The maths are wrong, baby, cuz your hotness is rockin’!

Easter was lovely, except it needs to last much longer so my family can stay much longer and we can have, like, an 8-day feast instead of a weekend binge where we drink and eat too much and hurt ourselves. If we knew it would last longer, we could pace ourselves. I promise we would pace ourselves. My sister and I discovered that it doesn’t really matter what kind of wine a person drinks. If that person drinks too much of it, that person’s belly gets mad at them and punishes them. In other words, it’s not the quality, it’s the quantity. My sister-in-law is wise and she knew that already. She and my brother and brother-in-law, along with Bryan, were able to go to the Ohio Deli (as seen on Man vs Food!) and eat and eat on Saturday, while my sister and my mom and I stayed with the kids. Well, my mom stayed with the kids. Tracey and I just laid around and said, “Shhhh!” But now we know. Damn.

My Columbus friends were able to meet my family and that was lovely. I felt like I should be more nervous about it for some reason, but I wasn’t because Kristen, Dawn and Lynne are just Ohio versions of me, my sister and my sister-in-law. I don’t branch out much in my friendships. And the husbands? All of the husbands are beaten down by perfect matches for their loud and lovely wives, so we love all of them, too. Even my brother. I never found the bellybutton lint he hid here, but I have a feeling he hid it on my pillow. Just thinking about it gives me chills. Or, maybe he unscrewed the screen on the showerhead and put it in there so I shower in lint leavings every morning. Ew!

With that, I’ll leave you with another disturbing image. Everybody knows that My L1ttle Ponies love Easter. I just didn’t know how much they love it until I walked in the bathroom and found this little filly enjoying Maya’s Easter basket. In front of the mirror. Seriously, H@sbro, who designs your baskets*?

*I didn’t buy this basket. My mother-in-law bought it for Maya 2 or 3 years ago. I didn’t even notice what the little pony was doing until I saw her watching herself in the mirror with that look in her eye.

P.S. Don’t ask me what Maya’s basket was doing in the bathroom. Nobody wants to know.

Yes, the baby is fat, but look at that bathroom! Isn’t it gross? But still, I turned out ok. Sort of.  I say this because we’re buying a house with awesomely dated bathrooms. Maybe. You never know until you actually close. We have a closing date (March 19th), time, and location, so we’ll probably close. But still. It’s a great house, great location, just a little dated. The bathrooms are especially dated, with seashell-shaped sinks in one of them. The other one has a dark brown toilet. And those bathrooms always make me think of that old bathroom in that picture up there.

Oh, and! There’s a Florida room. My friends and I get to play Golden Girls in it. I get to be Betty White because she always had a story about back in St. Olaf and I always have a story about back in Chesaning. I’ll let those of you who know Lynne, Kristen, and Dawn guess who gets to be lusty Blanche, straight-talking, offensive Sophia, and steady-eddie Dorothy. It’s hard to pick because they’re all so slutty and offensive!

Anyway, I’m packing. All the time packing.

Dawn is famous today. Her super essay about her open adoption is in a brand-new book called One Big Happy Family:18 Writers Talk About Polyamory, Open Adoption, Mixed Marriage, Househusbandry, Single Motherhood, and Other Realities of Truly Modern Love by Rebecca Walker.

Also Dawn-related, this post over at her blog: The Night My World Caved in Read it and cry.
And also this post over at Mama(e) in Translation: Skinny is NOT Beautiful Ditto.

I have a love-hate relationship when it comes to talking about body image with children. I can talk to adults about the fact that even skinny kids are harmed by adults calling attention to their body type, and I have called people out on their skinny nickname for their daughter before, but if one of my daughters comes to me expressing woe about her body, I will stutter and stammer and fall all over myself to try to undo what was said, ultimately feeling lost and powerless because I know that this body image stuff is not easily undone. I just shared with you two blog posts from two different grown-ass women to prove it. (That’s proof right? I mean, they’re blog posts! Two of them!) It is so hard to undo the things that are said to a person because of something as fundamental as their body. I mean, we can’t get away from our bodies. Ever.

Anyway, go read those two posts and then learn how to be white and privileged and anti-racist all at once at Thoughts from a Foster Family: Can We Talk?

I always cringe when I hear people say, “I’m not racist!” because we’re all racist a little bit. We are. We try not to be and we learn and then we do better. It’s ok. It’s better to admit it and try to move on and then keep learning to do even better.

Um, yeah, I just realized that I found all of those great posts on Dawn’s google share thingy or her Facebook links. This post is all about Dawn and her amazing ability to both write and read awesome things. Thanks Dawn!

It’s Thursday, you can’t expect coherence on Thursday. It’s pretty much the weekend. Goodbye.

We’re going to the Unschooler’s Winter Water Gathering at Kalahari Resort  tomorrow morning with some of the weekly potluckers and other locals, so that’s fun.  Dawn has to work, but we’re making her son come with us because our children cannot bear the void caused by Noah’s absence.

Oh, I know! I read this book called I See the Moon by C. B. Christiansen and I got choked up on every single page and then I cried through the last 3 chapters. It’s about a 12-year-old girl whose 15-year-old sister is pregnant and placing the baby for adoption. The little sister dreams of being an aunt and she’s so excited and she wants to be just like her favorite aunt who now has dementia and it’s just so sad. Every page. Read it and tell me what you think. But lower your expectations because when I finally got around to seeing the movie Titanic, I did not shed a tear. For weeks everybody kept saying, “It’s sooooo sad! Bring a whole box of tissues!” And then it was soooo lame except for the musicians’ continued playing and the images of the old people and parents and children holding each other on the bed and waiting to drown. That part was sad. Oh, and the part where Rose didn’t die. That was sad, too. Don’t judge me.

Anyway, that book was sad, but maybe you won’t cry. It doesn’t mean you’re cold and dead inside. Probably.

*sigh* We watched Girls Rock last night at the Wexner Center and I cried all through it because it was awesome. And then I yelled at Bryan because, well, he’s a boy and he didn’t even have to learn that he rocks. And it’s not fair! But then, Dawn’s Girls Rock post makes a good point about boys and their struggles and whatnot, so I guess I won’t yell at him today. For being a boy.

The movie inspired my girls to play the drums (Liberty), play guitar and drums (Lena), and play guitar and drums and sing (Maya). And Bryan and I were inspired to pay for stuff that would enable those endeavors. Finally, the girls are doing what they’re supposed to by living out my dreams so that I can live through them. Er, maybe it’s not supposed to be about me and my dreams? I can’t remember. The world is so confusing after seeing Girls Rock.

Anyway, Kids Know Stuff is giving away a Washburn guitar soon and now I wish we could win it. Except it’s kind of ruined because it has either Hannah Montana or Camp Rock paint splashed all over it. I’m sure a kid would like it, but whatever.

We’re going to the Wexner Center to watch two more movies today: Jump and Children of Heaven. I’m sure Jump will inspire a jump rope purchase. I just hope Children of Heaven doesn’t inspire me to make the children share one pair of shoes. I’m easily swayed by visual media.

Ok, so I’m pimping Kids Know Stuff again because we’re going to be doing lots of giveaways over the next couple of months and I love you guys and I want you to win some stuff so you don’t have to buy stuff for the holidays. We’re running a two-fer right now even! Dawn made the site all gorgeous. Thanks Dawn! (Dawn from Open Book Strategies, not Dawn from This Woman’s Work. Wait, maybe they’re the same person. Come to think of it, I’ve never seen them in the same room together even though I’m good friends with both of them. And they both have the same last name. Weird. Must look into that.) Anyway, go look at what Dawn can do. And then bow to her.

2. Dawn. She works my blogs and she invites me to free spaghetti dinners. And she makes me laugh.

3. Kristen. She makes her husband deliver coffee to me and she sets up free coffee for her neighbors because she has a generator. And she makes me laugh.

4. My other friends here and in Chesaning, and my extended family. They invite me to do laundry at their house and they invite me to stay with them and use up their electricity in order to get me to shut up with the whining. They remind me that I’m very lucky to have several places to which I could flee if I really needed to. And they make me laugh.

5. My husband and children. They’re just awesome. Bryan’s awesome because he puts up with me for-evah! And he’s cute. And the kids are awesome because, well, they’re 50% me. I’m kidding! They’re their own little bundles of funny electricity-addicted awesomeness. And they make me laugh.

6. Margaret Cho. Thanks to Dawny for this link because I couldn’t have said it better myself. And it makes me laugh: I’m Christian You Fuckers

We went to the Obama/Biden thingy in Dublin on Saturday with Kristen and Dawn and their tweens. Yes, we wore matching homemade t-shirts. No, it’s not lame. It’s cool! The kids were bored, but they were so, so good and I know someday they’ll thank us for dragging them there. Lena already told me she wanted to show her future children the “on the road to change” sign that she was able to wave. Awwwwwwwww!

Our t-shirts were cool, thanks to Kristen, but this guy’s t-shirt was the best:

Of course I had to get a picture! I don’t even care that I look like a dumbass in this photo (I am a dumbass, so I should look like one). I’m posting it because the t-shirt says, “Michelle for first lady.” Word.

Dawn has a full report here. Kristen has a bunch of pictures here.

My report is that it was awesome. That’s all. Sixty-five days, people. Get your people to the polls.

Last night I had a dream I was at Kristen’s house for a little party before park day. I wasn’t exactly sure how to get to the park, so I had to use her computer to mapquest it. So I’m using the computer and this jack-ass dude, dressed all businessy and acting all superior (the type Joe and Kristen would never be friends with; I’m sure he wasn’t even invited) just walked up and grabbed the mouse out of my hand because he had some “business” to look up. I was pissed and oh-so-ballsy as I ripped the mouse out of his hand and went on a rant about his business isn’t any more important than my business, just like a good stay-at-home mom who is not at all insecure about her choice. And then Steve Carell showed up and I went off on him: “I know everybody loves you and thinks you’re great, but I know you’re a smarmy bastard and I’m gonna tell the world!” And then my lucid-dreaming self was like, “You idiot! That’s Steve Carell. You will not find any smarminess about him and if you do, you will not tell the world.” In my dream I said, “Wait, you’re not who I thought you were. You’re awesome. I thought you were somebody else.” I don’t know what any of that means. I blame the jack-ass dude on a conversation I had with Dawn yesterday about her and her husband’s choice to have him be the stay-at-home parent and how jack-asses are weird about that, just like jack-asses are weird about stay-at-home moms. Jack-asses suck.

Anyway, we have homeschool park day today, and my sister TracEy (not to be confused with Tracy, my sister-in-law) and my other niece are coming to visit for the holiday weekend (can I get a “woohoo”?). TracEy , if you’re reading this, I’m not cleaning the house for you. I washed the sheets on the guest bed, but I am not doing anything else. It’s Thursday. After that, it’s a holiday weekend. I can’t be expected to clean stuff during a Thursday/holiday weekend combo. I will share my beers with you, unless I feel you’re bogarting them, in which case I will point you toward the liquor store to go buy me us some more. Don’t worry, we found one in a nice part of town, so it’s not across the street from the plasma bank. Nobody will ask you for money at the nice liquor store. You have nothing to fear from the rich drunks except roofies and date rape, so just don’t accept any drinks from anybody and you’ll be fine.

We also found a perfect spot to sit and eat, and then we just couldn’t bring ourselves to leave the table because it was such a great spot for people watching. It was fun for me to see people that we see at the library, the pool, the grocery store, the farmer’s market, and everywhere else we go around here. It made this big (to me) city feel like such a small town. That might be why I like the Clintonville area of Columbus so much. It has big-city convenience with a small-town feel. A small town where people don’t freak out if you carry your baby in a sling or homeschool or homebirth or breastfeed a toddler. I love that about this place.

On Saturday, we went back to Comfest as a family just in time to see Kristen’s kids do their Grimaldi circus performance for 2 minutes until it got cut short because of the major thunderstorm that was on its way. It wasn’t raining when we took off, but by the time we were about 300 yards away from our van, the downpour was heavy, the wind was pushing us around and we dove for cover in a food tent near the North Market. The wind was rocking that tent back and forth in a very menacing way. I realized then that I only think thunderstorms are cool when I’m safely indoors. I was extremely uncomfortable with the amount of lightening, rain, and wind. My kids and my niece were all scared shitless, but they were playing it cool in front of each other. I was grateful for that because the cherry on top would have been desperate, “I wanna go hooome!” whining and that would have sent me over the edge. Bryan kept saying, “Let’s just run for the van!” But I wasn’t about to listen to him because he drove through Chesaning’s great tornado of ’98 (Or was it ’97?) all the while thinking, “Hm, that’s quite a lot of horizontal rain.” He didn’t know there was a tornado going on, but he was about a mile away from a barn that got destroyed by it. I didn’t think he could get that lucky twice, so we stayed put. Until the short man in the official uniform poked his head in the tent and told us there was now a tornado warning and that we all needed to find a building to get into. At that point, I looked at the kids with an isn’t-this-quite-an-adventure smile plastered across my face and told them, “Don’t worry, the North Market is right there and it’s a huge brick building. We’ll be fine. Isn’t this exciting? RUN!!!!” We ran into the North Market (It’s important to note here that Riley and Liberty almost got backed over by a police cruiser during this run. I had to verbally assault the cop. It’s not like he had his sirens on. I totally would have sued.) So we ran again with Bryan still saying, “I think we should just drive home,” and me saying, “You are a retard and if you keep it up I’m going to get all hysterical in front of the children. I’m trying to act like it’s an adventure, but I’ve already peed my pants from fear. You don’t know that, though, because we’re in the middle of a raining-ass tornado that has washed my pee away so shut up about driving home. We’re never going to get home. We’re all going to die and our home has probably already been destroyed by the tornado anyway!”

We waited inside the North Market for a bit and then people were saying, “I didn’t hear the sirens,” but my niece and I thought we did hear the sirens. I didn’t care one way or another because those stupid sirens were broken last week and they wouldn’t shut off after our tornado warnings were over, so how did I know they weren’t broken and wouldn’t turn on this week? You can’t trust technology! Except when it’s Dawn using her handy-dandy computer to tell us the weather. Yes, it finally occurred to us that we could call Dawn and she would tell us what to do. She told us that Short Guy was lying to us and told us we were safe to get the f*ck out of there, so we did. And then it turned out to be fun. We had our own little community festival with cozy, dry jammies, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, candy, chips, and card games. Best. Comfest. Ever.