Noah broke the TiVo. No, that's not fair. I cannot even use the word "the" when talking about TiVo. TiVo is not a "the." TiVo is a member of the family. And Noah BROKE HIM. So Noah pushed TiVo off our carefully-arranged Pile o' Electronic Crap, along with our printer, and there was a tremendous crash that roused me from my gin-soaked reverie on the couch, where I spend my days in a powder-blue kimono, plotting to seduce various millionaires while Noah scrubs the stairs, and then I perfected the Miss Hannigan tableau by shrieking at the top of my lungs because TIVO! TIIIIIVOOOOOOOOO! and then I dove over the entertainment unit to pull TiVo up into my loving arms, where I gently cradled him as I watched his green light flicker a few times before dying. In the end, it was peaceful. I like to think he didn't suffer. (By the way, the extent of my coping skills involve emailing everybody I know in all caps and then calling Jason and demanding that he COME HOME, THIS INSTANT, OR WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE.) We called a few repair places and were told that TiVos just aren't worth... Read more →

This past weekend we continued our Summer of Beach House Mooching and spent a few days in Ocean City with Jason's family. I am now home with a child so far off his schedule that it feels like we've returned to those fuzzy, bewildering newborn days when I never knew what he wanted or what was coming next -- would he scream? or sleep? or scream? Since we've been back I'm stabbing in the dark once again -- handing him bottles and Cheerios and toys and books and the television remote and then throwing up my hands and telling him that's all I've got, buddy, pick something. You can eat, sleep or stare slack-jawed at the talking picture box. WELCOME TO THE REST OF YOUR LIFE. Jason's aunt and uncle are retired and live at the beach year-round. We've had an open invitation to come visit for as long as we've been together -- a good nine years now, but our vacation possibilities were always endless, boundless and selfishly budgetless. Now we're just assholes with a baby. Assholes who are more than willing to dump our asshole selves on anyone who doesn't mind the occasional middle-of-the-night shrieking session, a bazillion... Read more →

Exactly four million earth years ago, I received an email from one Ms. Ayun Halliday, asking if I'd consider participating in one of those blog book tour things that those author kids are so fond of these days. I've gotten similar emails before and have always declined, not because I have anything against the author or the book or the idea of blog book tours or even that they called my incredibly important journal a blawwwg, but because I figured I would probably suck at writing book reviews. But I agreed to participate in Ayun's. Mostly because I'd heard incredibly good things about the book itself, and also because her email told me to give her a cyber yawp at my earliest convenience if I was interested. Cyber yawp. I liked that. I am easily amused. And thus I was swayed! On with the suckage! She also included a long list of cool ideas for the entry -- podcasts! husband-bashing! intellectual discourse between like minds! -- and my choice of dates. And everybody knows when it comes to Picking Your Own Deadline, you pick the one farthest away, because that means it will NEVER EVER COME. August 25th? Are you... Read more →

For the record, I have no words to describe what it feels like to look at his face, although I'm not sure I really need to try. Read more →

Our cable box blew the fuck up. Poof! Snap! Hiss! No cable! We sat there and stared at a black screen that said "ONE MOMENT PLEASE: this channel will be available shortly." And we waited many moments. And we fiddled with various remotes and cables. (TIREWATCH 2006: Day 95, in which an angry mob of various remotes & cables attempt to drive the tire outside) ("TIRE SMASH!" says the tire. "TIRE HUNGRY!") Anyway, we finally gave up and called the cable company. The cable company said they'd send a Guy today, between 11 and 2. SO, BACK THEN: You email your boss and tell him you have to work from home for part of the day because you have to wait for the Guy. You get a vague sense that he's irritated with you and then a telepathic shining of your next annual review all chopped to bloody hell in the office hallway, so you scramble and try to explain that you have SO MUCH WORK you can do from home, stuff that you can do BETTER from home, honestly, so working from home is pretty much the best thing you could do right now, super-responsible-employee-wise, and anyway, the Guy... Read more →

Jason is away on a business trip until tomorrow night. She's been sitting there, just like that, for HOURS. Read more →

For several summers in a row, we've had the misfortune (translation: BREATHTAKING STUPIDITY) of going to IKEA on a big back-to-school weekend. Possibly THE back-to-school weekend. You know, the COLLEGE STUDENT back-to-school weekend, when every single college student from every single college in the area descends on IKEA in hopes of transforming their eight-foot cube of a dorm room into a Scandinavian paradise of modular shelving with perfectly-sized wicker baskets and big shaggy rugs, despite 1) having a roommate who is going to get drunk every weekend and dump all the wicker baskets over in attempt to find one to wear as a hat, and also 2) not realizing what a goddamned pain it's going to be vacuuming ramen noodles out of that big shaggy rug with a borrowed Dustbuster. The good news is: we did not go to IKEA this weekend. (Although in an alternate reality we might have, had we made good on our plans to move out of the city this summer. Which you may have noticed, we most certainly did not. We attached some handles on our kitchen cabinets and Jason CLAIMS to have fixed the toilet that randomly decides not to flush, and by "randomly"... Read more →

Oh my GOD. People. Keep me away from other people, okay? Last night Jason and I went out for dinner, alone. Gloriously alone. And it was glorious. Afterward we decided to have a glass of wine at the restaurant's bar before hailing a cab home, home where our dog had most likely taken a dump somewhere and our baby was just waiting to wake up at the sound of the front door opening and scream bloody protestations at being left with a babysitter and also where the damn cat was, the damn cat whom I am no longer speaking to after I realized that he chewed off all the straps on all the sundresses in my highly scientific dry-cleaning pile. There were exactly two empty seats at the bar, and I pressed towards them with singular determination and purpose. I turned around and realized that Jason was shaking hands with someone back near the entrance of the bar. I huffed back over, while thinking nasty impatient thoughts (we could lose those seats! I could have to STAND UP while drinking! what the hell!). The guy Jason was talking to seemed to know who I was. "Hi!" he said brightly, "I'm... Read more →

the kitchen is dirty. i should unload the dishwasher. there are fingerprints all over the tv. i should get that coffee stain out of the rug. the trash needs taken out. the litter box needs scooped. we need diaper genie refills. i should fold that mountain of laundry in the nursery before the dog pees on it. i should walk the dog. i need a shower. i need to eat something besides coffee. i should take a vitamin. i should take noah to the pool. or to the park. i should find a playgroup. i should not let him watch so much tv. i should teach him to wave bye-bye. all the other babies his age are waving bye-bye. if he was still in daycare he'd probably know how to wave bye-bye. i need to pay those bills. i need to find a new babysitter. i need to post at clubmom. i need to post at amalah. i need to be funny. i don't feel funny. i need to get started on next week's advice column. i need to write that other article. i need to invoice that guy for that thing. i need to email that other guy about... Read more →

After posting the Journey to the Center of the Save As Draft Function entry last week, I got so.much.nice.email. And guess what! I even answered a lot of it! I know! I read my months-old rants about "I get tooooo much eeeemail, waaaaaah" and rolled my damn eyes, because seriously: NICE EMAIL. WHAT AN AWFUL TRAGEDY. SAY HI TO THE NICE PEOPLE ALREADY. So I did. And it was FUN, and reminded me why I like you Internet people so much. I mean, some of you. Sometimes. You know. Anyway, a LOT of that nice email included nice requests for that "Plot Holes" entry I never got around to writing -- in particular, about my recovery from depression in 2004. Whee! Now there's a rollicking good topic. Even now, it's a tough thing to revisit. It was a tough time. There was a lot of stuff I never shared with the Internet, but picking through all the drama and the crazy for the stuff that makes me sound merely delightfully unbalanced instead of holy shit, she's just plain fucking insane seems dishonest and self-serving. (I adore this column by Heather, by the way, particularly this quote: I realize that I... Read more →