A Manic Round-Up of Life, Written After I Took Out My Contacts.

Here is where I start to blog about how there aren’t enough hours in the day and then stop myself because am I really that cliché. But for real. I come home from work and I have all of these things I want to write about, but instead I dutifully eat my dinner and then exercise (Paul Eugene has a Funky Standing Abs workout that is equally funky and stand-y!) and then paint. And then it’s 11:30PM and I’m staring at the computer screen with glazed eyes, wishing there were more hours in the day. And then my fingers start typing that exact sentiment, and well, here we are. Back to that again.

Painting commissions are keeping me busy and I will never not be grateful for that, but something always must suffer and right now, that’s the blog.  So, I am going to post some pictures from my phone that I want to be remembering forever and always, even though they’re backed up to about 17 different social media sources and also that ominous cloud thing. It’s hard to believe that I was able to have a fucking baby pre-Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. (Don’t worry, I at least blogged the subject to death.) Literally only 8 years ago, I had a Motorola Razr and had to beg Henry to let me send the occasional text, which would send him into mustachioed rant about exorbitant data charges. This almost makes me want to have a do-over with another baby. I’m rambling; it’s late.

On  the last Wednesday of January, I went to Tana with Corey and Christy for an Ethiopian feeding-frenzy (oxymoron?) and some smooth jazz, which Corey will never let me live down for saying. IT WAS SMOOTH THOUGH, ALRIGHT? While we were there, Janna texted me because there was a shooting/standoff one street down from her parents house! It made me think about how suburbs are just as fucked up in their own right as the more urban areas. That town has seen a lot of domestic violence over the years and it’s pretty traumatic, really. I mean, for a town called Pleasant Hills.

Anyway, aside from that, it was nice evening of eating with our hands and reminiscing. A+, super fast shipping. (And by that I mean, Christy got me home in one piece.)

The ghost of this idiot kid is now walking around your house. Hey, you looked.

Chooch is still going strong with piano lessons! Cheryl has been teaching him some pop songs along with the traditional lessons, and I can hear him at night, practicing “Say Something” while quietly singing along. Also, it’s nice that Henry and I get an hour to tool around the east end of town while lessons are happening, but the last few times we’ve mostly just argued because WHY DOESN’T HE JUST KNOW WHAT I WANT?!!?

This made sense to me at the time.

SO MUCH ALASKA! ALL OVER MY TV! ET TU, MTV?!?!?! (Not shown in this picture but seriously MTV has a reality show called SLEDNECKS and it makes me want to walk into the Viacom headquarters and poop on their floors.

Trying on Henry’s glasses while wearing my contacts and then trying to take a selfie, that was fun.

Thanks for the heads up on a blog post from two years ago, modeljoanie! #smittyisstillacunttho

The surprise pictures I find on my phone.

I have the best customers! Even when Henry fucks up an order (seriously, probably less than 3 times since 20007…so, not flog-worthy, I guess), people still come back. I’m so proud of these babies.

Oh god, we ate dinner at Mendoza Express on Saturday and Chooch was all, “EXCUSE ME” every five minutes because he LOVES ASKING WAITERS QUESTIONS. One of his questions was, “Excuse me? I think the bathroom door is locked?” BECAUSE CHOOCH LOCKED IT ON HIS WAY OUT. Idiot. Then the waiter (see also: owner) tried to teach Chooch how to roll his r’s. It was not a success.

Back in the day, my friends would send me ridiculous photos and then I would write ridiculous flash fiction to go along with it, and I am dying to do that again, but then that brings us back, once again, to the whole hours/day quandary. Life is such a fucking Catch 22, which my friend Lisa had to write a paper on in high school and I think of her every time I say Catch 22, which is a lot, because life is one.

I can’t make you listen to the new Title Fight record that came out today, but I wish you would. #trust