Babies! Now, with more BABY.

My cousin and his wife are now the parents of twins. Twins. That's right. Not one, but two babies.

Double the cute. Half the sleep.

I went to visit them for the first time in their brief two week existence last night. My cousin looks thrilled but exhausted. His wife looks exhausted but somehow...calmer? Like having two babies has taken some kind of edge off her, removed a polish so now she looks softer and more real. I don't know if that makes any sense. And this is, for the record, not saying anything derogatory about my cousin's wife pre or post babies. I like my cousin's wife. I'm just trying to describe her ineffable aura of motherhood: the way lack of sleep, lack of makeup and absolute bliss rest on a person's face. She has more freckles than I realized.

With the proper arm prop, I think I could hold a newborn forever. I am a baby person. I want to hold them, stroke their little feet, curl their tiny fists around my finger. When they're older, I want to play peek-a-boo and swing them upside down as they chortle with delight. And I no longer feel threatened (I think) by the wave of infants crashing over me from facebook and real life. Maybe a little threatened, or I would have chosen a different image than a crashing wave. Something friendler. But the wave is there. It is inevitable. I surrender to it. Go forth and multiply friends, relatives, former classmates.

Me? Some day.

In other news, it appears my roommate is dating the son of a foreign arms dealer, who is taking her to a house party/rave this weekend. I am fairly certain her life should be a reality TV show.

Best Valentine's Day EVER

Girl Roommate brought the chocolate, Boy Roommate brought us each half a dozen yellow roses, and I made an excellent dinner of Chicken Mole.

The weather is a horrible, slushy mess, but I'm inside until tomorrow afternoon, and I have many, many DVRed shows to keep me happy. I have a presentation to do on Christina Rosetti tomorrow, and I'm wildly excited about it.

Alright, maybe not the BEST- afterall, I used to throw kickin' 'Got No Lovin' parties for the single folk in undergrad. But still...

Delicious Valentine's Day.

It IS the most wonderful time of the year!

Welcome to Christmas decorating day in my apartment. It involves cursing, carols, and many mugs of glorious spiced hot cider.

Instead of cementing my tush to the red couch and my thighs to the laptop, as per usual, today, I joined my roommate on a quest for some holiday spirit.

We found it in the form of a Christmas tree lot outside of our local grocery store, where a nice hippie with a lime green van sold us a Christmas tree from Nova Scotia. A real live Christmas tree! I can't remember the last time I had one of those. So, we paid the nice hippie (who still believes in capitalism), lugged the tree home, struggled to get it into its tree stand, and decorated the suckah.

It is the most beautiful tree ever, and the smell of evergreen mixed with the smell of spiced apple cider is absolutely intoxicating.

While my roommate tackled the lights (she likes putting them on tree, I promise), I cast my eye on the rest of the apartment...

"Have you ever been to my parents' place around Christmas? It's like my Mom walks into the center of the house and vomits gold glitter onto everything. I take after her."

Last year I made those gold poinsettias into a treetop decoration.


"We are not decorating with a baby Jesus."
"But he's so cute."
"He can be baby Fred."
"How can you resist this? Look. Mary is wearing birkenstocks."

Darcy did not get into the holiday spirit, mostly because Darcy hates happiness and joy. So far she hasn't eaten any Christmas decorations yet, so that's a blessing at least.


I would like to end this blog with one of my favorite Christmas decorations, a special message from Mr. Bond:

Okay. I didn't actually kill my cat. But I think I came pretty close.

For a couple of weeks now, I have noticed that Darcy sometimes makes a wheezing sound when she breathes. I decided, instead of taking her to the vet, to monitor her, which really means I-am-so-poor-that-I-don't-get-to-go-to-the-doctor's-so-why-should-my-cat? So I monitored. And she wheezed. But she didn't seem to be getting any worse. So I wasn't too worried.

Then last night, I'm sitting on my bed, typing on my laptop and absently petting the cat, which is what cats are best for, when the wheezing started again. And as the cat wheezed and I pet her head and then her neck, I suddenly realized: this cat is over ten months old. And I have not changed her collar one bit since I got her when she was three months old.

And she's grown a lot since then. And gotten much, much fatter.

Yes, everyone. I was slowly choking my cat to death.

Not that she wanted to be saved. When I tried to take the collar off, she scratched me. And bit me. And then, when I couldn't find the collar's buckle and cut it off in a fit of desperation, she scratched and bit me some more.

But she's alive! And collar-free. Because, really, what does an indoor cat need a collar for? I only made her wear it because I didn't want to risk the possibility of her somehow getting outside and getting lost and DYING.

In other news that doesn't make me look quite so incompetent, I miss living with girls. I mean, I like boys well enough (despite previous posts that might seem to indicate the contrary), but I miss girl roommates. I need someone to chat with late at night. I need someone to help me pick out outfits when I've got nothing after thirty solid minutes in front of a mirror. I need someone to help me eat an entire pint of Ben and Jerry's in one sitting, after a crappy day at work. I need to have spontaneous Grey's Anatomy conversations over dinner. I need to be able to wander into the next room and find someone to do my hair. I need random dance parties.

And I'm tired of coming home to sports.

Beer and Brides

My new roommate and I are bonding by drinking beer and watching The Princess Bride. Because it doesn't matter if you're male or female- if you grew up in the eighties, you must love this movie.

Wesley and Buttecup solve the battle of the sexes.

We just saw the scene where Wesley fights the really big rodent. It is so just a man in an ugly suit. Doesn't matter.

Love. this. movie.

"You have six fingers on your right hand. Someone was looking for you."

Eye of Newt and Toe of Man-Who-Drank-My-Beer

I am currently sitting in my living room listening to strange Indian music with the lights dimmed and a gingerbread candle filling the room with its musky scent and faint glimmer.

I would like my new roommate to think I am a witch. Then he would no longer steal my beer.

He has been living in the house for almost a week. I just met him last night. I asked B when the new guy was moving in and was informed he already had, days ago, and he was currently upstairs.

I thought, "Cool. New guy."

Then I went into the kitchen to put my groceries away. I opened the fridge to find (cue dun-dun-duhs): my four bottles of Blue Moon were missing!

I walked back into the living room and looked at B, who was resenting my constant interruptions as he was watching the Hopkins versus UMBC lacrosse game. I said, "B. Did our new roommate who I have never met drink all my beer this weekend?"

Blooked away from the television, rather sheepishly, and said, "Yeah. I'm gonna have to talk to him about that."

No one would steal a witch's beer.

I have to go. My tuna noodle casserole is boiling and bubbling in the oven.

King Kong is King! (beat my chest and roar)

On Saturday night, I got off work hours earlier than anticipated and went to see King Kong with my sisters. It was my youngest sister's first legal PG-13 movie in a movie theater. We were all so proud.

I later told my roommate that "King Kong is the best movie I have seen all year."
He said, "Did you see Crash?"
"No." And I won't, for painful and personal reasons. Maybe next year.
"See that. Then talk to me."

I understand his point. Crash is (supposedly) a movie about race and deep societal issues. King Kong is an adventure (but it's more than that, I swear). How can they compare?

I like movies that make me think. I like movies that make me laugh. I like movies where people fall in love. Sometimes, I like movies that scare me.

What is best- and what is oh so rare- is a movie that fills me with a sense of wonder. A movie that keeps me hooked for the entire span (and Kong is over three hours long) and involved, wanting more. This hardly ever happens. This was King Kong. It was an enthralling and absorbing film. It made me fall in love. It made me cry. It made me feel.

And it had a lot about the relationship between art and real life which, as an artist, I could not resist.

Anyway, it's my number one movie recommendation of the year.

In other news...

I have most of my Christmas presents wrapped and under the tree at my parents' house. I can't put presents under the tree at my house or my roommates' dog, Carson, will eat them. Mmmm. Paper and bows.

Yesterday, I experienced one of the joys of living with boys: I shaved the back of my roommate's head with a disposable razor. Just where little hairs had grown to the side and under the hair line, since his last haircut. That was special, I'll tell you.

My kitten, Darcy, has gotten fat. I call her 'fatty' all the time, in the hopes that she will develop an eating disorder and lighten up a bit. So far, no such luck. No wonder she's fat. All she does is eat and lie on my bed all day. She kind of has my dream life.

Anyway, I got Darcy some new cat litter, which is all natural and comes in nuggets that dissolve into sawdust when you add cat pee. Real high tech. Darcy hates it. She has been showing her displeasure by peeing in the box (thank god, now we can have sawdust) and pooping on the rug in front of her litterbox. But Darcy is smart. So whenever she poops, she folds up the rug over the poop. Like she's burying it in her box.

But yesterday, oh glorious day of days, she started to poop in the box again. Woohoo!

In less poopy news, today is cookie day at the office. One of our quieter employees bring in a dazzling array of black bottoms and chocolate chip and gingerbread and any Christmas cookie you could ever imagine wanting, and we all eat them and get fat.

I love the holidays!