October 31, 2006

I Loves Me Some Semi-Pornographic Photos

I read this article this morning how Cindy Margolis, the so-called "Queen of the Internet," has finally done a Playboy shoot. Finally! Whew! Now I can stop holding my breath.

Seriously, my first thought was, "Who the hell is Cindy Margolis?" According to the Guiness Book of World Records, she's the most-downloaded chick ever, and she's never even done a double-penetration anal with a German shepherd! Or gotten naked, even!

That news didn't wow me either (although I found it a tad hard to believe), but then I read that Cindy has decided to bare her derrier for Playboy as a charity event. She has three children from fertility treatments--one from IVF and twins from a gestational surrogate--and she's raising money for RESOLVE, a national infertility organization. That is totally awesome. You go, Internet Queen. I think I'm going to go download you now.

October 26, 2006

No, She Didn't Actually Eat Cleanser

Raising a young child is a bizarre combination of utter boredom and super-heightened attention. Babies are basically boring. Twelve hours a day you do this:
food diaper food diaper sleep food diaper sleep
But then there's this:
food diaper food diaper HIT HEAD ON TILE FLOOR food sleep diaper food EAT CLEANSER call Poison Control food diaper sleep food

It's rather like being a TSA luggage inspector. Godawful boring job where you stare at stuff all day, but you can't let your attention wander for a second, or you might miss a bomb.

Baby-raising is even more like TSA inspections when it comes to diaper changes--those bombs are definitely chemical weapons.

October 25, 2006

She Doesn't Love Me

Today, when the King came home from work, as usual, the Princess flung herself out of my arms trying to get to him. She does this every day. However, as soon as he is holding her, she immediately jerks her head around looking for me. She shrieks when she sees me and shoves her chubby little body away from him, sobbing and reaching for me.

Except today. Today, for the first time ever, when he picked her up, she looked around for me. He started to hand her back, like always, and instead of reaching for me, she clung to him. She had no interest in coming back to me--she wanted him to hold her.

And then I cried because my baby didn't love me best.

Ha! Did I get you there? It was AWESOME! I took advantage of my newfound freedom to hit the bars, get smashed, and have meaningless sex with strange men! Okay, no, I didn't, but I totally would have if dinner wasn't already on the stove. But I did pee without an audience for the first time in months. It was glorious.

October 24, 2006

You Are What You Eat

Living in Hawaii gives one the opportunity to sample new kinds of food not usually available on the mainland. Given that 60% of the state is Asian, primarily Japanese, there is tons of Asian food. There is also lots of traditional Hawaiian food, most of which is very good.

Some of it, however, is revolting. Do you know about poi? Poi is made by digging up the root of a taro plant. The root looks sort of like jicama or a coconut--it's brownish and dirty and covered with what looks like brown 1970s-era grass wallpaper.

You peel off this brown, furry stuff and the inside is purplish. You smash it up, and then you let it "ferment." "Ferment," in this case, is a euphemism for "rot." Poi is rotten taro root. It even comes in flavors. You can get it in extra-rotten or only a little rotten. You can eat it as thick, gloppy, rotten stuff, or you can add water and make it runny, watery, vile stuff.

Another, even more evil concoction, is a Filipino delicacy, often sold by street vendors, called "balut." Balut is a fertilized duck egg. That is, there is a tiny, baby duck inside this egg. It dies. Then it sits on a shelf for about 17 days. It gets rotten and molded and disgusting. Then you buy it from a street vendor and eat it. Yum!!

October 20, 2006

Nicknames

Some of you may be wondering if I refer to my daughter as "Princess" in real life, as well as on here. Let me assure you that Princess is purely a blogging-anonymity name. My online name has been Queenie for years, so Princess was a natural outgrowth of that.

Normally, in the real world, I refer to her as "Isn't she asleep yet?" or "God, please stop screaming!" And occasionally as, "Do you think she can crawl over to that bug and eat it before I can get a paper towel to kill it with? Oh. Yeah, I guess so."

Random Notes

Here's a tip: If you're trying to look really manly and tough by blasting your car stereo so everyone on the block can hear it, it helps if you aren't playing something by Peter, Paul, and Mary.

Also, the Princess has learned that if she doesn't like what she's wearing, she can yank it off over her head. This skill will come in handy when she runs away from home and becomes a stripper.

October 18, 2006

Home Makeover: In-Law Edition

Why do people buy you gifts that have to be displayed in your home? That should be against the law. My mother-in-law, who I really do adore and who is a wonderful woman, insists on giving us gifts of home decorations, although she knows we have different tastes.

She likes blush pink, lemon yellow, and that weird, chalky blue they make those plates out of. She enjoys making--and hanging on her wall--those wreaths made of dead flowers.

She has been to our house. She knows we like black. And more black. And maybe silver. She knows anything with a floral print gives me hives.

So why does she insist on giving us stuff like this?

October 17, 2006

Kill Your Television

I was just listening to NPR, and they were reporting on the increasingly fundamentalist and ultra-conservatism of the government and laws in Egypt. The interviewee pointed out that, in contrast to some of the other media, there is a tv station in Egypt that, to celebrate Ramadan, shows nothing just American sitcoms every night for a month. For all of Ramadan, all this station shows is "Frazier," "Friends," and "Seinfeld."

A month of mindless, white, New Yorkers making bad jokes about how hard it is to be rich and live in Manhattan? (Okay, Frazier lived in Seattle. Like that's much different.) And that's supposed to be a celebration? It sounds more like punishment to me.

October 16, 2006

Why I Should Not Shop at Bath and Body Works

My soap is raspberry-and-cream scented. My shampoo has melon and cucumber. My conditioner has "hints of pineapple," and my face soap smells like orange juice. When I get out of the shower, I smell like a freaking fruit salad.

October 13, 2006

Should be an Overheard, But I'm Too Lazy to Write a Real Post

Me: Look! The Princess just pulled a new diaper out of the box and is chewing on it!

The King: Dude. Talk about cottonmouth.

October 12, 2006

Fatherhood

The King: I'm not kissing the Princess on the lips anymore. I'm only kissing her on the cheek from now on.

Me: Why?

The King: Because she doesn't know how to do it. She always opens her mouth. I don't like it when she slips me the tounge.

Me: Err...yeah.

October 11, 2006

Chastity

I really am back, but the Princess has been getting up at the ass-crack of dawn every day, and I've got two different books I'm editing simultaneously, which is making posting difficult. Plus, I'm trying to have lots and lots of sex with my husband. You see, I had a period (yay! First one since the baby, third one in the past three years). Then, just as that was ending, I got a terrible cold. Then he caught the terrible cold. Then my relatives came to visit. All in all, it had been FIVE WEEKS since we, a happily married couple, had celebrated our intimacy with some wild monkey love. Far too long. So now we're trying to make up for it, in between the two-book editing, his 80-hour workweek, and the whole up-at-the-ass-crack thing. Once that's done, I'll be here more regularly, I promise.

October 10, 2006

I Got Lost!

While my sister and her husband were visiting last week, we went on a hike into the Hawaiian jungle. We saw a huge, stunning waterfall cascading over a cliff, enormous tropical trees completely encased in creeping vines, and many beautiful birds. But who cares? Lost was filming!

That's right, I saw the big cages, I heard the director yell "Action!" and I saw Sawyer, Kate, and Charlie in real life! Sawyer is even hotter in person. Charlie looks nothing like himself, and Kate isn't as pretty as on tv, although you'd definitely give her a second look if you saw her on the street. They were filming right at the trailhead, and as I stared and drooled at Sawyer, I noticed a large, low building off to one side. It was the bunker that the hatch is in!

It was totally awesome. I confess to being an insane Lost-ite. I'm currently watching the second season as fast as possible so I can get all caught up and watch the third season on tv. Practically everyone I know has seen some of cast at the grocery store or eating at a restaurant, but I never had. Until now!!

October 03, 2006

More Things You Learn

In a pinch--like, say, at 3 a.m.--those crackly, pre-sealed spermicide inserts make great toys for a wakeful baby. Also, you know it's been a bad night if your child's first midmorning nap occurs at 7 a.m.