THE GRASS IS ALWAYS SOMEWHAT GREENER LOOKING IN THE RIGHT LIGHT IF YOU SQUINT…Two years ago I thought to myself, “Self, what you really need is a job.  A job to pull you out of this funk and make you feel like yourself again, talk to grown-ups, be part of adult life outside the home and all that.  Now here it is, June 2007, and I have a job that started innocently enough  – part time, in my field of expertise, no commute to speak of, flexible.  And then it morphed into this full time behemoth of a stress monster that makes me have nightmares about things like fiscal close.  FISCAL CLOSE!!!  That is just not right.  Forgetting to wear pants to school is a normal nightmare.  Being in your house and looking for the forgotten room is a normal nightmare.  Dreaming about fiscal close is not a normal nightmare.  It’s being awake while you’re asleep – and not getting paid. 

And yet I continue.  Thrive, to outward appearances.  Dominate even.  Kick friggin’ ass on some special days.  Then go home and spank ass because I am so stressed out.  I wish I had a vice that helped me relax.  I need more slacker and less go-getter.

The friends I had, I no longer see.  The kids I have, I see when I am depleted or on my way somewhere else.  And yet I know it’s maybe better than the not working. 

What’s a gal to do.

Still here.
Kim (Madame Luke to You)

Madame Luke at the De Young visiting Vivienne’s bustles…

Madame Luke (aka Wild Kim crica 1984)…

The wheel of life or my hamster wheel…something keeps me going.

My friend likes dogs.  In theory.  He likes the Frisbee-catching, tennis-ball-chasing and bandana-wearing.  He likes the come-when-I-call-you and the tongue-flapping-in-the-wind-out-the-window-of-the-car.  But he becomes irate at the chewing.  “Why would any animal chew on a rock (bike helmet/moldy sponge/support beam of a house)!!” He doesn’t understand that it feels good (apparently) and “that” (i.e. the chewing), is essentially what dogs do.  Look at the teeth.  Teeth chew.  Teeth like that aren’t truly meant for quaint companionship, bay-window-in-the-afternoon-sun kind of lolly gagging.  Teeth like that are meant to hunt, catch, kill and chew, be it gopher, quail or Wilson pro tennis ball (or, most recently, the left half of a still functioning pair of children’s gym shoes.)  He (my friend) is also visibly annoyed and wholly embarrassed by the public defecating and urination (on the part of the dog).  He is especially put off by the essential good-boy kudos that follow during clean-up. “My god,” he says, “look at that thing, what the hell are you feeding him!?”  Just dog food, I explain, with a side of my favorite geraniums.

Upon deeper inspection I would say my friend really wants, nee, yearns to be the type of guy who likes dogs.  The carefree jeep-driving-down-vest-wearing carefree fella who always smells vaguely of bonfire.  But in actuality, I believe what he really likes is Air Bud.  Or the Shaggy D.A.  Dogs with the secondary characteristics of humans.  Above average humans.  Humans who can score from outside the key or can bring in a six-figure income.  Perhaps it’s safer to look for these traits in dogs rather than in fellow persons.  That, after all, would be snobbish.  But even my friend can’t deny the true draw of dogs to dog people, the sweet reward after a day, week or lifetime of unsightly landscaping, stinky car interiors and missing shoes.  Every night at exactly seven thirty-one the dog collapses next to you on the floor, half rolled over, hoping, praying in dog prayers that some part of you will just pet some part of him for ten, no, forty minutes.  And then he’s asleep dreaming about chasing birds.  Or shooting the winning basket.  Or winning that big court case.

Kim
Currently in love/hate relationship with 10 month old black lab.

CONGRATULATIONS, MADAME PELOSI, YOU THE MAN!!  or
LOOKING FORWARD TO THE HOMOSEXUAL AGENDA….

I don’t generally comment publicly on political goings-on, what with there being so many more well-informed, more opinionated, better qualified and/or louder mouths out there doing it, however, I can’t help but be slightly giddy with all of this BLUE washing over Washington last night.  I’m especially intrigued by Nancy Pelosi and her homosexual agenda.
I  didn’t get to see many of the  negative ads that referenced (ever so
subtley) that, for God’s sake, she’s from, you know, SAN FRANCISCO, and
it’s so, you know, GAY.  And there’s this implied homosexual agenda and
all.  That got me thinking, “what exactly IS a homosexual agenda and how is different that mine?”  If it’s anything like a lesbian agenda, I’m all for it, because you know The Kids in The Hall had it right – “those lesbians sure get things done.”   My agenda is loosely based on old to-do lists and the Girl Scout Law: clean the kitchen, be honest and fair,  responsible for what I say and do, eat more orange and yellow vegetables, respect myself and others, use resources wisely, make the world a better place, re-stock the earthquake supplies, don’t make a pig of yourself, be fabulous.

If there is a homosexual agenda, it probably goes something like:  make coffee, go to work, vacuum traffic areas, reform equitable human rights in local, state and federal laws, pick up dry cleaning.

If I might make a suggestion to any potential agenda committee members out there, how’s about addressing the flag issue?  I’m all over the rainbow flag.  Love it.  Embrace its symbolism.  Proper usage can be quite effective.  Witness:
 
However, maybe there should be a Rainbow oversight committee to avoid unsightly graphic uses such as:

I mean, please.  Eeew.

And someone on a committee somewhere needs to address this:

Is there a Homosexual Computer Agenda?

WHY I LOVE MY HUSBAND: REASON #3  or  OOPS I VOTED AGAIN……

This morning my dh and I were drinking coffee and looking through the newspaper coverage of yesterday’s election.  I was reading the front page, going down the list of Propositions and Measures that passed or failed and waht-have-you.  The conversation went this way:

Me:  Measure G failed
Mike: wow
Measures I and J passed
Mike: of course
Me:  all our school board people won
Mike: cool
Me: (looking at an entertainment preview below) Brittney Spears is divorcing Kevin Federline.
Mike: I voted for that
Me:  Proposition K-Fed?
Mike: Against it
Me: I love you
Mike: I know

Sigh…………………

Kim

It’s difficult to quantify the effect a fluffy blonde wig has on those around me. That is to say, my wearing the wig, not, for instance, a blonde wig laying in the middle of the street, which would in fact have a startling effect on any thinking human.  Harder still to narrow down and name the effect said wig has on me, the wearer. 

I was born a poor black child…no, wait, wrong speech. 

I was born blonde.  I was on the swim team which made me blonder (with slight tinges of green).  This faux Nordic head trimming lasted well into middle school when I naturally started turning what is referred to as “dishwater” brown.  “Dishwater.”  Not “fall turncoat” or maybe “walnut shell,” but “water in which dishes have been washed and food particles swirl and would no doubt make you puke if you were challenged by your rival to drink it.”  Dishwater. 

I started to dye my hair at the tender age of sixten.  First Elizabeth Taylor black (also known as Superman black, Elvis Black – blue black.)  I did Lucy red, color-crayon red, magenta, Big Bird yellow, Mamie Van Doren blonde, purple and many combinations of the above, but usually deferred to…Elizabeth Taylor black (with the omnipresent Bettie bangs, which are not-so-sexily also called third grade bangs in my family).

After *$&%*# years of dying my hair thusly, I decided to let it all hang out, go natural, hope for some beautiful gray (there were hints of it), and say good bye to monthly touch-ups and messes in my bathroom for good.  Growing out blonde (ish) hair from black dye jobs is very attractive.  One looks greasy, then bald, then unemployed, then unemployable (read: all of the above).  I believe it is officially step five in “letting yourself go.”  You buy more and more wonderful scarves and hope, pray if you’re that type of person, for the day that you finally look in the mirror and have a head of silver white hair.  Or salt and pepper.  Or even lemon pepper.  I didn’t.  What did I end up with?  Have you ever seen the wood chips on the ground in children’s playgrounds?  They’re not really a color.  They used to be bark color.  But they’ve been trampled and bleached by the sun and mistreated for twelve years by the feet of children and homeless people.   And maybe dogs.  I had a head full of this color.  Not a color.  A utilitarian safety feature purchased with public funds.  Mmmmmm….sexy. 

So now, naturally, I dye my hair again.  And we’re all the happier for it.  I feel better, and friends, acquaintences and new-ish people I meet don’t have to listen to me go on and on about the damned “phase” I’m going through with my hair.

I used to be blonde. Now I’m #43.

This picture, for as long as it’s up, is me at a Halloween Parade, dressed as my favorite waitress from my childhood.  She would never have settled for “dishwater” or “woodchip.”

Kim
p.s.  good to be back.   working part time now, but the kids, house, dog, bills, etc don’t seem to understand that they should only need me part time, after all it only seems fair – to me.  so i’m doing everything poorly but with great aplomb.  or a blonde wig, which passes for great aplomb in some circles.

Tonight at dinner my loving husband ate three and and a half beef sandwiches to my half.  This infuriated me.  My loving husband is six foot three and weighs in at 185 soaking wet.  I, on the other hand, am five foot seven and three-quarters and would never consider being weighed soaking wet.  In fact, I often remove my earrings and exhale completely before stepping on the scale (although do I alternate this ridiculous behaviour with days of heartfelt body-positive feelings).  So anyway, you may recall an earlier conversation we had about the fat/bald thing we have here.  (me/him)  Here is the latest installation of our lovefest:

Me (as he’s finishing my sandwich after his previous 3):  It’s really not fair that your stomach is so obviously larger, and yet mine LOOKS so much larger.

Him:  Well, it’s really all relative.  I’m a bigger person.

Me:  You’re talking about character and moral fortitude, aren’t you.

Him:  Yes.  Your fatness is a punishment.

God, I love him.

kim

(p.s.  since i don’t know how to paste a bump to a previous post, i’ll paste a conversation i put here in october 2004.  aaah…the romance burns long and strong:

WHY WE ARE STILL MARRIED. Here’s a little peek into a typical
exchange that may help others who are wondering how some couples stay
together for soooo long (12 years and counting):

Dh: Should I shave my beard?
Me: But then your head would be back to 90% bald!
Dh: I resent your attack on my being follicle challenged.
Me: Well, maybe I resent your being follicle challenged! (laughing)…Okay, now you can make a fat joke.
Dh: I resent your being a fat ass.)

DAMN IT ALL TO…well, i just spent oodles of time updating on my new job, and lots of witty remarks on the DaVince code, critique of Dan Brown’s other Robert Labgdon  book, did a Bible spoiler alert, admitted to buying a puppy named after a Grease character and why, how much weight I’ve gained, and why there’s a picture of a gecco, and firefox UNEXPECTEDLY QUIT.  so now you get grumpy me.  here at last.  did you miss me?  feh.  i had even quoted camper van beethoven.   and now i’m  all spent.

kim

MOM, THIS IS SUCKING!  I usually don’t tell cute kid stories, but sometimes they really crack me up, in the funny way, not the going-to-an-asylum way.

Tonight I was walking downtown with my kids and we stopped on the sidewalk to listen to this amazing cellist who plays there a lot.  The following exchange is absolutely true, word for word:

K (5 yrs old):  Mom, let’s go!  This is making me sad!
Me:  Really?  What kind of music makes you sad?
M (3 yrs old):  (thinking very hard, listening…) Slow music.
Me: And what kind of music makes YOU sad? (to K)
K: (emphatically, without pausing) The kind I don’t like, and that YOU DO!

It was so well-spoke, I passed out dollars for them to give the cellist and we went on our (now) merry way.

Unfortunately we later passed a saxophonist and K mentioned that he liked it – not the song he was playing, but the instrument.  Sigh…….that made me sad.  For anyone getting all twisted up and ready to defend the almighty saxamophone, let me just remind you of something:

That’s right.  Clarence Clemmons.  Think Hall & Oates.  ”Maneater.”  Most saxphone solos and/or giant loud suits from the 1980′s can be attributed to Mr. Clemmons.  Then I believe he gave them to Arsenio Hall for a second lap.  I’m not having it.  Not if I can help it.  To quote a noted sage, also hailing from the 1980′s time capsule, “New York’s all right – if you like saxophones.”  

Not to sully New York in any fashion.

Just so any still-defensive horn players or lovers know I’m not all bad, I want to make it clear that I just finished my newest iTunes playlist entitled “The Importance of Being Burt, Henry, Quincy, Herbie or Tom,” (as in Bacharach, Mancini, Jones, Mann and Alpert, and Jones again..no relation) and there’s lots of brass in all sorts of appropriate applications.  (Subtitle: “The Importance of not Being Clarence.”)  For $.25 I’ll share the list of titles, just start with the Casino Royale Theme.  Trumpets are okay by me.

Kim

(me at the Grand Canyon, where I used to store all of my opinions until it plum filled up…)

GREETINGS FROM HELL…or…SINUS INFECTION!? NOT SLOW THROBBING DEATH??!  Well, after that “how-do-you-do” I’m sure you can surmise just exactly how my spring break has been going.  Let’s see, how would the letter home go…

Dear Mom and Dad,

Camp Mucous is great.  The first night someone poured quick-drying cement in my sinuses and the results were hilarious!  My fellow campers made wagers while I rolled over from side to side, betting on the amount of time it would take for the solid mass in my frontal cranium to settle on one side or the other.  Woo!  What fun.  My low-grade fever gave me rosy pink cheeks and sparkly (glazed) eyes, so the cute boys are really noticing me.  My new nickname is “Wheezy” and my lungs make this totally awesome squeeking noise waaay after I think I’m done exhaling – really handy for spooky night-time campfires.  Creepy!  Donny snuck in some DayQuil and Advil so we’re making hot-tea cockt-ils.  I’m getting a lot of excercise, well not really excercise, but my body is in constant motion with all the shivering, sweating, shivering again.  Did you know that not much of the camp food contains enough salt or sugar for me to actually taste it?  I poured tons of Tobasco on my food yesterday, hoping for a tastebud to respond, but it just “tasted like burning,” to quote that guy with glasses.  Please send Auntie Biotic to visit me so I don’t perish from fun!

Love,
Kim “my skin hurts” L.

p.s.  I suspect all of my upper right teeth are falling out of my head.  The camp brochure was right – a full body retreat!

BASKING IN THE AFTERGLOW or IS THAT ALL THERE IS?  There’s got to be a better way to go about this performance thing other than work-like-mad-for-months-then-do-one-show formula I’ve been perfecting.  True, the “one shows” have been great, but geez.  And my costumes are so big (“How big are they?!”), so big that they don’t fit in my house for storage.  Perhaps I should consider minimalism.  Or nudism.  I find that my bare skin is quite easy to store.  I usually keep it right there under the clothes, just in case I need it.

I’M IN CHARGE HERE!  I’ve decided to start referring to myself as “the Alexander Haig of performance art.”  Not only is it justifiable, given the right amount of time, wine and convoluted metaphors, but it is mostly exactly the sort of thing one would expect a performance artist to say.  I’m prone to thinking, if not always shouting “I’m in charge here!” with or without any assassination attempts of dubiously qualified but undeniably charming higher-ups.  In fact, I say it quite frequently in my home, surrounded by short persons under the biological human age of eight (I suspect non-human influences whose wiley other-agely smarts are beyond my radar and coping skills).  Yes, I sometimes think my kids are aliens.   The way they alienate me is alien to me.  There.  Have I covered the most popular forms and meanings for the word “alien?” 

Kim

AN INVITATION/WARNING!  For any of you located in the Santa Cruz area, please note that there will be a rare appearance by Madame Luke in a vaudeville show this coming Friday.  There’s more information here:  http://buxterjakepresents.com

Please, if you’re going to throw tomatoes, make them organic (and marinated. Mmmmmmmm….)

Kim