mommy dearest

I forget how it all happened, but somehow my mother insisted on being here for the first few weeks after the baby is born and I agreed. Big mistake. Last night, she told me, "Oh, I'll teach you how to be clean." What kind of messed up statement is that? Sure, the last time my mother was here, I was messy. I didn't know how to cook anything that didn't require me to pull it out of the microwave half-way and stir, or how to get stains out of fabric. And the time she was here before that, my ex had just moved out and he was worse than I was. I mean, he was a grown man who came into tube socks and then *left them lying around*. But it's different now. I'm 23 and I cook chili and scrub the floors and get excited when I save 31 dollars at Albertsons. I have a husband who wears a bandana when he cleans!

But that doesn't matter to her. This is the woman who bagged up all my thong underwear because according to her, "You'll be cold!" Like I don't wear anything other than that.

Well, now I do.

Relief in sight

I'm glad the Winter Olympics is almost over because it's brought out the worst in me. I want to see people fall, flip, and miss landings. Besides, I hate the word slalom.

It's pronounced tar-zhay

So I registered for baby stuff at Target and I asked my sister to read through it.

Bobb: Oh, Mom doesn't agree with the diaper genie.

Me: Why? Is it not Catholic?

Bobb: She doesn't agree with the tub, either.

Me: Good. Make a list of every thing Mom doesn't like so I can add it to the list and she can't say anything.

I wish I knew how to quit you

My brother just called me to ask 1) if I have a VCR and 2) would I tape The Bachelor and send it to him. He said it was for his wife, Cathy. Since they were celebrating their one-year anniversary, they had forgotten to set the VCR. Right. What a scam. I can see right through this. I'll send the tape all right. Along with some hot man-on-man porn. Any suggestions?

"You know how I know you're gay?"

is how my brother-in-law begins most conversations. This is what he said today:

Him: How's the baby doing?

Me: He's fine. He kicks a lot.

Him: Well kick him back. I don't want him to become a tulip.

witchy woman

Me: My mom says that after I give birth, she wants to make me eat food like chicken soup with stewed chicken and hard-boiled eggs.

Mike: So now you're half-Catholic, half-voodoo?

shoot me. this is hell.

Hello world--
I am sitting at the only available computer in this lab next to a gentleman whose smell I can only describe as "OLD MAN". He's coughing dust! Send help.

go hawks

Since it's less than six hours to kick-off, and most people are in front of their rented-projection screen tv's or other game day accoutrement, I figure I should say something about sports. I love it. I love football since my husband loves and breathes football and therefore, my osmosis, I do. There are some women who become "football widows" and chat with the other wives while their men high-five and slap their bellies.

Unlike I began seeing Mike, no one I had ever dated shown an interest in sports. One guy even said, "Oh, if I ever opened up a bar, it would only play classical music." (And who would ever want to be in such a snotty bar like that? Fraiser Crane?)

But Mike demystifies baseball, basketball and football. He invites questions and answers every one patiently, even when I get the names, teams, or combinations of both wrong. His brain is like a sponge. I poke its wet, soggy layer and out comes, "Mike Ditka and Tom Flores are the only two men to win a Super Bowl both as a player and a coach."

Sports have played a great part in our relationship. He proposed to me at a Storm game. We bonded over the time I jumped up over a bad call at a Seahawks game and yelled at the Field Judge, "What does 'FJ' stand for? Fucking Joke?!?" Mike falls asleep listening to KJR Sports Talk radio and it's the first thing he listens to in the morning. At one of the KJR AM's Gros with Gas-a-thons we attended, I got drunk and went up to sports guru John Clayton and said, "My fiance thinks you're a genius."

This has all been a way for me to say that today's our four-year-anniversary and I've got to clean. It's the Super Bowl, after all.

in utero, in retro

Until I became pregnant, I didn't know anything about pregnancy. I've always known how to *make* babies, but what happens afterward was in retrospect, a dark, cavernous mystery. I've been around my pregnant sisters, friends, neighbors, teachers, and yet I never knew this joyous, draining, infuriating and confusing process. This isn't like the time Mike found me in the grocery aisle, staring at the ground beef because no one had ever told me how to purchase red meat before (specifically, my mother) even though I've been a meat eater for most of my life. I didn't ask, so I never knew more than what everyone figures about pregnancy: sex makes a baby, a pregnant woman gets morning sickness, a pregnant woman eats for two (tables, sometimes), and a baby arrives and cries, poops, and eats a lot.

Most of the time, I wonder, "How do people do it?" They just do. Because I am one of those people, I have a conscious need to judge other mothers and pray to God that my son doesn't become like that one kid who collapsed into a crying heap floor in the cereal aisle because his mom said no to Coco Puffs or that one girl at the restaraunt who spent the entire meal with one finger up her left nostril. And if my son ever does any of these things, dear Lord, don't let it last long. Let me have that Mary Popppins magic to quell temper tantrums and keep fingers where they belong.

I've been doing an independent study with the creative writing director and at our last session, I said, "What if my son hates me?"

"Of course he will!" She laughed. "Didn't you hate your parents?"

She had a point. I did terrible things out of spite. But we all did that, right? Didn't we all sneak out of our rooms and flee to some teenage clandestine party? Didn't we know what combination of words would transform our calm parents into some mega-mothra-beast? Didn't we set fire to our outside trash can, dump water on it in a panic and later claim no responsibility? Didn't we smuggle Asian poppy plants in the bellies of puppies because our parents wanted us to get a job? Okay, maybe that was just me.

So far, my unborn son has been good to me. So far.

Almost makes me want to do laundry

I would probably need a bigger box for this.

Naked man steps in front of pickup on Interstate 90, dies

This is probably the best hook I've read in a long time. Maybe it's the rain.

NORTH BEND � A naked man, struck and killed on Interstate 90 just west of Snoqualmie Pass early today, was the owner of three McDonald's fast-food restaurant franchises in Ellensburg.