Etch-a-Sketch

My wonderful, always well-intentioned mother sent me a link to an online Etch-a-Sketch without realizing my deep hatred towards the "toy" (loosely called in my book).

Oh sure, you can make tons of fabulous things like box after box after box, unless you're one of these dexterous people with a lot of free time on their hands:







and then you're making fabulous works of art -- somehow. (I think you're all wizards and warlocks and witches and demons!)

We had etch-a-sketches as a child, and I quickly realized how inapt I was at making anything more than a horizon, a box, and maybe a stick figure. And lots and lots of boxes and lines and more boxes, and when I got really frustrated, many squiggles.

Now, as an adult, this is the most I can do, and I really really tried:




I even saved it the the etchy gallery, and I've deemed this fabulous piece of artwork as "House on the abstract." As you can clearly see, there is a tree, a house with an open window (or a tank with a machine gun poking out an open window we all can't see) and what looks to be like some animal with a broken tail. Based on the demensions of the objects in my fabulous artwork, the animal with the broken tail is huge, and could possibly be a dinosaur recently back from a tussle with a raptor.

Give me a lite brite any day or one of those Wooly Willy magnetic face toys.

(Side note: When did they start making lite brites on "flat screens"? Oh, I am so old.)

Thanks, Mom. Thanks for making me realize what a horrible etch-a-sketch artist I am.

For those of you who like online art things that require no talent whatsoever, visit the Jackson Pollock web site to create your own paint splattered art or play with the Mr. Picasso Head.

My kid crushes.

Mateo and I visited my mom for Mom's day. I gave her her much anticipated Mom's day card (I had to redeem myself after the "no cards given at birthday time" fiasco of 2008). For some reason, ever since I bought the card, I thought it was some goofy card about finding a childhood lunchbox on eBay. When I signed the card, I realized I decided (when I must have been asleep at the Hallmark store), to buy the card about searching for "sweet mommas" on the internet and finding porn sites.

So I told my mom about how all this time I thought I had bought the lunchbox one. Then I said I had a Beegees lunchbox.

"You did?" she said. She didn't remember.

And yes, yes I did. I was in love with Barry Gibb, if you must know. I said Andy Gibb during our conversation, but I was incorrect; apparently I don't remember my Gibbs by name.

As a child, I had this weird obsession with men who had facial hair. Not only did I love the lug of a lion maned Barry Gibb, but I was also in love with John Oats, the hirsute of the two men from Hall and Oats. (I must mention that while Barry Gibb doesn't look too horrible now, John Oats got hit by the really big "did not age well" stick.

You might be thinking, did your dad, by chance, have facial hair? Oh yes. He certainly did and still does. And I'm fairly certain that's where my childhood obsession of men's facial hair began.

At some point, though, my obsession of liking men with facial hair turned into NOT liking men with facial hair (except for my dad) or chest hair or back hair or any weird tuffs of hair.

My husband, I must mention, has weird tuffs of hair. On his inner wrist. I call it his gorilla tuffs. They make no sense, and while he does want to wax his chest hair and back hair (the small amount he has), he is very possessive over his wrist tuffs. And he gets mad when I suggest we shave them off.

Two things I find very exciting.

1. Nine Inch Nail's new CD The Slip is free! Trent Reznor has jumped on the very wealthy band wagon (wealthy as in, he doesn't need the money, and he's so rich he can do this sort of thing) and decided to give his music away. Thanks, Trent, you're the best.

(Nostalgia kicks in....)

Oh, I remember way back in 1989 when the first NIN tape came out, and I was getting a mere $10 a week in allowance (no, no, not complaining - free money is just that - free money). I desperately wanted that tape. Sadly, tapes at the Tower Records in my city went for $9.99 plus tax. So it was the tax that was ruining my dream. I. Wanted. That. Tape!!!!

I don't know what I did. I don't remember. I could have just waited patiently another week for my allowance and then convinced my mom to drive me to the Tower Records so I could purchase the tape, or, I convinced her to give me my allowance for the next week that week, so I would have the $1 or so to cover the tax. I think the later probably happened because I can be really annoying at times. And yes, even if she did front me the money, she was still the one that took me there to buy it.

And the weird thing is, my husband and I don't even own the first NIN CD now. And the tape is long gone. And it's not because I don't want it, per se, it's more because I thought we did have it all this time, and when I asked my husband if we did, he said no, and when I asked why, he said because he didn't like it.

2. Dr. Martens is re-introducing the "original" Dr. Martens. Now, let me explain. Some years back, Dr. Martens was sold and every shoe that was created after the sale was basically a piece of crap. The leather used was horrible, sometimes greasy, and the iconic boot just wasn't the same and, I felt, never would be.

Today I was looking at Macy's online, and low and behold, Dr. Martens is now selling the "original" 1460 8-eye boot. For many, many years, I lived in my Dr. Martens. I loved them. LOVED them. I saved up money and would go to Villians on Haight in SF and get my shoes. I would wear them all the time, with pants or skirts, it didn't matter.

I sent my husband the link, and he asked me if I wanted them for Mom's day. I said no. But really, I wanted to say YES. YES I DO. I have a job where it doesn't matter much what I wear, and I wear boots during winter that sorta, kinda look like my old faithfuls, so why not spend 100 bucks to get the "real" thing?

How about, if I can't have those, how about these cute mary janes?

So I casually dropped the gift bomb that yes, I would really like the boots. My husband didn't say anything. Let's hope he finds my blog and reads it.

Fashion Plates

I rarely get to buy gifts for little girls, so when I do, I'm always hard-pressed to find a gift that's fun and different and definitely something other parents wouldn't be purchasing as a gift. I don't want to do the same old Barbie doll, and I've already bought clothes for the last three birthday party gifts, so this time I'm trying to find something that I loved when I was a kid: Fashion plates.

Do you remember Fashion plates? Oh how I loved them so. I even had a set for making vans or something. The baw-chucka-baw-wow vans at that (Mom, call me and I'll explain what that means). Fashion plates are something I constantly think about because I'm a dork. Apparently they don't make them anymore, although I found a whole mess of them on eBay, the soonest ending auction was at $42.00. Curses to myself for not keeping things! The amount of money I could be rolling in if I saved my Fashion plates, my ewok dolls, my cabbage patch kids, whatever else I had as a kid that is considered "retro" now. Ack, I'm old.

Oh you know I'll be hoarding some of Mateo's toys now. Although I'm looking at them with the same eyes I looked at my own toys: Who would care about this stuff in 25 years?

But I digress:

What little girl wouldn't love to mix and match outfits and hair styles and textures and be able to color them all in!? I did find some Dora the Explorer thing, and some other random cheapo items that are similar to Fashion plates, but just don't do it for me. And at this point, if I do find something vaguely similar to Fashion plates that I do approve of, I'll probably end up keeping it for myself.

Speaking of hamsters....

I keep thinking about the disaster hamster incident that happened when I as a teenager. For some reason, I decided I wanted a hamster. I think I was 15 or 16 at the time. We've always had pets as kids, and I happen to love to have as many little critters in my life to take care of and get annoyed by.

So I went to the pet store at the mall (remember those? With real live cats and dogs?) and purchased myself a nice female hamster. I don't remember what I called her, but I do remember what I changed her name to....

I kept her in a fish aquariaum. It was this octogan-shaped monstrosity on a stand. She made herself right at home. I was happy to have a new friend living with me.

My friend Brett came over a few days later, and I wanted to show him my new pal. I reached into the aquarium, grabbed hold of my hamster, and all these bloody red things dropped from her underside.

I think I passed out for a second. I thought it was her guts spilling out, and I couldn't understand how her belly opened up so her bloody guts could fall out of her.

That's when I realized they were babies. My female hamster had herself a whole mess of babies, and upon closer inspection, some of them were half eaten.

This was my introduction to wild life.

From this point on, her name was "Mama."

I was freaked out because 1. of the half-eaten hamsters, and 2. I ended up touching some of the living blood red babies. From my previous experience with....oh, nothing, I knew that touching the babies was not a good thing, and that they were probably goners as well.

A day later this proved to be true.

I gathered up my dead hamster baby bodies, put them in jewelery boxes and had a half-eaten baby hamster funereal in my mom's backyard.

Mama raised four babies. I kept two, my sister took one, and my friend down the street took the fourth.

Fairly quickly I knew I had a problem on my hands. I'm not sure how it's done, but if your domesticated hamster happens to have babies, those babies are not, by default, domesticated themselves. So how do hamsters become domesticated? Beats the heck out of me. I had one super nice hamster and two rabid, ready to kill anything that moved hamsters on my hands. They were also very clever and devious suckers as they figured out how to get out of the cages I had to put them in (they soon figured out how to get out of the monstrosity of a hamster aquarium -- don't ask. Devil hamsters?). Once night I heard a ton of racket going on, so I looked, and one hamster happened to be missing. Luckily I found it before it hid. I could have easily lost an eye or two that night.

My sister's hamster was just as bad, not to mention one fluffy little sucker. So fluffy that I was often convinced it couldn't be like one of its devil hamster siblings - until it hissed and bit. Imagine a big tuff of cotton ready to kill you.

I mean, these hamsters were pure evil.

So, without many options left and no love lost, we decided to rally them up and set them loose in a field. While this sounds mean, I think they were a lot happier out in the industrial area field, running free and killing anything in their path.

I'm feeling...rather nostalgic...like I want to air out my monkeys from my brain closet.

So the whole Jr. High dress got me thinking about Jr. High and some of the things I remember not so fondly of. For some reason unbeknownest to myself, I had (definite past tense) a tendency to become attracted to probably the ugliest and most odd boys around. This continued for some time, all the way up til Jr. College when I was stood up for a non-date to have coffee and just "talk" at a coffee shop near where I worked.

Yes, I was dumb enough to think the guy would come, even though he told me he had a girl friend.

I'll admit it, I don't have the greatest track record with guys and dating, and what little dating I did, if that's what you call it, most of the guys were just a bit off.

There was a guy in Jr. High that I remember in particular. I don't remember how we started talking, I don't remember his name (Wayne - just came to me), I don't remember much of anything about him except two things: he looked like a weird alien and he was in 8th grade. So yes, this was when I was a 7th grader and it was the pre-hussy years.

All I remember was that someone liked the other one, we sorta talked while at school, and when there was a school dance, he was there and I was there, and it was then that I decided he was way too weird looking and uncool for me to continue liking him. I'm not sure how it ended, but I am sure of this because I made a habit of doing it over and over: I just stopped talking to him. I think he gave me a note about the lack of communication between us, but I could be making that up. Granted, since I can't remember, he could have stopped talking to me. I was the one girl at my Jr. High who was told by a gym teacher that the boys ASB cards were being passed out over there. Yes, in other words, I sorta, kinda look like a boy.

Hence the fabu hairdo in 8th grade - I am female, hear me roar.

I mean, I did actually have serious crushes on really cute guys - don't get me wrong. It's not like I was a total blind rodent trying to find her way in maze known as "going" with each other. I just seemed to always attract the underdogs or the weirdos or the really ugly guys no one else would touch with a ten foot pole.

Next blog entry: Melvin aka "doc of style," heavy metal dude from art class, the stalker guy from General Cinema (he came with a crazy stalker letter I wish I had kept), usher from General Cinema who was the older brother of a girl in my HS class, two guys my husband says were in love with me but I never really thought so - oh, let's make that three guys, coffee guy.

After coffee guy, I actually got a really cute boyfriend who was several (ahem, 5 years) older than myself but who was just an 18-year old mentally. Then I found my one and only. My dear, dear hubby. I was at the ripe old age of 19 (yes, that's 15 years together, if you're counting). He wasn't weird, he was cute, he was nice although a tad surly, he was smart, he liked things I liked...he was as normal as I ever got - if you don't count that he wouldn't hold my hand in public for almost a year because I wasn't his "girlfriend" until about that time.

Ah, yes, here she is!

The innocent have been removed from this picture. One innocent was sent this picture because I'm still friends with her.

I'm particularly fond of the hairdo because it would take me HOURS to get my hair to do that since it's naturally flat with no body. Thank goodness for hairspray! And mousse. And determination. And lots of time on my hands.

Dang, I bet my husband wishes he had met me way back when. Sweet dreams, dear hubby. Dream of floppy bows and polk-a-dots.

Next segment of horrendous fashion that makes me laugh 20 years or less later: My Jr. Prom dress! When I find the picture. Me in all my iridescent glory....ah, yes.

Special thanks to mom for ransacking her photo albums, scanning this picture and emailing it to me.

I was a Jr. High hussy.

One of my friends is going on the John Mayer cruise at the end of this month, and one of the activities on board is an 80's prom party. She showed me the dress she got from etsy and while we were chatting about the accessories she could wear, I started looking at prom dresses on etsy as well.

On page 4 or 5 of the prom dress search, I came across this fabulous number:



Now, now, I know what you're thinking: I want that fabulous black and white number with polk-a-dots and a floppy black bow!

This is either the exact same dress or a very similar dress to the one I wore to my Jr. High School graduation. Not only did I wear it, but a few other girls I was friends with had the same thing or one of a different color. Apparently in 1988 it was the "hot" item as far as prom dresses go.

Now, I have to wonder, why did my mom allow her 14-year old daughter to wear this? Did I complain? Cry? Say something stupid about her hating me and not letting me dress like a bubbled hussy? And she just gave up and let me have it? Or was it not even an issue? Was she just glad that I wanted to wear something feminine?

I'm 34 now and I can't imagine wearing this to an event (not that I'll be hitting any proms soon, Mateo's only 11 months old). If I wanted to wear this, I'd definitely have to have a jacket or sweater or something to cover up. And from what I remember, I had neither when I was just a skinny youngin'.

I'm sure my mom will have some input on this matter. I think I wore this dress in to a high school dance as well. I guess that makes me a Jr. High and High School hussy.