Friday, February 27, 2015

Little known scientific facts



  1. Babies show their love by repeatedly spitting up on you.
  2. Based on above baby factoid: I am loved an infinite and unrelenting amount.
  3. Three year olds really hit their octave sweet spot after nap time on Friday afternoons.
  4. On Fridays, 3:30 pm (the end of nap time) until back up arrives (ie Dan) is equal to one day on Venus (116 Earth days, 18 minutes).






(SERENITY NOW!)

Monday, February 23, 2015

An end to the season

Well, its done. Award season is over. Despite last night's Oscars valiant attempt to keep them burning like an Olympic torch for all of time (12:15am, y'all. REALLY?), movie and television award season is kaput until August.

I like award shows (as shown by all the restraint I show on Facebook during one). I like a good host with a funny opening monologue (Tina and Amy forever!) or an elaborate song and dance number (Neil Patrick Harris obviously, but I'm partial to Jimmy Fallon's 62nd Emmy's opener, too). I like seeing the winner of a category hoof it up to the stage after being sat approximately three miles away from the front because nobody thought they would win. I like trying to figure out just what exactly was going through the head of the person who pairs up presenters.  I like the unbridled joy on someone's face as they leap from their chair to accept an award that probably means nothing, but maybe might mean something. I like wondering how many times Leo can lose before he can't take it anymore and pulls a Kanye (I give it one more year before all hell breaks loose). I like a room full of people eating tacos and drinking beer, teasing and cajoling each other as ballots are made and broken with unexpected wins and loses (Don't act like you don't have award show taco/ballot parties. Oh, you don't? No, me either).

Sometimes the show is crappy. Or boring. Or weirdly unexplainable (why is Lady Gaga singing a Sound of Music medl--HOLY CRAP IS THAT JULIE ANDREWS BE STILL MY HEART) Or full of self righteous, self congratulatory industry ninnies (okay, there's never not any of that). But sometimes, sometimes its good, y'all. Its Jamie Foxx lifting up his Oscar to thank his late grandmother teary eye good. Its Ellen DeGeneres coming out in a Bjork swan dress, trying to make a country laugh after 9/11 good. Its Sally Fields "You like me! You really like me!" good. Its a snapshot, grab bag of a year in pop culture and I love it. 


(But seriously, Oscars. SO LONG. Rein it in, man)

Sunday, February 15, 2015

When Easy Love is Hard




This guy, y'all. I have loved this guy for ten quick years.

Besides breathing, I have never done anything for ten years. And even that I can only manage to do because I don't have to think about it (except now. Now I'm thinking about it).

Loving this man has been the easiest and hardest thing I've ever done. Easiest because he is a good man. Like, saint level good. He is kind and faithful, a top level dad, funny, and has a legendary heart. The smartest thing I ever did as a seventeen year old was say yes to an ice cream date that lasted for four hours while I waited for him to tell me what his mom, my mom, and four of our friends had already told me. He has loved me fiercely and without doubt or hesitation. To be loved like that, to be loved Right, is the easiest thing I've ever done.

Except when its the hardest. Hardest because...well, being loved by someone who loves you Right is sometimes hard. Its hard because it shakes you to your core. It cracks you open and scoops out your insides. And in the midst of those soul altering, heart eye emoji moments, you're also faced with vulnerability. And selfishness. And greed. Or at least I am. I've got those in spades (cause I'm a GEM). And being loved by this man means I have to deal with those things. I have to face them and cut them down so that they don't cut us down. Sometimes I get it right. Sometimes I destroy those death bombs quick like I am freaking Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Most times, though? Most times I kick and scream my way through that nonsense (again, see above, "GEM"). I have to die to my selfishness, my greed. I have to be vulnerable in an Earth shattering, terrifying way. I have, have, have to, or else the Right is wasted. It's wasted on a shallow, petty recipient. And that would be harder to bear than the hardest.

I have been loved by this guy for ten quick years. And it has made all the difference.

Friday, February 13, 2015

Michigan: A Frozen Mitten to the Face

I live in northern Michigan, in an area surrounded by trees and lakes and so much nature you're in danger of running over it at every turn (I'm looking at you, fancy free and footloose deer). But right now I currently live in northern Michigan in February. If you didn't just metaphorically clasp your pearls and cross yourself you've either A) never been in Michigan in February (or December. Or January. or sometimes May), or B) are one of those rare unicorns who enjoys frigid temperatures, shoveling your driveway only to have the plow man come by and push it all back in, and driving in conditions where you can't see five feet in front of you. If you chose option B, kudos to you! I don't know how we'll work out our differences enough to be friends, but kudos, Snow Warrior. 

In northern Michigan, the weatherman says things like, "If you think today was cold, just wait until tomorrow!" Why, Weatherman? Why you gotta play me that way? I did think today was cold. I will think it again tomorrow. I will think it again until its 50° out wherein we the people of northern Michigan will declare it warm and collectively we will start wearing shorts and swimming in Lake Superior. Don't patronize me, Weatherman. I'm an adult who CHOOSES to live in northern Michigan. I know what cold is. 

In northern Michigan, you spend your winters desperately scanning Facebook for friends who made it out of this frozen hell for a vacation in some place warm and magical (or Florida). You live vicariously through them as they post the current temp every seven minutes and Instagram themselves staring squinty eyed into this beautiful, foreign object called, "the Sun." (I should be clear that this feeling is not extended to those who managed to move and permanently escape the frozen tundra. Yes, you're somewhere warm! Yay, we're happy for you! But once you start posting beach photos with captions like, "Its so hot here! Sorry, Michiganders! ;) ;) ;) ;)" while we're in the middle of our fifth blizzard of the season, forgetting from whence you came, all bets are off. Vacationers have to come back. They'll come back to negative temps and through the grace of God maybe they'll let us touch their hand in hopes of feeling the faint memory of warmth. Movers MOVED. Have some compassion. Don't kick us while we're already flailing around on the ice.)

I live in northern Michigan. An area that subdues you with her beauty and occasionally (read: six to nine months out of the year) places her icy Elsa like hand around your neck and squeezes. And I'm friggin' COLD.     


Tuesday, February 10, 2015

Being Faithful to The Tug

I am writing this from a dirty living room. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is on the TV and two little girls keep asking me if I just saw/heard/memorized every single second of said show. A baby is sleeping in the next room, laundry is piled high next to the washer, and the dog keeps laying his head directly onto my laptop.