my new favorite song

scout niblett and will oldham "kiss"

my newsie is cuter than your newsie

we're all grown up now

back in my day, i was quite the follower of a little band called fugazi. i must have seen them six or seven times...(it was better than following the dead, for christ sake...not hatin', just sayin').
i had heard of this, but had never seen it. thank you, youtube.
now, i can't get this song out of my head.



we love ya ian!!
you wock!

project mum

so, has anyone else in boston heard about this?
what oh what will the townies think??!

Project MUM: Meet Under McGrath!
Saturday, Aug. 18, 9pm-
The intersection of Washington Street & McGrath Highway
This year's event pays tribute to the glorious 1970s and features four hours of music spun by DJs Flack, Axel Foley and Pace, with lighting by Todd Sargent/VDA Productions that provide the perfect backdrop for your fabulous dance moves. Eye-popping video and light sculptures will include a psychedelic slideshow flashback featuring your own authentic 70s photos. Special guest video artist jackbackrack and celebrity dance stages organized by Alissa Cardone of Kinodance Company, an internationally known intermedia performance and dance troupe based in Somerville.

FUNDRAISER FOR THE ARTS:
MUM is free and open to the public (with a $10 suggested donation fee.)
All proceeds will support ARTSomerville, the Somerville Arts Council, Mudflat Pottery Studio, Inc., Brickbottom Artist Association, Somerville Community Access Television, Joy Street Studios, and Kinodance Company.

So grab those bell-bottoms from your attic, fluff up your ‘fros, and join Somerville's dance party revolution! *And while you’re at it, become a part of the event by sending in your photos of yourself, friends and family stylin’ in 1970s Somerville and beyond – that we’ll show during the party. Email digital images at least 4”x6” 300 dpi to: info@artsomerville.org www.ARTSomerville.org

do you feel lucky, punk

well, do ya?

http://view.break.com/311805 - Watch more free videos

baby and the beach

there is nothing that says 'summer in massachusetts' more than a wedding on cape cod. this past weekend we took harlan to this second wedding, our friends jason and sasha (who are now known as 'the jonesteins'). it was a grand, lavish wedding but sweet and beautiful all the same. (and an open bar until midnight, yahoo!)
the day after the wedding, we said out bittersweet goodbyes to our friends, and went to take harlan to the beach for the first time. he didn't really see what the hubbub was about...and i'm sure he was none too happy about the sand in his diaper.

this picture really sums up his thoughts about the whole experience. after taking a few digital memories, we promptly fell asleep in a big family lump on a blanket. it was perfect.

officially mom

about five months ago, i gave birth to an absolutely beautiful baby boy, as you may have seen from the many pictures on this blog. the labor was painful, and surreal. you would think after passing something the size of a 7 pound watermelon out of a certain orafice on your body, together with a sagging stomach, stretch marks, five months of diaper changes and breastfeeding, etc, that it would definitely make you feel like you are now officially a mom.
but, i think that just today, as I WIPED BABY VOMIT OUT OF MY BELLY BUTTON, that i officially felt like a mom.

ah, sharing.

failure pile in a sadness bowl

i love patton oswalt.

sing, sing a song, sing out loud

i was never one of those girls who had her whole life planned out in the beginning. i didn't have any good idea of what my wedding was going to be like (the first one, or the second one)...i didn't really ever think of whether i wanted a son or a daughter, or if i wanted kids at all...i played with baby dolls when i was a kid, but i don't think i ever fully understood why (i think i just did it, 'because everyone else did')...it certainly wasn't because i thought a lot about babies when i was younger, even though i had two younger brothers.
but, the one thing i did think about, quite a bit in fact, was what songs i would want to sing and play for my kid if i ever did have one. through the years i compiled a growing list in my head, and unfortunately, i never wrote them down.
now, i have this baby who absolutely loves it when i sing to him...and i can't remember the words to any of those songs i used to compile in my head. so, from the beginning, i sang to him the only songs i knew the words to. 'ain't no sunshine', 'want a little sugar in my bowl', 'my baby just cares for me', 'i'll fly away', and 'all my little words'.(and of course, his namesake song, 'harlan' by freakwater) now, harlan just doesn't care for normal children's songs...he prefers the more adult stuff.
so far his favorites are the bill withers and the nina simone songs. he adores nina simone.
(i don't know what that means)

so, here's a list of other songs i've come up with that i would like to sing to him that i think he will very much enjoy as he grows:

- 'octopus's garden' by the beatles
- 'fido, your leash is too long' by the magnetic fields (insert various magnetic fields songs here, examples; 'absolutely cuckoo', 'chicken with it's head cut off', 'wi' nae wee bairn ye'll me beget', etc, etc..take out the 'curses', of course)
- 'god bless the child' billie holiday
- 'five feet high and risin'' johnny cash
- 'mocking bird' tom waits
- 'old rattler' traditional
- 'mama tried' merle haggard
- 'in the aeroplane over the sea' neutral milk
-'59th st bridge song' simon & garfunkle (of course)
-'the young new mexican puppeteer' tom jones (ha, kidding...i don't want the kid t have nightmares, puppets are creepy)
and there are the usual suspects: cat stevens, joni mitchell, woody guthrie, the kinks...you know, the classics.
right now, though, i'm listening to yves montad and harlan has completely quieted down. maybe he's into the frenchies.

there are countless others, i can't think of right now. i think i'll just randomly write them down in this blog as i think of more, and if any of you out there have any suggestions, please feel free to help me out. add some songs, i'll see how harlan likes them.

thousand dollar wedding

many of you know the troubles of my family these past few years, and for those of you who don't, it's a story that you wouldn't believe, and it continues to get longer and more tragic every day that goes by. i'll tell the story here one day, but not today.
let's just say that we were well aware that our trip to tenn was going to be 'stressful' at best.
the plane ride with harlan was actually more relaxed than usual. he's a peach of a baby, all smiles and giggles, and he really helped distract me from my aviophobia. on the first flight, he filled his diaper with his morning constitutional. changing a baby's diaper in an airplane bathroom...hahahahahaha, i won't even try to describe it. but, the rest of the trip, along with layovers, plane changes, and the usual airport craziness was just fine with harlan, in fact, i think he may have come back with a whole new outlook on life. he didn't even mind when we got on the plane at 4pm in nashville and because of thunder storms, sat on the plane in charlotte for almost 2 hours and didn't get back to boston until 1am. he's a peach i tell ya, a peach.

we went to tenn to attend my brother's wedding and to let harlan meet his granpa and uncles for the first time. my brother nigel and his girlfriend ashley decided to get married in a small ceremony by a lake by my parents house. it was short and just about the sweetest thing i've seen in a while. on the day of the wedding...a lazy, humid sunday morning, a rude knock came at my parent's door. ernie and i both knew it was the police, no one else knocks quite like the police do. we went to the door, they were asking for ashlie. apparently, they had a warrant for her arrest for unpaid child support (she has four children, two by my brother and two by another, none of which she has custody). she was sure it was a mistake, since she had receipts to prove payment, but of course, it's a sunday, and none of that matters to cops. they took her in (in curlers, no less) and booked her and let her go on 500$ bail. arrested in curlers on your wedding day, how faulkner-esque. the day before that my brother's truck had been repo'd by the bank. we'll just say my family hasn't had the best of luck these days (if 'luck' is what you want to call it).
all in all, it was a good trip, even with the pending court dates, etc. harlan really seemed to enjoy spending time with his granny and papaw. my mom took him into the back yard and put his feet into tenn soil, to make sure his feet didn't hit 'yankee dirt' first. and even with all of the chaos of traveling with a 4 month old (which really wasn't so bad), it was nice to get away from boston for a bit.

just a tip for all of the parents out there (especially new ones); drive in movies are the best thing ever. your baby can scream and scream and no one is bothered, also breastfeeding is a cinch. and that new die hard movie is the funniest one yet...i mean, i had no idea that it was really possible to turn a tractor trailer truck back onto it's wheels by the sheer power of bruce willis' balls. phenomenal.

to live is to fly

tomorrow, we're off to my old home place, tennessee, to see the family and let them meet the wee one. we'll be flying. fear of flying aside, i seem to be more afraid these days that i'm going to forget something very important...like diaper cream, or the baby.

wish me luck.

god gave rock and roll to you

little too weird...

put your apple itunes or ipod on shuffle...fill out the questionaire of your life by the clicking on the title of each song that comes up...no cheating...

bizarre.

1. Opening Credits: this fire by franz ferdinand
2. Birth: apple bomb by deerhoof
3. First Day At School: oliver twisted by the vaselines (yes!)
4.Falling In Love: in memory of Elizabeth reed by the allman brothers (huh?)
5. Fight Song: celluloid heroes by the kinks (really slow motion hollywood fight scene)
6. Breaking Up: you will miss me when I burn by palace brothers (tragic)
7. Prom: max earnst dream by mission of burma (didn't go to prom)
8. Life: tell me by galaxie 500 (ahh..)
9. Mental Breakdown: the man I love by gershwin (instrumental...only if mister irving left)
10. Driving: saviour piece by snap ant
11. Flashback: generation by black rebel motorcycle club (ha!)
12. Wedding: teenage lust by mc5 (haha!!)
13. Birth of a Child: twenty four hours by joy division (little shorter than that)
14. Final Battle: lifetime piling up by talking heads (classic.)
15. Death Scene: sweet adeline by elliot smith (aw, that makes me teary to think about..poor elliot)
16. Funeral: when we reach the hill by the black heart procession (perfect.)
17. Ending Credits: clint eastwood by the gorillaz (seems appropriate and superficial)


Ok, that was strange...just for fun, i'm going to do this twice and see if it works as good the second time.

1. Opening Credits: the ballad of ira hayes by johnny cash
2. Birth: gangster of love by the talking heads
3. First Day At School: hook by pj harvey

4.Falling In Love: ainsi soit-il by the paris combo
5. Fight Song: hi everybody! by ciccone youth
6. Breaking Up: respect by otis redding
7. Prom: she's a lady by tom jones
8. Life: flight of icarus by iron maiden (hahahahaha!!)
9. Mental Breakdown: this is love by pj harvey
10. Driving: how come you do me? by the cramps
11. Flashback: bewilderbeast by badly drawn boy (so great...an instrumental)
12. Wedding: please mr.DJ by merle haggard
13. Birth of a Child: here comes the sun by the beatles (awwwww..)
14. Final Battle: escort by the sea and cake
15. Death Scene: think by james brown (must be one of those tarantino death scenes)
16. Funeral: no hey problemo by pink martini
17. Ending Credits: today i lost a tooth by olivia tremor control

that was weird too, but not as weird as the first one.
man, i just realized i really need some new music.

too weird…too too weird…

screw you, hippie!

this weekend we had a bbq with some of our new parent friends. there were 10 adults, 3 infants under 3 months, 1 child and 3 dogs. it went fairly well, but i will say that it is almost impossible to hold a conversation with someone when you're trying to juggle dog and baby, make sure everyone has enough drink, and there's food ready for the grill...quite chaotic. it was a bit of an experiment for us, since for the last 4-5 months, we've been less than the social butterflies we used to be. i think we did ok, although we were exhausted when the whole thing ended (at 8pm...oi, so early).
as mister irving and i sat around that evening, dreading the coming clean up, we revisited some of the open ended conversations we had.
we realized from talking out loud about some of the things that we do in our everyday life now that we're much crunchier parents than we ever thought we would be. we had a natural childbirth in a birth center that looked like an antique b&b; we prepared for that childbirth by studying hypnosis techniques and meditation; we use cloth diapers; we co-sleep; we're making our household 'green' in as many ways as we can (reduce, reuse, recycle); ernie takes yoga classes at the local buddhist temple; ernie has acupuncture therapy; i actively meditate when i breastfeed; our dog is a rescue pup; and on and on...
we've seriously been considering moving to the mountains and becoming a completely sustainable vegetarian household...
and yet, we scoff at the idea of being compared to crunchy hippie types. scoff!

martyrdom

when you become new parents, there is one question that you are asked each and every time you come into a conversation with an old friend who doesn't have kids...and that is, "do you feel like you're missing out?"
i have a lot of time to think about this question, as i am a 'stay at home mom' (i kind of hate that moniker, but for lack of something better, there it is)...for the past two and a half months, i've pretty much done one of these things, 1. sat in a chair, breastfed, lived vicariously through the new yorker 2. washed laundry every day 3. tried to keep dog hair off of everything the baby owns 4. watched lots and lots of awful television while breastfeeding. 5. made funny faces, noises, etc, etc, to make harlan giggle out loud.
i mean, i've 'really' had time to think about it. and honestly, i don't really miss much. but, while we're being honest, i'll say the one thing i miss the most is live music. i miss going to see bands play, whether they suck or are great, i just really miss going out to see music.
there is something absolutely cleansing about going to see live music. i know, it won't be long before i'll be back out there at shows, harping on this or that, smugly criticizing the band i'm watching for being dull or sounding too much like t-rex, or just standing against the wall with my arms crossed and a furrowed brow while someone completely impresses me...but right now, i do miss it.

it's probably going to suck for harlan when his mom comes to hang out with him to watch his favorite band. poor guy.

mom

"Contrary to popular belief, Mother's Day was not conceived and fine-tuned in the boardroom of Hallmark. The earliest tributes to mothers date back to the annual spring festival the Greeks dedicated to Rhea, the mother of many deities, and to the offerings ancient Romans made to their Great Mother of Gods, Cybele. Christians celebrated this festival on the fourth Sunday in Lent in honor of Mary, mother of Christ. In England this holiday was expanded to include all mothers and was called Mothering Sunday.
In the United States, Mother's Day started nearly 150 years ago, when Anna Jarvis, an Appalachian homemaker, organized a day to raise awareness of poor health conditions in her community, a cause she believed would be best advocated by mothers. She called it "Mother's Work Day."
Fifteen years later, Julia Ward Howe, a Boston poet, pacifist, suffragist, and author of the lyrics to the "Battle Hymn of the Republic," organized a day encouraging mothers to rally for peace, since she believed they bore the loss of human life more harshly than anyone else.
In 1905 when Anna Jarvis died, her daughter, also named Anna, began a campaign to memorialize the life work of her mother. Legend has it that young Anna remembered a Sunday school lesson that her mother gave in which she said, "I hope and pray that someone, sometime, will found a memorial mother's day. There are many days for men, but none for mothers."

if nothing else, give your mom a call...now knowing how childbirth feels, believe me, she deserves at least a phone call.

more charming than cary grant...

not sure who won, but the pie was great

saturday was the ky derby, and it also happen to be mister irving's birthday. the day before, he had mentioned that he wanted nothing more for his birthday than a cold mint julep and some derby pie (since he had never partook of either). even though the weather wasn't cooperating that day, we had a fine time sitting in the back yard grilling and watching the baby giggle every time the wind blew across his little face. and the pie was lovely.

derby pie
1 cup chocolate chips (ghiradella rec.)
1 cup pecans
2 eggs
1 cup sugar
1 stick butter, melted and cooled
1/2 cup flour
1 tsp. vanilla
1/4 cup KY bourbon (maker's mark or finer)

mix sugar and flour. add eggs, then butter. add pecans and chocolate chips, vanilla and whisky. pour into unbaked pie shell. bake for 35 mins. at 350 degrees. pie should be thick, and mushy.
(also, if your pie doesn't taste strongly like bourbon, you've pissed off the pie gods..and other gods, i'm sure)

blahbiddy

The baby is napping, diapers are in the wash, and I’m a little bored. Of course, I could be cleaning, or reading something inspiring, or doing something other than filling out this meaningless survey, but this is what I feel like doing right now, so don’t hate.


FIRST NAME? april
WERE YOU NAMED AFTER ANYONE? no, but my aunt named me
WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU CRIED? the day before yesterday
DO YOU LIKE YOUR HANDWRITING? depends on the writing utensil (i prefer a really drippy fountain pen)
WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE LUNCH MEAT? honey turkey, but it’s all kind of bland
KIDS? a really cute one named harlan
IF YOU WERE ANOTHER PERSON WOULD YOU BE FRIENDS WITH YOU? maybe, but we wouldn’t be very close
DO YOU HAVE A JOURNAL ? yes, since I was 13
DO YOU USE SARCASM A LOT? hardly ever sincere
DO YOU STILL HAVE YOUR TONSILS? yes
WOULD YOU BUNGEE JUMP? no, terrified of falling
WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE CEREAL? kashi, i think the actual name is ‘hippy food that keeps you regular’
DO YOU UNTIE YOUR SHOES WHEN YOU TAKE THEM OFF? no
DO YOU THINK YOU ARE STRONG? no, i’d like to be bruce lee
WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE ICE CREAM? prefer sherbert (really, i do, i’m not just being difficult)
WHAT IS THE FIRST THING YOU NOTICE ABOUT PEOPLE? what they do with their hands when they’re talking
RED OR PINK? red
WHAT IS THE LEAST FAVORITE THING ABOUT YOURSELF? Mentally: my fear of reality, Physically: my newly acquired stretch marks
WHO DO YOU MISS THE MOST? My family (and TN) before the accident
DO YOU WANT EVERYONE TO SEND THIS BACK TO YOU? What?
WHAT COLOR PANTS AND SHOES ARE YOU WEARING? Gray and socks

THE LAST THING YOU ATE? Burger king (how embarrassing)
WHAT ARE YOU LISTENING TO RIGHT NOW? ‘taken’ by bill callahan

IF YOU WERE A CRAYON, WHAT COLOR WOULD YOU BE? I had to look this one up, since I couldn’t remember what this color was called: antique brass
(crayon facts: http://www.factmonster.com/ipka/A0872797.html )
FAVORITE SMELL (s)? breastmilk on my baby’s breath, fresh cut grass, the open ocean, an empty street at 4am
WHO WAS THE LAST PERSON YOU TALKED TO ON THE PHONE? My sweet mother
DO YOU LIKE THE PERSON WHO SENT THIS TO YOU? Found it on a blog, yeah, I like them, but I don’t speak to them
FAVORITE DRINK? Kir royale with real champagne in a café in paris…or a cold cheap beer on a hot and muggy day (it’s a tough choice)
FAVORITE SPORT TO WATCH? Bull riding (or American bull fighting, hilarious!)
HAIR COLOR? Brownish with lots of gray
EYE COLOR? My husband says steel blue

DO YOU WEAR CONTACTS? yes
FAVORITE FOOD? It’s a toss up between fois grois (which I never eat for various reasons, but it’s the only food I would describe as orgasmic)…or french fries dipped in a chocolate milkshake

SCARY MOVIES OR HAPPY ENDING? neither
LAST MOVIE YOU WATCHED? Children of men

WHAT COLOR SHIRT ARE YOU WEARING? gray
SUMMER OR WINTER? fall
HUGS OR KISSES? hugs
FAVORITE DESSERT? tiramisu

WHAT BOOK ARE YOU READING? Going back and forth between “the womanly art of breastfeeding’ and ‘the heart of buddha’s teaching’ by thich nhat hanh
WHAT'S ON YOUR MOUSE PAD? An advert from Dell
WHAT DID YOU WATCH LAST ON TV LAST NIGHT? Simpsons, family guy, reno911
FAVORITE SOUNDS? Harlan giggling at his daddy, clara rockmore playing theremin, otis redding’s voice, when joni mitchell sings ‘I drew a map of Canada, oh cana----da---ahhhhh’
ROLLING STONES OR BEATLES? Definitely depends on my mood, but usually stones
THE FURTHEST YOU'VE BEEN FROM HOME? nykoping, sweden
DO YOU HAVE A SPECIAL TALENT? thinking really bad jokes are hilarious
WHEN WERE YOU BORN? ‘it was the third of june, another sleepy dusky delta day---ay’

have you ever noticed that when people fill out these questionnaires they always give way more info than the question requires. man, we’re such ego-philes.

worth the stretch marks, i guess