Note to the Rabbit and Those Mean Kids
Not one to give out advice willy-nilly, I find myself yearning and busting at the seams to speak my mind. I hate you humans in the Trix commercials! Be nice! Share. You make me sad to be the same race as you. There are more than enough Trix cereal nuggets for everyone. Don’t you think the Rabbit has paid his dues? Perhaps it’s his turn to eat the cereal that will rot his teeth. Can’t you think about someone else for a change? Eat a banana.
And, Rabbit. Dagnabit, be a man and take the Trix if you want them. Assert yourself. Stand up and be strong. Acknowledge your self-worth. Demand what is yours and take your share of cereal. I think you will find that you, and they, will be glad you created boundaries that are healthy for you. No more passive-aggressive behavior where you dress up as a woman and tuck your ears down to try and trick them into letting you eat. Be the best most real bunny you can be. Alternately, you could also learn to love bananas.
It’s what we call a win-win.
Things I Have No Patience For
The lid on the hair gel that takes extra-human strength to pop open. Or the door jam. Or a pair of pliers. None of these things works on a regular basis to open the gel, so all may or may not be employed daily.
Tweezers that no longer work well because they have been opening hair gel lids. When I squeeze your two ends together, meet up and tweeze already.
Coffee filters that stick together before I’ve had my coffee. See the never ending circle of sad there?
Sweaty exercise equipment at the gym. Sweat that has dripped out of another’s pores. I don’t want to touch it. Please?
Zits.
Cell phones with no speaker.
No matching socks. All I want is a pair of matching socks. Where oh where have you gone, matches? My feet long for you.
Look, It's Me
Just can’t get enough photos of me, can you?
Kumquats
I eat them whole. These are from our awesome friend, Susan, in San Diego.
Joe
He’s feeling insecure and missing me. We are going through a rough patch. He keeps posting photos of me. In some of them I look a little weird. In this one, I look drunk or stoned but I wasn’t either. And in this one, my hair has grown to such large proportions that they kicked me out of Utah and then made me leave the country. Germany was glad to have me. I got a new guitar! And, look at Alex! And Tony! And Devon! (Where’s Tyler?)
Joe is a good guy. He’s really working on his Stuff. And Stuff is hard to work on. Whatever happens, he’s going to be more Joe than he’s ever been.
And, I love him.
The Story of the Ants and the Scary Exterminator, A Bedtime Story
Ants. Little black ants that march all over the house, very importantly, as if they are doing a job that requires respect. They help themselves to the honey and the corn cereal and the graham crackers with an air of entitlement. Not just that, but they spread the word and not only take and devour what they want, they invite friends. Hundreds and hundreds of them. Which just aren’t good manners, in my opinion.
I see a couple, deep in love, strolling over my pant leg as I sit on the couch typing to you, dear reader. I see them in the bathrooms, all of them, going for a jog around the rim of the sinks. One place they regard as Mecca is a particular plant in the master bath. He is a smallish quiet plant, not much to proclaim. Minds his own business and just, you know, grows at his own pace. He whispered to me that he had no designs of grandeur and was not initially inclined to receive the ants accolades, yet felt pressured to become Great on their behalf seeing as the greatness was not up to him to assign to himself but was instead to be graciously accepted. However, he asked to be taken outside due to the fact that the ants had created large caverns throughout his root system and had begun to set in motion plans to procreate on a larger scale than our home had ever seen. We acquiesced.
After the loss of our plant, and after finding out that some of the ant armies had taken up marching around my camera and headphones, which was a clear intention of war seeing as how there was no food to be had inside the electronics, so it was not for sustenance on any front but instead a clear call to the line drawn in the sand and could be taken no other way, I was forced to call The Exterminator.
He showed up, sniffling and sneezing due to allergies he said, but I think we all know you can’t work with poison all day for years and not have it cause some kind of affect. Which brings me to his blue, wild eyes that remind me I’m glad to have locks on the door late in the evening. Here is a picture by Edward Gorey, which effectively shows his look:
The Exterminator went through the house, swooshing poison into the power outlets and behind the furniture at random. He asked us how we had enjoyed the Reagan Library that afternoon, which is a clear indication of how lacking in judgment he truly was for we had not been there. Also (and I use this purely as an illustration of his lack in brain power because I’m not complaining, per se, because I, in fact, benefited from the result and hate to stare a gift horse in the mouth) he gave us the senior citizen discount.
Happy to see him leave, we stood at the door and waved, hoping that the still wet poison along the floorboards wouldn’t cause us too much distress and wished him well in finding a good pair of sunglasses to cover the glare of his eyes and also a fresh prescription of Claritin.
In conclusion, I must confess that I’m torn in my opinion of using poison in the house, seeing as it is POISON but also how the ants are gone and I can leave a bowl of popcorn on the side table for 10 minutes while watching I Heart Huckabees and not have it carried away by ants en masse. It isn’t my first choice to obliterate an entire insect family (which actually remains to be seen and there may be an unplanned sequel to this story) and I feel sad about that. But, and this is a plea to the ants themselves, please stay outside and we will come and have picnics at your place next time.
Healthcare Debate
Absolutely fascinating debate between Malcolm Gladwell (Blink) and Adam Gopnik, both writers for The New Yorker, regarding healthcare systems in the US, Canada and France.
via Kottke
UPDATE: On Malcom’s own blog:
But wait! That was six years ago! I’ve now changed my mind. I now agree with virtually everything Adam said and disagree with virtually everything I said. In fact, I shudder when I read what I said back then.
Holy Carthedral Automobile, Batman!
The Woman. The Myth. The Legend.
Rebecca Caldwell and Carthedral. You have to see it to believe it.
Q: Is anything about you normal?
A: Yes. In fact I am so normal, I have become ultra-normal, hyper-normal, and meta-normal. I am so human, it hurts.
M. Hughes Casa Retreat
Located in the beautiful San Diego area, is the home of a dear friend of mine, Mickele, whose name is pronounced Michael, not Mickallee, even though she is, in fact, a female. She invited me to her home for the weekend where we drank lemon tea with honey, watched movies with her cat who has so many names it’s hard to pick just one, but for the sake of this post I’ll call her Peanut Butter, which isn’t one of her names but I think it suits her. We had pedicures and ate dinner out at the Yellow Coyote Tortilla Factory and went to the bookstore where I proceeded to spend an exorbitant amount of money on books like ‘How to Live with Intention’ and ‘Don’t Be Such an Idiot.’ (I may have made up that last title.) We talked. And talked. And also, we talked. And it was the absolute wonderfullest weekend I could ever have had right now. Mike has a way of being supportive yet neutral. She listens to me go on and on about the same dang thing for hours and still nods her head like she’s listening. Because she is! And caring! And she loves me and also Joe. She knows us both very well and so when I tell her that I have no idea how to move forward, she just nods and holds my hand until I figure out how to do it. Because I can do. I just forget.
I don’t know much. But I know a little. I know I have to do the hard thing first. Doing the hard thing. sigh Yes, well, it’s hard. Otherwise it would be called the easy thing. Or the thing least likely to offend or require effort. Or the comfy thing. Hey. I want the comfy thing. However, the hard thing is most likely to have the biggest payoff. It’s the thing that means the most later and the thing you keep thanking yourself for choosing to do and God for helping you do. Doing the hard thing requires concentration and remembering and continued effort. It’s always looking for what is hiding so that you don’t miss it when you fall into old patterns. We actually do have to live with intention. Or we don’t. And our lives just kind of happen to us. And usually not in the way we hoped or wished. And the people we live with and call family deserve to have us trying to be our best. They deserve a life with someone living their authentic life and not someone just sludging through the day. They deserve attention! and support! and love! and a continued effort! to come together and teamize. But there is simply no way to do that TEAM thing until you have a good start on the ME thing. That I know.
So here is to change. And living authentically. And continuing even though it’s hard. I’m cautiously optimistic.
And now for photos!!
Here is our dinner table:
Here is Mike at Pannikin in front of the giant portrait of Marilyn Monroe:
And here she is trying to bite the entire universe she was so hungry:
Good thing her breakfast of scrambled eggs that they steam cook using the esspresso machine came:
And here she is demonstrating great empathy:
This wildly swinging heart hangs from her rearview mirror:
And here is a pillow that shows how OCD I can really be. It has nothing to do with anything else in this entry, but I thought you’d like to see it.
Dear Internet,
Your letters, emails and comments have been amazing. Thank you.
I’m taking the weekend off. Please come back next week for an update.
Sincerely,
(and with xoxoxo)
leahpeah
So – Really?
I’ve gone through some growing pains with this blog. It started out as just a way to stay in touch with my kids when we were living about 300 miles away from each other. About the time I realized that they weren’t reading it that much, I figured out that I really loved writing in here and I wanted to keep writing even if they didn’t read it or if no one read it. I loved writing out what I was feeling and it helped me process all the stuff going on in my day. And then I started doing interviews.
The interviews I do with people are really there because I’m selfish and I want to know what drives other people. I’m fascinated by people. What makes them tick? Why do they do what they do? What makes them what they are? When I find someone that I’m interested in, I pester them until they agree to let me poke them in the brain. Usually it works. Sometimes it doesn’t. Either way is fine, but of course I prefer the former. And if you enjoy them – Great! But I don’t do them every day or even every week. Sometimes I write about just plain’ol me.
So, I can’t really explain it, but now I find myself in the position of lame email stalkers, wonderful loyal readers, casual drive-bys and various family members. Some of those people want to tell me what I should write about and what I should not write about. Some of them think that because they have been reading me for years, that in some way they own a piece of this online persona and they should get to weigh in their thoughts about what goes on here. Well, I have to say to them: sorry, but no. I respectfully decline your offer to tell me what I can and can’t write about. This online persona is attached to a real person – me. I have feelings and thoughts and emotions all my own and they are ME and REAL and will continue to dominate no matter how you feel.
There is this pressure to keep things light and funny and witty. I can do that some of the time but other times I’m depressed, or sad or something bad happened and I want to talk about it. And I can! Because this is my space! Like the past week or two have been insanely hard. The business is growing and we have clients that want work done and not enough people and time to do it. And Joe is going through some major stuff and regrets getting married to me. And there is a divorce looming. And my kids are sad. And I cut my finger really deep. And my ovaries hurt. And things basically suck. So, where can I talk about that if not here? And the minute I think about writing it all out, I get another email from someone asking why I write about mental illness when I can be so funny at other times. Well, guess what? I’ll write about whatever I want to write about. And there are so many blogs out there in the world that I’m sure you can find something that you might like more. So – go. Or stay. Or do whatever. But if you decide to stick around and hate what I write – don’t tell me. I don’t care. Just wait a few days and I’ll have a new interview up or I’ll write about something cute the kids said or post a new photo. It happens. I swear.
Coronado Beach
New panorama. I like it.
Olympic Coverage
I get asked 6 or 7 times a day if I’m watching the Olympics and what I think about the Olympics and if I’m enjoying the Olympics. I’ve been so half-hearted about the entire thing since it started, what with the funky intro music selections and the entire odd opening ceremonies. But watching the actual coverage has been so HARD for me but I wasn’t sure why until I read Matt H.’s take on it. I agree with his opinion. I would so enjoying watching the raw satellite feeds of each event online instead of the crappy hollywoodized tv coverage.
Haircuts for Life
Did I tell you about where I get my haircut? From the gentleman that is about 80 and has very shaky hands? They call him Barber Joseph, he’s from England and ever so very sweet. Getting a cut from him is so exciting. Will he cut my neck open? Snip off my ear? Seriously make my hair straight on the side? Give me an eighties-style cut? It’s better than just about any roller coaster and more thrilling than a scary movie. I went again today and while I sat in that chair with a sharp, spiky implement gyrating haphazardly near my ear, listening to Barber Joseph natter on about his kids and grandkids and who’s in baseball and who doesn’t visit enough, I wondered why it is that I come to see him when my very life is in danger as he presses my head to the side, exposing a long swatch of soft neck skin where he might impale me with very pokey, slanted scissors.
It’s because I love him. He is wonderful and caring and British, and who doesn’t love to listen to a British accent? No one. And you can tell by the way he speaks about his family that he loves them all so much. I think it gives me an idea of how great it could be to age to 80 and still be useful and have a full life. And, oddly enough and defying all probability laws, I’ve always left with all of my pieces of skin unpunctured. And my hair always look so great! He’s been cutting hair for 50 years and his snips are always so decisive and sure once the scissors touch the hair strands. Yes, the scissors orbit the planet that is my head, sometimes dipping dangerously close, and the comb frequently jabs my scalp in a most uncomfortable manner and I have to stop myself from flinching because it hurts him to think he might have hurt me and then I feel worse. (how is that for codependent?) But most likely, in 6 weeks, I’ll be back in his chair with adrenaline flowing full speed in my veins wondering if this is the time he will chop off my ear. Bonus: he gave me his home phone number and said to call him anytime. Yowza.
Internet, I Turn to You
The business is going really well. In fact, so well, we could use help. Isn’t there someone(s) out there that wants to do programming for us and is worth their weight in bits?
Here is the ad we are running:
Crawberts.com, a web development company, is hiring 2 programmers with at least 30 hours a week to devote to our projects.
Must have recommendations.
Must be good with deadlines and communication.
Must: PHP/MySQL, JavaScript, HTML
Desired: Ruby on Rails, web development skills
Please include example links along with your role in developing them with your info.
Contact: Please email us at jobs AT crawberts DOT com
And I’d just like to add: please! don’t be a flake. Look – I really don’t care where you live. That is the beauty of the WWW. I can be here, you can be there, and we can work together fine using lots of fine internet tools that people have created just for people like us. I just want you to 1) know your stuff as well as you say you do, 2) have been around long enough to have done some work for other people that you (and they) are proud of, 3) know yourself well enough to tell me an accurate ballpark of when you will deliver good code to me, 4) let me know as soon as YOU know you won’t be delivering said code on time, 5) have a stellar work ethic and 6) feel like integrity is one of the most important things in life.
Here is what we offer:
Freedom to work from your house in your underwear or pajamas if you want.
Freedom to work from our house, but please at least wear pants. Or not. And next year, we’ll throw in an office location to pick from as well!
Totally flexible work schedule.
Unlimited growth. Seriously.
Unlimited job titles. Except for Co-Founder because that one is taken, twice.
No Causal Fridays with optional/mandatory bad Hawaiian shirts.
An opportunity to be a part of a great company.
I’ve never been prouder of anything I’ve been a part of than this company, with the exception of my kids, because who/what can top that? Nothing. So, seriously, email me. But don’t call me unless I ask you to. Because that shows you can follow direction well. And I like that in an employee.
Avoiding the Meme
I’ve been tagged a few times for the 4 things meme but not done it because hey! I’m the one that interviews people, not the other way around, right? And, isn’t it dead already?
But now, in true leahpeah fashion, here is my attempt to participate.
4 jobs I never want to have:
gas station tiolet cleaner
cloth diaper washer
contruction worker that has to hold the slow/stop sign
a contestant on american idol
4 movies with Drew Barrymore:
Never Been Kissed
Ever After
The Wedding Singer
Mad Love
4 people I can’t stop listening to:
Feist
Imogen Heap
Coco Rosie
Seu Jeorge
4 dishes I’ve made that have created illness:
some casserole thing with beef and fruit
an apple pie made with salt instead of sugar
undercooked thanksgiving turkey
egg salad sandwiches
4 sites I visit every single freakin’ day:
kottke
metafilter
waxy
gofugyourself
4 reasons to get out of bed in the morning/afternoon (whatever):
my kids
flowers
television
work
4 things I wish I never would have said:
‘Yes. I absolutely know that is true.’
‘If that isn’t reason enough, do it for me.’
‘When is your baby due?’
‘Just get that back to me whenever.’
4 things I tell myself every day/night:
Do the hard thing first.
I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and doggone it, people like me.
I’m doing a great job.
Walk away from the cake/donut/french fries/bread/carb
4 things my kids do that make me laugh:
Devon: tells me when he’s going to use the toilet. He’s 17.
Alexandra: looks at herself in the visor mirror and makes pig faces
Tyler: grabs my leg when I go up the stairs
Anthony: asks me where the cheese went. (I don’t know)
Assorted Photos
I suddenly love hood ornaments and want to find as many as I can.
Tony at the science fair. He didn’t win a blue ribbon.
I can’t get enough of playing with my camera.
Ring, Ring
If I was into ringtones, which I’m not, because I really think a phone should just, you know, ring, then I would so get this one from Project Runway. I think Joe has a crush on Tim. Heck, I have a crush on Tim.
And while we’re talking about cell phones, I had the same phone for the past 3.5 years, which in phone years is 24. It didn’t do anything except, you know, call people. The numbers were rubbed off in places. The silver coating had been worn down and you could see the hard plastic skeleton underneath because I dropped my phone probably about 924 times. The math equation looks like this: 12*3.5*N = 924 where N is the number of phone drops per month. A few times in the trash on accident and once on purpose when the ringer kept not working and I missed some important calls. And a few times in the gutter and on the ground outside the car. And twice in the toilet. And once in a puddle. At one point it kept shutting off on me at random moments, sometimes while talking to people that I didn’t want to talk to so it wasn’t that big a deal but after the time it shut off when I was talking to someone I DID like, I shoved a little piece of cardboard in next to the battery and that held it in place. Until I dropped it in the toilet that last time and the cardboard expaned and shredded.
(more…)
New Stuff
When I did the new blog design, I included photos from my old website format into the blog format. My plan is to at some point completely get rid of the old site. All of the photos were uploaded to my flickr account into new sets.
Here are some of the new pages:
I have yet to amass the energy to flickerize all the photos from my old photos site.
And just for fun, here is a new one of Olivia Rex. I love the smart hat and bangs.
And one of tulips.
Fiona Apple with Zach Galifianakis
I never would have out them together. But, why not? You might recognize Zach from Late Night with Zach on VH1 a few years ago. Or from Comedians of Comedy from Comedy Central. When I watch him, he always makes me feel like I’m getting to know new friends, we were having a lovely conversation which suddenly turned uncomfortable because the wife mentioned her husband’s nose picking and porn habit, the husband ‘jokes’ back that she spends twice the budget buying crap on TV, and I wish I could have left just four minutes earlier yet I’m compelled to stay and see what happens. He has photos on his website that crack me up.
Here is the Not About Love video. I am truly in love/awe of Fiona Apple’s creativity.
Unrelated Ramblings
We bought an almost 20-year-old Volvo today. While Alison* and I were waiting in the gentleman’s living room for him to get some of the paperwork together, I glanced up to a shelf along the far wall. In the center spot, which is normally reserved for a trophy, your child’s gilded shoe or photo of Aunt Matilda, there was a wilted cardboard box with bold, black lettering on the side. It read:
FRESH
CURLS
POO.
Well, once I’ve seen a thing, I can’t just unsee it. So I had to keep looking at it and trying not to giggle. Then I mouthed it to Alison when the guy’s back was to me and pointed and waved at the box. And then I felt 13, hormonal, and begged myself to stop, but did I? No. I never listen. Instead, I drove myself crazy with the idea of blurting it out loud to the man. ‘FRESH CURLS POO?? Really?? Your CURLS are FRESH and POO? POO?’ At which point I realized I no longer felt 13. No, I felt 3 with a major chance at ruining my perfect potty-training chart with a sad, empty spot sans sticker for today if I didn’t get it under control. And so I did get it under control. But as soon as we left and had the chance, we both looked at each other and laughed and yelled out loud. It was almost a Laverne & Shirley moment.
On the way home, the bumper sticker of the car in front of me said:
Bringing Friends and Fun Together.
Square Dancing = FUN.
I don’t think I have much to say about that except – ok.
The Office is one of my favorite shows. I love the BBC version as well, but the US version has Steve Carell. From last week:
Michael (Steve): We are just going to sit here until someone comes forward or you are all under punishment.
Pam: What kind of punishment?
Michael: Time Out! You’re all in time out!
My son worked on the LAB portion of his science report over the weekend. His idea = pit a mouse and rat against each other in a race for food and see which one is faster. The twist? First train them both to recognize a color and link it to food intake. He created a maze (and I use the term maze loosely because it was in essence a large box with four horse stalls on one end) and put large swatches of color at the end of each of them. The problem? He didn’t take the time to color-train them, which may be fine because I don’t think they are color-trainable due to the fact that rodents are color blind. He wanted to do a week’s worth of races, one per day, which became seven races in one day which became three races in one hour which finally became no races of any kind and more of a food-fest where the rodents hung out in the middle of the box and ate sunflower seeds, peanut butter and cheese together while speaking of politics and religion. After watching them gorge themselves, my son decided to just make up the results and call it a day. If I was one of those conscientious parents, I would have made sure he actually did the science experiment the way he had originally outlined and told him under no circumstances could he just make up the results. And when I mentioned that to him, he calmly told me that science is not, in fact, facts but more hypotheses and conclusions. I just hope his teacher takes that in to account when she reads his conclusion that the rat was trained better to the red color than the mouse was, thereby making him the winner of the race tourney. His graphs turned out fantastic.
*Go listen to Alison’s new song, A Boy and a Bird.
