging from the Internet ether, yelling “hell no she can’t!” ?) Because first, I went [...]

So has this ever happened to you?
 
You’re like, “Oh Shight! I’m going to be 40 soon!” and then you look at your arms and realize you need to start lifting weights because in just the last 6 months, something terribly awful happened to your collagen AND your muscle fibers and you need an intervention and [...]

Oh man, I’m busy today, so….
 
…to fill space, I’m letting my husband’s alter ego, Stubing Rothschild (Notes on Stubing: dry “Brit” humor, raises truffle pigs, salt and pepper nose hair, smokes pipe ironically), post some of his greatest hits wine reviews* gathered from a recent blind tasting party.
 
And can I say? EVERYONE loved these [...]

Hi, it’s me, San Diego Momma.
 
Look, I love you guys, by which I mean, girls. And maybe guy? One? Broham?
 
No matter.
 
First of all, you make me laugh. Also, you’re super sweet, like major. And supportive. Even people I haven’t e-met yet, you seem cool. I’ve extrapolated such.
 
So like I said, I love you.
 
And this really [...]

“So it’s a stone or a rock…” Annie mused aloud.
 
“Same thing,” Carlos said it sharply.
 
Annie fought the urge to snap back. “Witch Woods and The House at 2769 Sullenberg Lane…that doesn’t tell us much. How’re we gonna know where she hid it?” Annie sighed.
 
Carlos spun a wheelie to his bookcase. “Let’s look at each book [...]

Booger turns two today.
 
And speaking of unmedicated births and things in my stomach, I remember it like yesterday…
 

 
And they called her Duck Beak Belly.
 
I didn’t plan to have Booger on the 10th, although that was her official due date. But my doctor lured me into his office, knowing that from there, he could get me [...]

If you like me even a little bit, please do not read any further.
 
I must express the following, because I’m an expresser, but it will disturb and irritate you.
 
BUT if you made it this far, please call the cops if I don’t blog tomorrow. My husband is ready to kill me.
 
Today, I visited the phlebotomist. [...]

So now I have a band of numbness radiating across my lower back, gas (I don’t think it’s the beans) and upper/lower quadrant pressure (feels like something is under my ribs AND poking my pelvic bone). AND, it’s not my husband.
 
Anyone familiar with deadly diseases who cares to hazard a diagnosis?
 
And I don’t think it’s [...]

What an excellent meme. (Or as Jamie says, “me me,” which is so perfect.) Thanks, MommyPie for tagging me me.
 
Well, I alluded to it below: I’m tired. I’m worried about my stomach lump. I ain’t got much to give today. BUT, this got me thinking and I can’t NOT write about it, so…
 
…here are the [...]

I’m compelled to use clichés today, I think it’s because I’m tired. So very, very tired. Must be the large growth inside my belly, which I’ve known about for a year, but tests turned up nothing and now there’s no denying something is inside me and I’m just hoping it’s not cancerous. Or a baby. [...]

Normally this post would go in the Momma Love section, but I’m busy making beans, so this must suffice as my post today. Meanwhile, please transmit fart death ray thoughts into the universe and pray that I don’t gas anyone to death with my super-farticious beans. I don’t know why, but my beans are always [...]

Toots told me she would make dinner tonight and I wholeheartedly accepted, thinking she’d put a pile of Flintstone’s vitamins on a plate and call it a day.
 
But no, she had something else in mind, and as she gathered the items from the fridge, I sat and typed at my computer, marveling at how she’s [...]

Do you ever feel as if you’ve lost your sense of humor? Or worse, you never had one and nobody told you?
 
Or that you can’t write? Or that you have no voice?
 
That’s happened to me today.
 
I love reading blogs, but the problem is, I compare myself to everyone I read and find I’m not as [...]

The Rock got de-rocked today and after four Vicodin, he felt a little woozy.
 
He has this thing where he’s convinced he’s immune to anesthesia because when he was 5 the novacaine didn’t work and he felt his tooth being pulled. So today, the same thing happened: he felt sharp probing objects down there (THAT part [...]

I recently looked at these photos taken of people before and after their death and it affected me profoundly. I remember my mother’s face at the moment of death and am struck by the similarities, the peace, the last smear of expression, a final thought imprinted in a sideways mouth, a furrowed brow. I’m struck [...]

 
Hi, I’m Bob.
 
Look, I can’t get me any San Diego Momma lovin’, so I thought I’d come to the blog hole, where she spends every flocking minute and get her to notice me, just pay attention for one minute. I’m dying over here. So I’m going to air our dirty laundry in public. Maybe she’ll [...]

Yesterday was big. First, I lunched with lovely Amanda from the Mom Crowd, who was visiting San Diego with her husband and zen baby, Ace. Truly a wonderful time was had by all (well, by me…I don’t have independent verification from all parties involved).
 
And I have to be honest, I don’t often meet other [...]

Welcome!
 
It’s warm and sunny here in SundayLand, is it not? Also, did you just get back from church?
 
Being that it’s Sunday, I thought maybe you had.
 
Or perhaps you just had a Sunday brunch?
 
Or a Sunday walk with the family?
 
Better yet, did you just have a sundae?
HA HA! That would be funny.
 

 
My contribution to Absolutely Banana’s “Make Me Laugh Mondays” is earnest, funny, sweet, head-scratching, ridiculous. But in the best way possible.
 
We Are the World In Japan
 
Now I ask you: do I really need a Sunday’s Playlist with that kind of melodius goodness?
 

Last night, our friends celebrated their five-year wedding anniversary with a party.
 

 
It’d probably be cuter if I showed them together.
 

 
There were other kissy pictures too. But because I made them do this 500 times and only one of the photos turned out, this is what we get.
 
At the party, there was some of this:
 

 
And some [...]

 
I’m driving home from work today when I notice a little bee clinging to my driver’s side window. Now, I don’t like bees much, as I don’t prefer spiders, or any other insect that is an insect so I have to force myself to stay calm, because even though he’s outside the car, we all [...]

Thanks Deborah, Matter of Fact Mommy, Rose, Jenn, Mommyrella, Vered, Steph and Angela! For those who left their input after the event I attended last night, I’m glad you agreed with everyone else…and Mommyrella…next time, I’m going for the tights and the jewelry! Loved that! Angela: I like the boots, too. But the dress was [...]

OK, should I go with the round-toe pumps?
 

 
 
Or the boots?

 
 
Coat yes or no?

 
I’m wearing the dress to a “cocktails in historic places” get together and most people wear vintage. Like, heavy duty vintage. We’re talking pillbox hats, flapper duds and pancake makeup. So last question: do you think anyone will care if I wear this [...]

Right when I finished the post below, my friend called to say she’d just been diagnosed with thyroid cancer.
 
Please send happy light rays into the universe on her behalf.
 
Her attitude remains positive and she says a simple surgery and some radiation should kill the disease, but she has two small children and I’m sure somewhere [...]

My throat hurts, my kids yell, my head aches, my nose swells, my eyes burn, my uterus thickens.
 
Also, I’m tired. In addition, I planned a Mom’s Night Out for my mommy group at a local wine bar and I’m not company-worthy or conversational. Thirdly, I didn’t understand Paranormal State on Monday night and Mommy Pie [...]

Toots spilled water everywhere this morning and when I asked her to mop it up she said with disdain, “That’s grown-up business.”
 
Indeed it is. Grown-up business. Yesterday I signed an agreement that added 12 hours a week to my work schedule, which is already chock-full of 20 freelance hours and water mopping. Then, there’s the [...]

“I think you need to get her on some medication,” he advised. “Something like phenobarbital.”
 
Phenobarbital? Isn’t that for extreme mental patients? Or the drug of choice from “Valley of the Dolls?”
 
But I just nodded. “OK, Dad.”
 
I hoped my acquiescence would signal him to stop. It’d been a long 24 hours as it was, with his [...]

All these songs mean something to me.
 
None of them are random or afterthoughts. Each offers specific insight into the emotions that shook me this weekend, then left me to crawl on the sand of my husband’s shore.
That doesn’t make sense does it?
 
It does to me.
 

 
First, there’s the bacon.
 

 
The drinking before noon.
 

 
The themed centerpiece.
 

 
The themed bathroom.
 

 
The cook, the baker, the bacon grease maker.
 
Unphotographed: the crumbs, the lectures, the eggs.
 

I’m sorry.
I’m at my dad’s place in Ventura County and we’re talking about Obama vs. Clinton. My dad’s useful insight was, “a broad shouldn’t be in office.”
 
So, my brain exploded and I have nothing left with which to write a blog post.
 
So here’s something from a few years ago.
 
************************************
(originally posted February 2006)
 
I will attend [...]

I was looking through Ye Olde Blog, and for kicks, thought I’d see what I wrote 5 years ago this month.
 
So here it is! Oh my gosh, I was so awesome. Much like now.
 
******************************************
(originally posted March 29, 2003)
 

Apparently I used to make lists a lot when I was an adolescent. I really really need to [...]

Damn you Matter of Fact Mommy; you and your exciting life, you and your saucy confessions, you and your excitement.
 
And, well thank you too, because I really tanked out of ideas today and your tag saved me.
Plus, I didn’t really mean “damn you,” more like a “Darn you,” but you better cap the “D.”
 
So [...]

Marriage isn’t easy; especially mine.
 
But for the first year The Rock and I were together, our relationship has been challenging. We both like to be right, for instance, which can ruin some marriages, and we don’t fight well. We tend to get wrapped around the axle and focus on stupid extraneous stuff, and not on [...]

Don’t look directly into the eyes of “Booger the Terrible, Jr., the II, Esq.” For if you do, you will begin to spout snot.
 
It started with my baby. She of the perpetual snot geyser. Then, it migrated to my husband, me, and finally, my oldest (above, you can see Toots trying to manually stem the [...]

I’m not competitive, I’m just not.
 
A fire burns in me to be the best I can and I do like to win Trivial Pursuit or Balderdash, but I’ve never felt the itch to have the biggest house, enter my kids in the best schools or drive the shiniest car (actually, no danger of THAT ever [...]

Today, I came across notes for a middle grade book I planned to write many years ago. I’ve since adapted it into something else, although the current draft still contains overtones of this early summary.
 
Please don’t get all jealous when I post some of it here. You can write, too. But we can’t all have [...]

Today.

Happy Where I Am/Chris Trapper
 

Be Open/Richard Smallwood & Vision
 
We’re lucky enough to live about a mile from here.
 
I’m in the process of picking I’ve picked a song for each picture, which will be is my weekly “Sunday’s Playlist.” I’ll have this up tonight. Enjoy.
 
Right now, I’m tired and smell like sea anemone.
 
Also, my camera died [...]

Spiders suck. Spiders crawl on you, look funny, and lurk in corners. Plus, I’ve seen several of them jump. J-u-m-p. Onto people. And cattle, which they then eat whole.
I grew up in Illinois. I saw it.
 
I do not like spiders, but I try to be as nice to them as possible. When I see one, [...]

All is quiet on the western front.
 

 
The laundry’s folded.
 

 
The Ring of Tam Tam rests comfortably atop a vial of pixie dust, surrounded by the protective Ma-Nu necklace.
 

 
There was a struggle, I’m not going to lie to you, gentle readers. Spoorie proved formidable.
 

 
But now, the Good People of the Land slumber in peace.
 

 
Slumber, in their Land [...]

And so what soothes the soul after
the pounding, the wounding, the surrounding?
What opens it, spills it, lays it down
Who lets it in, says just stay here
or fly, it’s up to you
And at last the fluttering, the humming, the dance
It stops, for an eon, a second
A butterfly cocooned, not the other way around
 
What soothes your [...]

Here’s the thing. I’ve always, always, always been insecure about my looks. And not just my looks, but everything, including my ability to do anything, and just about everything else.
 
BUT, we’re talking about appearances now. So let me drive home the point in short, but effective words and phrases: Insecure. Think I’m Not Worthy. Believe [...]

Just for the record: I joked in yesterday’s post. I mean, I do not want my daughters to elevate beauty above all else, but I promise I don’t submerge them in an ice bath chanting, “you’re ugly, but smart!” either.
 
Anyway. I got to thinking. I mean, yes, I recreated yesterday’s conversation for comedic effect, but, [...]

Oh crap. It’s begun.
 
My daughter asked me this morning if she were beautiful and I cringed. Then, I scrambled. Then, I imaginated a response that would make her value brains and wit over beauty.
 
Our exchange went something like this:
 
Me: Yes, you are beautiful. On the inside, which is most important.
Her: But, am I beautiful?
Me: [...]

I’m sorry for the delay, it’s just that Spoorie had to be stopped.
 
So this playlist is special. This guy sang at my wedding and he is an awesome and insightful songwriter, and you hear him and think, “yes! yes! that’s how I feel, too,” and then you wish you could write like him and then [...]

 
Oh thank you, Absolutely Bananas. I needed this today. Because right now I am editing a 59-page report on IT in Pakistan. And no matter how I try, there is no comedy to be found in that.
 
First of all, let me say that I’m a fan of faux documentaries (like Best in Show) and faux [...]

Tons of fun here today in DementoVille. My kids imagine the most wonderful and mystical things, usually while perpetrating acts of random violence.
I think I know what happened to our cat.
 
Anyway! Come join me for a tour of the enchanting and phantasmagorical! Hop aboard the freak train! Everyone on? And away we go!
 

 
This is [...]

 
I completely thought this said “Soccer mom turns violent; 80 hurt.”
 
And I felt kind of bad for her. She must’ve had a rough day.
 

 
Today Toots, Booger and I went to an “arts” day put on by a local non-profit and drummed, painted and sang for most of the early afternoon.
 
In one room, there was a singing party where a woman played the guitar and led the kids in all the oldies but goodies, which made me remember [...]

Today, I’m dragging my feet before starting the marathon that is taking Toots and Booger to the park.
 
I didn’t get much sleep last night what with the spider crawling across my face, dropping onto my shoulder and making its way into the ear canal to eat my brain. The part that wore me out was [...]

I parked my car in the usual haphazard fashion, bumping my horn as I scrambled out the driver’s side.
The man in front of me started, and shifted his reverie from the third floor window he’d been considering.
 
I mumbled “sorry” and began to hurry away, when something in his manner made me stop. I loitered a [...]

Stairway to heaven. Except this is looking down, so…
 
I don’t think our house started out haunted. It’s a new house and we are the first to live in it, and the only hint of previous occupants on this land were the words, “The Ranch” etched in the concrete outside our garage.
 
But, things have been building. [...]

 
Today Booger asked me for a “huggle,” which made me want less to stick her on an ice floe and shove her off to sea.
 

Thank you, God, for Dinner Studio. Thank you for giving humans the brains to think up wonderful franchises where busy moms do not have to cook. Thank you for the brown rice vegetable paella cooking in my oven right now. And thank you for my friend Shana, who did all the work while I drank [...]

Today I saved my daughter’s preschool.
 
She’s so proud of me. And in the process, I role modeled toughness, resilience, and pull-your-bootstraps-uppitude. Plus: I did it all Charlie’s Angels style.
 
So what happened is some kid who I feel sorry for (she wears flip flops in the rain and her mom doesn’t strap her in a car [...]

It’s just that I’m having a hard time.
 
I sincerely feel hormonally rocked right now, and it’s just so frustrating.
 
Ever since my second pregnancy, my hormones have been whacked. I had my doctor test them, because surely something was off, but the test came back within “normal limits.” Which was baffling.
 
And now I’m pissed, because I [...]

You know what?
 
I deleted this post, which was up for all of 30 minutes.
 
I don’t feel like giving the PMS more power.
 
So there, PMS.
 
I don’t feel like getting into the argument over the weekend, the amount of ice cream and popcorn eaten. And steak. And the great, heaving sobs.
 
Maybe one day, when I am menopausal, [...]

 
Just like her momma.
 

 
ALSO:
Ends/Everlast
I Feel Alright/Steve Earle
For a Dancer/Jackson Browne with Venice
 

 
I love my house, I really do. (I also love my town. I want to do a photo walk of its main drag one day, because it’s such an interesting street. Bums! Hippies! Surfers! And I would NOT have it any other way.)
 
But my main point for now: my house is great. It’s light, it’s [...]

Disillusionment Of Ten O’Clock
 
The houses are haunted
By white night-gowns.
None are green,
Or purple with green rings,
Or green with yellow rings,
Or yellow with blue rings.
None of them are strange,
With socks of lace
And beaded ceintures.
People are not going
To dream of baboons and periwinkles.
Only, here and there, an old sailor,
Drunk and asleep in his boots,
Catches Tigers
In red weather.
–Wallace Stevens
 
Oh [...]

 
For Toot’s recent birthday, I gave out mix CDs of some of her favorite songs. They’re her favorites because I told her they were, but she does seem to like them on her own, too. Which is a plus.
 
I’m not crafty. I’ve said it before, but need to say it again, because it’s my label [...]

 
Today did not go down easy.
 
My exposed nerves pulsated and twitched and despite all, someone kept scraping them with a callous remover.
Those are the someones above.
 
Today was the opposite of a sensory deprivation tank. Rather, it was an IMAX theater of scrambling kids falling off beds, crawling onto my lap, jumping on tables, [...]

Toots: What’s for lunch?
 
Me: (thinking fast on my feet) Uh, something good.
 
Toots: And healthy?
 
(Oh, my sweet little pupil!)
 
Me: Yes. Good AND healthy.
 
Toots: How about pepperoni salad?
 

 
My haiku won in the humor category over at My Mommys Place. It’s a great site. Their haiku contest is fun. Maybe they’ll have another one someday.
But better you don’t enter.
I’ll just win again and then you’ll feel real bad.
Don’t do that to yourself. You’ve got enough to worry about.
 
Here’s the winning humor haiku:
 
Online [...]

I’m sorry. I’m using this photo again. It’s from about 4 years ago, so maybe you will mistake my youthful radiance for health.
 
In July of last year, I decided to eat better. And because I can’t do anything in moderation, my eating better looked like this: no white sugar, no white flour, no processed food, [...]

There’s a new Momma Love “review” up.
 
Cuz I know you (friend in Tulsa) were waiting.
 

So in college, my friends and I said “flocking,” instead of the other word.
 
Everything became, “she’s so flocking annoying,” and “what the flock?!?,” and “flock you!”
 
Then Halloween came and we (there were at least 7 of us) dressed up as a flock of cows. We wore black garbage bags and taped white spots to them [...]

 
Did you see this on SNL Saturday night?
 
Please note that the video has adult content! And as such is very adulty in nature. No dirty stuff, just grown-up, possibly offensive, but hilarious, humor. Again! You may be offended by this! But only if you’ve never had a period.
 
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m must go [...]

This one is completely dominated by the artist we heard play last night.
 
And how about this? Please list in an e-mail or in comments or in your blog (just leave me the link) three songs you can’t live without (for now). It can be songs you’ve just discovered, or songs you’ve loved long time.
 
I [...]

I have this annoying habit, one I didn’t know what to call before, although I knew it needed a name, a slogan, a tagline. Something catchy and inspiring.
 
Finally, a few months ago a friend called it “Going Geico™,” and nothing could more perfectly sum it up.
 
So what I do is I “dub” over what someone [...]

Today we’re off to a Peter Pan-themed birthday party, where Toots and Booger will wear Sleeping Beauty costumes.
Those Disney characters, they’re all friends, right?
 
After that, it’s a quick ride home, a nap send-off and a quick getaway to a house concert our friends are hosting. Chris Trapper will be there, playing the Baby Grand. I’m [...]

My husband’s yelling woke me up.
Then I heard the home security alarm.
 
I hurled myself out of bed and looked at our alarm system flashing red, and wanted to cover my ears to shield against the piercing beep.
 
But there was the yelling. And the scrambling. And oh my God, is someone in the house? The kids! [...]

As you can tell from my recent posts, I’m currently in PMS Week #3.
 
Also, in Week #1.
 
Don’t ask for clarification. I’ll get all Week #2 on your ass.
 

As I fastened my daughter in her car seat this morning, I glimpsed a woman in the car next to mine, hunched over the steering wheel, sobbing.
 
My heart connected with hers in that moment and I so wanted to knock on the window and ask if she was all right.
 
But I didn’t.
 
I felt foolish. Also, [...]

I took her Cadillac the day we spread her ashes.
It was a long drive from San Diego to Bodega Bay, but it gave me time to think, which I did, sometimes reluctantly.
And as freeways gave way to greened two-lane roads, I lulled myself into thinking everything would be OK.
Of course, it never could be, not [...]

My pancake this morning. I know it’s blurry and amorphous. Why don’t you just shut up?
 
This morning I made my oat pancake with 75% expired ingredients.
This can only mean one thing: I’m PMSing.
 
Since I suffer from anxiety, it makes sense that I also get PMS. I believe they’re branches of the same tree. And I’m [...]

My daughter turned four this weekend and for kicks, I looked back at my other blog, the one I shall not name, for posts I wrote while I was pregnant with her.
 
And I found one. But instead of being about her, it was about me — sick and in the throes of early pregnancy.
 
So [...]

Straight from my dream brain to you.
 
I really wanted to blog last night. But I drew a blank, so I began to talk about mucous again, which happens when I’m nervous.
 
I fortunately threw that post to the curb and took to a fitful sleep.
 
The Universe must have taken pity on me, because I had the [...]

 
Despite the above, I don’t think you should vote for me.
 
Vote for the haikus you like best.
 
Because I’m OK with not being the best.
 
Although it’s a lot of fun when I am.
 
You know, I had a rough childhood. Always feeling like second best. Never really being accepted for me.
 
What? Yeah, it hurt. But, [...]

Oh, I talk a good game. In conversations with friends, teachers, and family, I focus on the wholesome, positive things I do as a mom, but the truth is, I can do better.
 
This isn’t a putdown. It’s the truth.
 
I know I’m not doing my best. As my daughter told me the other day, “Whenever [...]

Love Love Love/Tristan Prettyman
Spanish Stroll/Mink De Ville
Big Girl (You Are Beautiful)/MIKA
Oh! (What a Glorious Thing)/Akira the Don
When I Write the Book/Rockpile
I Believe In Love/Indigo Girls
Run/Indigo Girls
Last Request/Paolo Nutini
California Grace/Long Beach Shortbus
I Saw/Matt Nathanson
 
And that’s the way I like it.
 

My daughter turned 4 today and overnight things changed.
 
It’s funny how you say something to your kid, something unthinking, something you don’t even remember saying, and they take it and run with it, refer to it often and make it their mantra.
 
As a passing comment yesterday, I said, “Now that you’re 4, you can get [...]

Part 1 of my gripping “I Suffer From Anxiety” series.
And Part II.
 
So in my endeavor to better understand my anxiety and hopefully find ways to cope with it, I recently visited a kinesthesiologist. I’d heard great things about this guy from a vegan/Zen/meditative/very non-anxious friend of The Rocks’ who’d been going to this particular doctor [...]

Not really, but that wouldn’t that be cool: every Friday designated “Haiku Day?”
And the banks would be closed and the post office and schools and daycare and what am I, crazy?
 
In related news, I’m entering a haiku contest held over at My Mommy’s Place and am posting my submissions here. There’s all kinds of cool [...]

I hate being a pussy mom.
 
I want to be the rocker mom who grooves to the beat of her own drum, not caring what people think, no, just experiencing that joie de vivre and living, man, just living! You know?
 
No? Oh man, why you gotta be like that?
 
Yesterday, my daughter and I made valentines for [...]

These days, I make exactly three things for dinner:
pasta, salad, nothing.
 
There’ll be weeks where I motivate to try something new, but about a month ago, my mind suddenly sprang a dinner recipe leak.
 
It’s as if I never knew how to make anything. Kind of like Freaky Friday where I changed bodies with my husband. Except [...]

Steady hands, honest gazer
I crave to etch words in your marble
 
Love to make my mark
where it shall remain
and if it
peaks
dips
circles
 
You’ll touch the infinite cast edges
 
And when I turn away
And when I shut it out
And when I wretch –
to what?
 
I don’t know
 
The conviction
despite feeble veneer
is carved nonetheless
 
And when what I say is love
crazily makes [...]

In honor of Valentine’s Day, I recently looked back through all the correspondence I’d sent my husband over the past 10 years. And instead of feeling inspired, or invigorated, I took a horrifying walk down memory lane, where I realized that my husband is one lucky brave man.
 
I offer for evidence one particular letter, written [...]

This seemed manageable.
 

Then, I walked into this.
 

This.
 

And finally, this.
 
I’m trying to take this all in stride. Usually, I spot clean throughout the day, then dive into emergency surgery cleaning late in the afternoon. I’ve been trying to pace myself, because it feels like all I do is clean. But messes make me anxious. Really, really, [...]

 
1) Popularity isn’t worth it.
If I have any regret in my life, it’s that I spent so much time and worked so hard to be popular. It consumed me. In fact, I have a whole section in my adolescent diary devoted to “How to Be Popular.” (An especially lame, but earnest tip was “Take Shower [...]

Creativity is a value in my home. I foster, nurture, and develop the creative urge in my children every day (quite possibly to ward off any chance that they will languish uncreatively in soulless jobs as I many people I know have done.)
 
I firmly believe that we are all creative. I also believe that if [...]

If my emotions were mapped today, this would be the topography.
 
Darlin’ Do Not Fear/Brett Dennen
Circle/Edie Brickell & The New Bohemians
Kindly Unspoken/Kate Voegele
In My Own Mind/Lyle Lovett
Myriad Harbour/The New Pornographers
Wraith Pinned to the Mist and Other Games/Of Montreal
Diamonds On the Soles of Her Shoes/Paul Simon
Silver Lining/Rilo Kiley
Step On My Old Size Nines/Stereophonics
Landing In London/3 Doors Down [...]

electric fingers, worn by silver
move me forward, will I hear a whisper
 
spent as light in near dawn, spirals
she limps, then settles
 
sits in blonde wood acclimated to cold
peeks through the porthole, spider glass
 
pipes of light I would collect and -
forget, unbidden in deep pockets
 
padded, stuffed with dolls, grass, a look
from the hall, red paint that gleams
 
and [...]

This is “Angel.” He’s 55 years old. Or, 85. He wanted me to guess.
 
Throughout his adult life, which either measured about 30 years, or 60, (I’m still deciding), Angel was an insulation contractor, a cleaning business owner. a Hollywood actor, songwriter, entertainment agency CEO. and…whew! isn’t that enough?
 
Now, Angel works for God.
 
And I believe him.
 
For [...]

Every Friday, I join my Moms’ Meetup group at Point Loma’s Liberty Station park.
This is a new and well-kept park tucked behind a large grassy area, and south of the bay (although it could be north, east or west? I’m horrible at directions, I just like how it sounds when I pretend to know).
It’s the [...]

As I was finishing up the last post, Alexa came up to me.
“I’m stunked,” she said.
Thinking she meant “stumped,” I corrected her.
“No, stunked,” she insisted. “It’s a Spanish word I made up for tired.”
 
That kid’s perfect.
 

Sunlight makes it through the thickest of branches.
 
Thursday didn’t come easy. Alexa’s down with a sinus infection and the rest of us are battling runny noses and general crankiness.
And here I am: squirreled away in a dark corner of the kitchen to write a few lines.
I started a poem, but thought: I need to empty [...]

Me now. But also then. Except for the crow’s feet and the nasolabial folds. Also? My laser eye vision wasn’t fully developed.
 
I have another blog. I’ve had it since June, 2001. I will not name it, because San Diego Momma is my new leaf. And I want to leave old stones unturned. (I just love [...]

This morning, my daughter tells me, “I really, really, really want to be a policeman.”
 
Thinking this sounds like something she’s really thought over, and not wanting to discourage her from the dream, I say, “Yeah?”
 
“Yes,” she answered resolutely. “Or a unicorn.”
 

In September of 2007, my sister underwent an emergency c-section and subsequently gave birth to her beautiful daughter, Katelyn. Katelyn was born at just over 23 weeks, far far away from her due date of January 14, 2008. At birth, Katelyn weighed a tiny 1 lb., 3 ozs. and was barely 11 inches long.
 
None of [...]

There’s no picture today because this post is about my neighbor, who is so close that if he had a telephoto lens, he could see what I was writing right now.
 
(In fact, he doesn’t even need a telephoto lens, he just needs eyes.)
 
In truth, I did try to snap a picture of his bathroom [...]

These are the kinds of days I love. It’s the Chicagoan in me, I think. (Although I’m betting Chicagoan’s don’t like these kind of days.) I’ve always run melancholic, so these scenes give me the atmosphere to match my mood.
 

Super Pour, Part Deux
 

Super Pour, The Third Installment

Today, like so many days, started with a cacaphony of kids, TV, chore-listing and chore-avoiding.
So many mornings begin this way and I find that time blurs together, with no specific start or end point.
Living more consciously is a goal of mine, so I decided to invite my husband back to bed for a morning chat. [...]

I spent the day in a perfectly delightful French café editing a market research report. French women (I’m assuming, since they were beautiful, stylish, skinny) staffed the place and it seemed as if everyone were from somewhere else.
 
True enough, I overheard snippets of “I just returned from London,” “I can’t wait to get back to [...]

When’s the first time you realized you had a lot of growing up to do?Not in the way of ceasing goofiness, or quitting looking for earthworms after a rain, or not sticking your finger in your husband’s butt as he walks up the stairs, but rather, seeing that your old ways aren’t working for you? [...]

I have this thing about poo. In that I am simultaneously fascinated and repulsed by it. It’s interesting to ponder poop and appreciate its evacuatory properties. It is a waste by-product, after all, and the fact that it represents your body cleaning itself out is exciting (to me, but I also like pus, for the [...]

I have to show you something.

Ain’t it grand? Trust me. In person, this purse is life-changing. Maybe it looks too patent-leathery here. Too shiny. Too black? Not enough white? Not so in real life. It’s perfection. And here’s the kicker: it was $9.99! I love Goodwill (is it Good Will? It should [...]

OK, I’d like to back up and explain the hair more clearly.
I turned 39 on Thanksgiving.
And I’ve got this thing happening. I’m feeling 27. So when I look in the mirror and see the opposite of 27, I get confused.
My face is not 27. But my brain tells me I am. It’s awfully befuddling.
So [...]