(no subject)

[altarflame]

I went out with Ananda today for awhile, just the two of us. We sang songs together with a cd the whole way to Barnes and Noble in Kendall.

Sidetracking: I love this local, small, family owned bookstore I have here in town and refer everyone to and I give them all my book buying money, normally, and...argh. I finally broke down and admitted today how they are a great theory but in reality I way, way prefer Barnes and Noble :/ I go to B and N, everything and anything I want is in stock, and there is more than enough inventory for me to browse freely. The kids' section is set up so that it's easy for kids to entertain themselves in lasting ways (train sets, big free areas to sit and read, tons and tons of stuff of course). There is a Starbucks cafe. There are interesting and far more urban seeming people all over - I get in interesting conversations with strangers anytime I go.

Which I haven't much at all, for the last two years, even though it used to be a frequent, regular destination. Out of loyalty to this homeschooling, la leche league hosting family that is putting EVERYTHING into this local store.

This hole in the wall place where I have already seen everything, where there is nothing for my kids to do but get in trouble, where there is never anyone but the employees and us unless it's Friday night. Where the only thing to eat or drink is from a vending machine and the single bathroom is pretty wack. Where they don't even carry magazines. Blah.

You know how I loathe the whole concept of giant chain stores and big business in general? It is a conundrum for me to think, maybe everyone goes there because...it's better. This of course is not even bothering to note the fact that little local place has higher prices, as that is something I really do understand, ethically...


So anyway Annie and I had a great time. I got a new Tracy Chevalier book, Burning Bright - she is the author of Girl With a Pearl Earring, which is all about the fictional backstory and leadup to the actual Vermeer painting of the same name. This book takes the same historical fiction concept, but set around a real William Blake poem. Also for me, I got Who's Been Sleeping in Your Head which is a really, really intriguing and fascinating psychological thing presenting and examining this huge scale study done on peoples' private fantasies and how they impact their lives, and relationships, and real sex lives, and societal assumptions and taboos vs what is actually happening in single minds...I can never get enough of that sort of thing and I haven't come upon a real gem since The Brain That Changes Itself.I'm hyped to have books to read again.

Ananda though. Geeeeeeez, it took her forever. She could just barely narrow it down to 3, which she bought for herself with her own money - the first Spiderwick Chronicles book (she's seen the movie and has the journal and is in love with it all), Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing (she's read two other Fudge books), and The Mysterious Benedict Society (based on my reading her the back she exclaimed, "Ok, that only basically is the coolest book EVER!"; then we saw that the reviews compared it to both Harry Potter AND Roald Dahl).

I also bought her two, for her birthday, which she has to wait for - Fortune's Magic Farm, which I really think she will adore, and Schooled, which is the story of a little boy named Capricorn who has never eaten pizza, watched tv or heard of the police, because he's being raised and homeschooled on a hippie commune farm by his grandmother, Rain...until she falls out of a tree while picking plums and is hospitalized, landing Cap in public school and foster care until she's well again. It is presented in a much more lighthearted way than that sounds and is really interesting overall.


She's so big, and so beautiful. The top of her head comes to my chin. She stands there in dark jeans and a long sleeved, clingy blue shirt, with her hair all brushed and shiny, and we talk about everything under the sun...devouring novels and practicing in her room for her musical theater and lyrical show and just..I don't even know. She'll be 9 on June 1.

We went out and had soup and mushrooms and virgin pina coladas for dinner. We did all the little competetive games in the kids' menu and I told her how generally proud of how she's turned out so far I am. I wished I had my camera with me.

---

This quote appeared on my google homepage yesterday:
A man with a watch knows what time it is. A man with two watches is never sure.
-Segal's Law

---

Melissa came and got my sewing machine earlier today. It occurs to me to wonder if she realizes how pretty and thinner and cool and generally awesome and striking she's looking.

Grant and Shaun are out there playing scrabble. Shaun is visciously whipping his ass.

I made a twitter account awhile back, a private one, just to do updates for Grant while he's working. At his request. And I keep getting random real life and internet people requesting to follow me on twitter, and it's getting old trying to individually explain to all of them that I don't really "tweet" at all, but when I do it's just like a conversation between he and I...and it occurs to me to wonder if I should maybe consider using a different username someplace sometime.

I am liking an increasing amount of music that I feel is innapropriate for my kids. It's getting irritating, as I mainly listen to music en route to places in a vehicle they are also in. Usually the only music I don't want to listen to around them is Ani Difranco's most explicit or Snoop Dogg's one amazing song, Sensual Seduction. But now I'm really starting to love a lot of music by Lily Allen, the Dresden Dolls, and so on, and...bah. I blame a combination of late night Pandora and childless roadtripping with iPod in tow.

LAST.

Physical activity.

I need/want/have to have more of it!!

I feel so insaaaaaaaaaaaaaaanely limited by my screwed up abdomen and overburdened back. A friend on facebook this morning posted this video as WHAT THEY ARE ASPIRING TO - and one of their friends commented that it is their morning routine - and I am just open mouthed and gaping with longing. I cannot even imagine. I don't bother writing about it anymore, but I still get asked if I'm having a boy, when I'm due, etc, EVERYWHERE I GO. Everyday. And when I cough or laugh the whole mass of herniation and prolapsed muscle jumps and it's, like, horrible.

I bike, walk, or swim "when I can", or clean I guess, for excercise, and comfort myself that at least I look like a hot pregnant lady. But I'm starting to think this is nowhere near enough. Sometimes I have some fantasy that I could do pilates and magically stretch my muscles back into the right place and not just, you know, land myself in the ER.

I am so stir crazy in my own body. It seems insurmountable sometimes, the idea of rebuilding myself, fighting through months and years of not just diet and excercise but also major surgery...but I am young. And my kids are young. And I can't just give up. Gah.

Comments

from eBirdie

[(Anonymous)]

The Mysterious Benedict Society is good; I predict Ananda will enjoy it.

I have some of the same issues with small, locally owned businesses vs. major chains. I hate the repercussions of it all, but sometimes it's easier to have any movie I want mailed to me, for instance, than have to browse for 30 minutes at the little place down the street because all the newish things I haven't seen yet are *always* out of stock or, if they're foreign films, just not carried at all. The same could be said for books...food...anything.

I'm amazed by that yoga video. Half the time her body doesn't even resemble the human form! Makes me feel like my little pilates routine is pretty laughable. Wow!

I like the quote about the watches.

Re: from eBirdie

[altarflame.livejournal.com]

Half the time her body doesn't even resemble the human form

This is true.

It strikes me as beautiful, but Grant as horrifying. He didn't even want to watch til the end because of how it was squicking him out.

[neurotic-orchid.livejournal.com]

I have the same issues with wanting to buy from small, independently owned stores but needing, usually for financial reasons, to buy from big corporate chains. It's true--they got big for a reason, and they're often more customer-friendly in a lot of ways. It does suck, but... I love Chapters (I'm wondering if Chapters is the Canadian B&N? It's really big and always has a Starbucks inside. Or do you have Chapters, too?)

[altarflame.livejournal.com]

I have fought so many mental battles about the price differences, since I know that the higher prices are the ethical, true prices and the lower ones are the illegal, environment destroying, employee cheating prices possible with an absurd amount of waste and other poor practices...I try to tell myself that if I can't afford it from the better places, I just can't afford it, and then budget accordingly.

But that is not meant as a lecture! I'm just sharing. There was a time when I was a teen parent co-habiting in an apartment and I LIVED at Super Walmart. It's been a slow metamorphosis to seeing the low prices as part of their evil, rather than a lure, as in, that is how they lure everyone in and make people feel obligated to shop there even as they destroy our ecomony by importing everything from China such that none of us can afford anything else...Walmart is different, though, than something that is "just big" like Target or Starbucks that still manages to be moderately conscientious and self-aware and charitable and so on...

Also - I've never heard of Chapters so probably it is the Canadian equivalent of B and N.

And, I talk a big talk but I am drawn to Old Navy like a moth to a flame and they are pretty awful.

[neurotic-orchid.livejournal.com]

I understand all that, although I'm not sure that it's so bad for the employees of bigger stores. I've worked retail in the past, and bigger stores tend to have better benefits with a good rising pay scale. But there's still a lot of unethical practices going into making things cheaper, and taht does really bother me.

I guess that right now I'm just SO poor (can't always pay the bills, living with my parents and a baby poor) that I can't bring myself to shop local while sacrificing pennies that could be going to my child. But I know you understand where I'm coming from.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_delphiki_/]

I would love to buy from smaller stores but they generally are not kid friendly. Barnes and nobles is the best bet for us too.

I can't believe how big and grown-up Annie is now. I've been reading since Issac was in the NICU and she's was a baby then. Sigh.

I still have so much to share with you.

[altarflame.livejournal.com]

I know, about Annie...oh how I know!

You should email me <3

[noelove.livejournal.com]

what an amazing time with Annie. I can't even imagine if this little one inside me was a girl. I mean, how do you mother a girl? I don't even know. I know how to love boys. I suppose its the same way, but there seems to be so much more complexity with girls.

*sigh* August cannot come soon enough.


Oh, and you'll get there Tina. You have the will, and you will make it happen. :)

[altarflame.livejournal.com]

Bobby is right (wait, what?) I did say very similar things...and I'd only had one girl.

In general I say that whether you're dealing with toddlers or teenagers, with a boy, you have to keep up with them physically and that is what exhausts you, and with a girl, emotionally. Do you want to deal with endless destroyed property and hyperactivity...or screaming fits and battles of will?

Of course, there is a huge spectrum there...Isaac has many many many "female" traits of behavior and attitude, and Elise is one loud, destructive girl. Jake was far and away my easiest all the way through.

Now that I'm back to a girl after three boys the main thing that strikes me as different is, damn it's more of a pain in the butt to change the poopy diapers when you've got all those extra folds and creases and are twice as worried about infection and sensitivity as you go about it.

The Dresden Dolls

[greenfairy8504.livejournal.com]

Hello. I read you sometimes and I just wanted to say that I love that you love The Dresden Dolls. They're magnificent. On that note, I have some recommendations for you.

First of all, Amanda Palmer has a solo album that is my absolute favourite. (Which is really something, as I have every Dresden Dolls album and was very sad when I heard they'd disbanded.)

http://www.amazon.com/Who-Killed-Amanda-Palmer-Dig/dp/B001BS0J3I/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1243268633&sr=8-1

Also, Amanda Palmer recently co-directed a play at her hometown high school called "With the Needle That Sings in Her Heart" which features music from Neutral Milk Hotel's album "In the Aeroplane Over the Sea" and is based on Anne Frank and the Holocaust. It was amazing. I think you would...I don't know if enjoy is the right word, but appreciate it.

Review: http://www.glidemagazine.com/hiddentrack/review-with-the-needle-that-sings-in-her-heart-lexington-high-school-auditorium/

Play: http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/1485833

I just have to spread the love of Amanda and the Dolls. They're so amazing and more people should be aware. :)

Re: The Dresden Dolls

[altarflame.livejournal.com]

That all sounds great! Thank you.

That title song - Neutral Milk Hotel's "Aeroplane" - that is my favorite song. I can actually cry ANYTIME I HEAR IT. And I have quite the historical haulocaust fascination. So, I am intrigued.

It's a shame they broke up mainly because now that I know, I would really like to go to a live show and witness the spectacle of audience performers I've only read about on wikipedia ;)

Re: The Dresden Dolls

[altarflame.livejournal.com]

I'm just working off of greenfairy's comment, as she seems far more knowledgeable than I. Perhaps more research is in order.

Re: The Dresden Dolls

[greenfairy8504.livejournal.com]

It was a big mess when they broke up and they were fighting. They said they were on an "indefinite hiatus". They were working on separate projects. She had her solo album and he is/was drumming for another band. But I've read in the fan emails she sends out that they're thinking of touring again. (It's quite...fanatic of me to be this aware. :P)

If not, Amanda Palmer is absolutely amazing in concert as well. I saw her in December and she had a dance troupe called "The Danger Ensemble" with her. The concert was set up to be like her funeral and there was a funeral band moving through the crowd before the show. The emcee gave her eulogy. When it was time for her to perform she ghosted through the crowd wearing a veil and two of the dancers lifted her onstage. Like I said, amazing.

That play made me sob. It's truly awe inspiring. Even moreso that
the screenplay was developed collaboratively with both Palmer and the high school cast.

Re: The Dresden Dolls

[greenfairy8504.livejournal.com]

I am in love with Brian. He is gorgeous! :D

Re: The Dresden Dolls

[redcosmic-earth.livejournal.com]

I fell in love with the Dresden Dolls when I was living in Boston. It both surprises and pleases me that you love them as well. The first album is amazing..particularly "Half Jack" and "Girl Anachronism". Also, I don't know how it happened, but lately I have been LOVING Lily Allen. I was prepared to hate her based on my knowledge of her through gossip blogs. "LDN" is my current favorite. You might like Lykke Li- Little Bit...that's a close second.

And thanks, by the way. I don't feel all that striking lately.

[medland.livejournal.com]

And here I am thinking that the fact I can do a downward facing dog without crying was impressive!