i can never think of a title for my entries

brought the babies to my in-laws and harry and i went out for a little bonding time. we went to petsmart and bought some stuff for the snakes and now two lizards (a green anode and a house gecko). we also went to barnes and noble and i perused rock snob's dictionary and a collection of essays by chuck klosterman. although i enjoyed both of these books very much i cannot fathom laying down $40 for both of them. i will buy new books for the kids because i went them to get into reading but i rarely ever buy a book new for myself.

i did not watch the bush speech last night. whenever i see him on tv talking i have to turn the channel and if i am listening to npr and they have a snippet of him talking i have to turn the station until it is over. i cannot listen to him speak. i hate the sound of his voice. i hate his smug little looks. i hate his attempts to look sincere. i hate he and karl rove's attempts to paint this whole fiasco as the fault of liberals. (if you have noticed from my past political rants the f-word will start flying out coz i will get so worked up....) i don't think we should have invaded IRAQ but seriously i have no idea what to do now that we are stuck there. can we just pull up and out?

i have yet to watch any of the AFI movies. in fact i haven't watched any movies in a long while. i do watch lots of blue's clues, maisy, baby einstein, little bear. i actually don't mind them. they are on the noggin channel which is a no commercial kid's channel and in-between shows the have kid videos w/ videos by laurie berkner, dan zanes, elizabeth mitchell and lisa loeb. we have the whole laurie berkner collection. i have always hated raffi and never understood how parents saw him as someone who appeals to kids and adults. i like dan zanes stuff too. i have always felt rather lukewarm about they might be giants but i bought their ABC's DVD. there is some indie rock from Chicago that does kid stuff too that i mean to check out.

i haven't finished ARROWSMITH either. i am still working on it. i am currently reading SILENT BOB SPEAKS by kevin smith. it is a collection of his essays for Arena magazine. i like kevin smith quite a bit. you must rent the DVD of him speaking at various colleges. say what you will about his work as a filmmaker---the man can tell a funny damn story. if you can watch dave chappelle's show with charlie murphy and his true hollywood story about prince and then watch the kevin smith tell his story about working with prince. kevin smith also tells a great story about his 'fight' with tim burton.

even though i don't travel i got this lonely planet's book of travel experiments. what it is is a book full of things to do for fun when you travel no matter where it is. one is to ask somebody for their favorite drink and bar and go there and order the drink and then ask the bartender her favorite bar and drink and go there and do the same over and over. if i did travel and did not have four kids perhaps i would do these things.

i really want to get the new album by FEIST. i guess it is this singer from toronto that used to be a punk singer and just released this soft kind of folky album. i also like everything i have heard off of the new shelby lynne. i thought the last couple of hers kinda sucked.

must go pick up my babies. i try to embarrass my son by rolling down the windows in the mini-van and blaring KISS. then i try to make him sing along. it makes me laugh.

wilco, howard dean and the pistons

do i still have lice? i have to say that i don't know. i have washed my hair 3 different times w/ the lice killing shampoo and i have also faithfully combed my hair thoroughly with the nit-comb provided with the shampoo. i still feel some itching. no one else in the house has got lice except my husband. usually the only way adults get lice is through kids bringing it home from school. my two youngest don't go to daycare and the other two don't have it. this leaves only two options: my husband brought it home from work (the hospital) or i got it when i got my hair cut (which i get done maybe 1 to 2 X a year but got i cut about 2 weeks ago). this event would not be so horrible if it was not for the fact that my hair is the longest it has been in at least twenty years. since my twins were born nearly two years ago i have been letting my hair grow and have only had my hair trimmed twice. up until that point my hair was usually about the length of a crew cut.

my friend frank came down sunday and brought harry back home. harry brought home four copper-belly snakes. my house is now occupied by 6 snakes!!!!!! it was nice to have a visitor. it forces us out of our usual lame existence. on father's day we brought same steak and brats over to my ex-husband's house and had a grill out. (yep, me, my second husband, my two kids by my first husband, and my twin babies by my second husband and my friend from the UP went to my ex-husband's house and had a father's day grill-out. ) on monday we all went swimming at the east lansing acquatic center. ( a fancy name for a suburban pool with some small slides. rich white people cannot merely swim at the pool--they must go to the acquatic center....my husband is still pissed that it was $35 for 5 of us plus the babies to fucking swim in a goddamn pool. but we live two hours from the shore of any great lake.)

tuesday was the wilco concert. i know that i was pissy about this concert in a previous post but the venue was not as large as i had expected. it was still plenty big though. wilco was wonderful. as they always are. they only played two songs from being there, none from am and only a couple from summerteeth. mostly all the songs were from yankee hotel foxtrot and a ghost is born. they have a larger line-up than previously and it was very good and very rockin'. i went with ellyn and frank. we were both enthralled with the mix of songs they played in-between the opening act and wilco. it was great. it was like one of those great mix tapes you would get and listen to over and over. who picks this mix? is it the band? i was going to send an email to wilcoworld and ask. it was good.

i love all the hoopla over howard dean and his recent railing on the goddamn republicans. i feel a irrational need to be loyal to the democratic party. they have dissappointed me time and time again. i thought kerry was a fucking twat. i was appalled that this was the best they could come up with. i voted for dean in the michigan primary. i do think most republicans are evil. i think democrats should go after the goddamn republicans with no fucking mercy. look at the current stats of the support of bush and his agenda----the time is golden to jump on. why are the democrats so fucking weak? i did vote for nader in 2000. where have all the good democrats gone? what is wrong with them? is there no one that can take down bush and the republicans now???

i don't watch sports but my daughter just got home and i have to find out if the pistons are able to win the championship. (i don't give two shits about sports.) go pistons!

lice lice baby

i have lice. hopefully at this point it was true that i had lice and have it no more. i don't know where i picked it up from. not pleasant. washed it with the icky lice killing shampoo and combed it out w/ a lice comb. my scalp is still itchy.

i am at my ex-husband's house burning cd's and blogging. he has a really fast connection and a much better computer than i have. we have an apple we got 6 years ago before my husband started medical school. i am burning a collection of 80's alternative stuff from RHINO called LEFT OF THE DIAL. mostly good stuff and luckily not filled w/ the same songs you hear over and over when they do retro shows on the radio. it has one of my favorite songs--OUR SECRET by BEAT HAPPENING. ( i cannot listen to bela lugosi's dead one more goddamn time.)

our refrigerator is dying. the freezer works but it does not keep things cold at all in the regular part. milk goes bad after a couple days. you don't realize how nice it is to have a fridge. after i get done blogging i am going to best buy and buying one and having it delivered. of course we don't have the money. of course it is going on the credit card. more debt!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! once you are about $250,000(student loans/credit cards...) in debt what is another $400????

my daughter spent last weekend at the governor's mansion. she went w/ the governor's daughter. it seems very surreal. with most other parents that would be taking my kid for the weekend i would have talked to them but i just feel stupid. what a cool thing to do though, eh?

my goal for this summer is to watch the AFI's list of the 100 greatest movies of all-time. i do find the list kind of suspect though. Forrest Gump???? i have held out so far and never have seen THE SOUND OF MUSIC. i guess the time has come though.

in the words of greg dulli--don't forget the alcohol ohh baby

it has been in the 90's here for the past several days. we don't have central air and have not put our window air conditioners in yet. i have been sitting in my HOT house all day (the thermostat says it is 86 in here) with two toddlers. i am hot, cranky, and bored.

ellyn had her math final today and was all in a tizzy because she had trouble w/ it. i bought her the new coldplay to make her feel better. she also found out today that she made the 2nd team all-state women's lacrosse team. all she could think was that last year she made the 1st team. on monday night she got herself all worked up into a migraine and puked. i feel badly about this. it seems that she is one of those people who suffers her failures (or perceived failures) more than she enjoys her successes.

harry had his official birthday yesterday. most of the time he is fairly even keel. every once in awhile he will get worked up but rarely. i remember reading that girls that think they are high achievers mostly attribute this not to natural intelligence but to putting a lot effort into it. boys on the other hands always think they are smart whether or not their achievement level supports this position. i would say that this has been supported in most of my experiences with people.

my resentment level with my husband is again at a high level. the earliest he has been getting home is 6:30pm. he came home at 7pm tuesday night and he thinks tonight he will be late tonight. usually i have no idea when he will be home until he calls and says he is leaving and he can do this from anywhere from 5:15 to 6:30 or 7pm. then he has an hour ride home. this means he is gone 12 hours a day. this means i take care of the babies and everything else all day. rewarding family life----no. rewarding marriage-----no. he is off this weekend. he was on-call last friday and sunday.

next saturday we have his work's graduation dinner that lasts about 3 or 4 hours. they also don't have the decency to provide free alcohol. not even one drink free. his departments xmas party is at his bosses' house. they provide a nice spread--but everyone other department has their xmas party at a club or restaurant. come on, you're doctors, you have the office xmas party at your house. they also have a pool party every summer but they don't provide the alcohol or food it is BYB. if you are going to throw a party and it is for your employees and thus they feel an obligation to attend you provide the food and the goddamn liquor.

so back to the original story.....my husband also works the last weekend of the month. he is taking off this friday because he had to work a saturday last week he wasn't scheduled to work. he has 5 days off this month...this is counting his 'get out of work free' pass he got for previously described saturday. there is also a good chance he might have to work saturday the 18th.

the lessons one should have learned from the following entry.
1. Don't fucking marry a doctor.
2. If you are ever in the position to be in-charge of your work's xmas party or if you ever throw a party for the love of god provide free liquor. if not someone should be allowed to beat you and you should take the beating in good spirits acknowledging the whole while how much you deserve it.
3. embrace and enjoy your successes
4. learn from your failures but don't let them haunt you and make you get a migraine and puke.
5. don't buy the new coldplay cd. i did it for all of us and took the hit. you don't have to.

i finally downloaded the free ep off the official WILCO site. if you bought A GHOST IS BORN you get access to you for free instead of having to pay $5.00 for it. when napster was still running i got two live WILCO songs. i got them covering I WANNA BE SEDATED and COLOR ME IMPRESSED.

i got three magazines yesterday with what was left on my barnes and noble gift certificate. i got PASTE, BUST, and THE BIG TAKEOVER. i usually never buy magazines because i don't feel i can justify spending 5 to 6 bucks on something that is meant to be disposable. there was a really good interview with jeff tweedy in TBT.

it is hot here. the babies have been running around in the sprinkler everyday. they start off afraid of the water but usually within about 10 minutes they are sticking their faces in the water and picking up the sprinkler and playing w/ it. one of the things i miss most of not living in the UP is having real lakes close-by. there is a lake here that people go swimming in and it is so disgusting and pathetic.

sometimes i will buy an album because i really like one song but i will not listen to the rest of the album for a year or longer. recently i have been listening to aimee mann's bachelor no. 2 which i bought coz i loved her songs in magnolia. i love it. it has grown on me.

gooney goo goo

i think that thus far the title of my blog has been false advertising. i haven't really whined or bitched as much as i could or as much as i am capable of.

i am in a particularly bad fucking mood. my husband started a new rotation june 1st and is back to general surgery in flint. flint is an hour drive from where we live. on wed. he left at 6am and got home at 8pm. yesterday he left at 5:30am and got home at 6:30pm and today he is on-call which means he left at 6am and won't be home until tomorrow late morning sometime. he is also on-call sunday. i fucking hate having to take care of everything on the homefront by myself. this month will continue to be like this.

next week is the last week of school for the two older kids. this means ellyn will be all stressed out and bitchy coz of final exams. harry won't be worked up but they have end-of-the-year picnics and such. usually i like to be involved in these things because it shows your kids and the teachers that you believe school is important. being involved has become fairly impossible with twin toddlers. i have to drag them everywhere. i can barely find time to brush my goddamn teeth.
as i walk around i think to myself...i am near the point of having no dignity left. i dress a step above a homeless person half the fucking time and not in any cool ironic post-punk way but in a i-haven't had-any-time-to-do-laundry-and-i-have-no-fucking-money-to-buy-anything way. in two days in the last week my hair has been stiff because i have been wearing the baby in the backpack and he had ice cream which he proceeded to stick in my hair. when do i have time to wash my hair? i don't. i could let it go and have dreadlocks. i had to put my hair under the sink and try and comb it out.

i have taken to having conversations with myself because i am only with non-speaking toddlers most of my time. i had to take them out driving at 10:45 tonight to get them to sleep. as i was carrying them back in the house after getting them to sleep i was thinking...was grad school just a dream. did i fucking read hegel's BEING AND TIME twice!!!!!!!!!!!!!?????????????


MAGNIFICENT SEVEN is on TCM. i have never seen it and i am not really paying attention now. but---steve mcqueen and lee marvin were two hard ass motherfuckers.

i was going out of my goddamn mind sitting in my house all day alone w/ the twins and so in the evening i went to my in-laws and one of the twins throw a watch at me and hit me right at that place in your temple that is really sensitive. i now have a big bump and some small pain. i find this quite illustrative of my life at this particular moment.

tell you what....prozac gives me weird fucking dreams. dreams are always weird but it seems with prozac i get more icky ones. there seems to be a story in this turn of events somewhere.....don't you think?

the chicken dance makes me happy

yesterday was ellyn's lacrosse regionals. they lost the first game 6-16 to schwartz creek. it was the first game of the play-offs so their season is over. a bit dissappointing but no more practices and no more games! i have to go to a stupid lacrosse banquet tomorrow night though. i am an introvert. i don't like parties. and i certaintly do not like parties where i have to make small talk and i can't drink. everyone else's parents are in their fifties....

tomorrow we are having harry's 10th b-day party at his dad's house. we are doing a pirate theme. i have to go out and get all the supplies, prizes, food, and his present today. jay is on-call today and sunday so i am dragging the twins with me the whole way. i can think of no other word to describe this experience that describes what it is like more than hellish.

i am listening to MY ANTONIA by willa cather on cd and liking it so far even though it fits in my "classics i should have read" box and thus would usually mean i would be ready to drive off the road within the first five minutes. i am also reading GIRL IN LANDSCAPE by lethem. it is a coming-of-age story of a 15 year-old girl whose family moves to a different planet after her mother dies. i usually don't like science-fiction or fantasy but it is interesting and well-written.

recently whenever i feel like listening to music i have been putting on modest mouse's THE MOON AND ANTARCTICA. i love it more and more each listen. listen you must.

i wanted to see LORDS OF DOGTOWN because i loved the documentary but the reviews of the new movie on rotten tomatoes are bad. : ( i haven't seen a movie at a theatre since MOTORCYCLE DIARIES in february.