for Baby E, on his belated early birthday

Work cuz you're gonna need money,
Love like you might catch something contagious,
And fart like no one else is in the elevator.

there must be a law against looking this good

Oh wait, there is.

Recently Iran has been experiencing spasms of ultra-conservativeness in the form of police crackdowns on people who do not adhere to the 'social norm'. Violators include women whose scarves are too loose and clothing is too tight, and men whose hair is too styled and shirts are TOO SEXY--I mean, tight. In an effort to stave off this latest wave of sinfulness, government officials are raiding bazarres for skimpy lady clothes and threatening to revoke the business licenses of barbers who engage in the perpetuation of spikey, big-hair styles and employ too much hair gel.

Horrifying is the new sexy

Men who use facial cosmetics or pluck their eyebrows are also receiving warnings from the moral police.

Such crackdowns represent a step backwards in the Iranian government's tolerance for its own society, and some predict that these measures will help push the public to the edge of another revolution. Political scientists think that this potential change will be driven by a thirst for personal freedom, but I suspect it will have more to do with the world's growing intolerance for unibrows and flat bangs. I'd love to know for sure, but if I ever make it to Iran, I'm not sure such questions would be at the top of my list.

Finally, all this talk of hair reminds me of my brother, who suffered a giant mistake of a haircut at our mother's hands during his Kindergarten year, and had to obtain special permission from the school so that he could wear a hat for a month while everything grew back in. Recently, while cutting his own hair, the episode repeated itself--leaving him with a mostly-buzzed head and a rooster-comb mohawk. Bear, this pic is for you:

The day Billy discovered that he looks pretty damn good in a fedora

i feel like i've made this joke before...

Maybe that's because someone's already beaten me to the punch:



But oh, that's so mean--so cheap and mean. Go ahead, google "Condi" and see how many photoshopped pics of her show up in which she's sporting giant tits in skimpy bikinis, drooling blood from her vampire fangs, playing kissy face with Dub, and scowling darkly over a stern jaw. Well, okay, maybe the glares aren't photoshopped--but c'mon, let's be fair! Maybe she's just one of those unfortunate chicks that doesn't photograph well. Sure, she's scary as hell, but maybe she has a soft, sexy side too. Take Eartha Kitt! She was pure, sexy evil as Catwoman opposite Adam West! And she wasn't what I would consider a typical beauty. See?



Not beautiful. In fact, perhaps even a little drunk--but still vivacious! Maybe this is more along the lines of 'sexy-like-attractive-not-sexy-like-beautiful':



There. Kinda weird, but attractive--not scary. And not drunk--perhaps hung over a bit, but definitely not still drunk. And I'll bet Condi has a 'sexy' face too.



Oh my sweet baby Lord. Condi, honey, don't you have a publicist who can explain these things to you? Remember the last State of the Union Address? You shot laser beams into Camera 3 the entire time. I don't think you even blinked once. Loosen up, smile a little, have some fun! I know there's a war on, but that hasn't stopped you yet! And it definitely isn't stopping Ms. Kitt.

Grrr, baby.

LA photo essay, part 2

After our extended stay in the Memphis airport, we finally made it into LA--ironically the only city in the entire country with cloud-cover. Our whole reason for coming to the west coast was to see my sister-outlaw who is pregnant with her first child (due in June), the first nephew/grandkid in either of our families. Considering her reaction to the pictures of herself from the baby shower ('Oh my GOD--I'm e-NOR-mous!') I've decided not to post any pictures of her in case she's self-conscious. However, in case anyone is interested in exactly how enormous 7-months-pregnant really is, I've provided a reference:

Just imagine darker hair and more dignity.

On Saturday we had the baby shower--the only one I've ever attended that was comprised almost entirely of single, child-less (and let's not forget drunk) people. Only one child was present. She spent the entire time eating carrots, fending of cooing adults and harassing the cat.

Wary friends

Gettin' her drink on

In accordance with true Cali-tradition, we spent some time at the mall:

How we know we're not mature enough to have kids yet (not purchased)

Egg-tastic

You can't go wrong when your shoes have pineapples on them

For our baby shower gift, I made a small quilt. I know--shocking, especially since I haven't sewn anything since the Great Skirt Disaster of 6th Grade in which I sewed each skirt panel in EVERY WRONG COMBINATION/ORIENTATION in which it could be sewn. Each new mistake involved me whining to my mom to help me rip out the seams and my expert seamstress mother laughing and laughing and laughing at me. Well, fifteen years later I was ready to try again, simply to see if it could be done. Frankly, I'm kind of embarrassed that I did something so girly as sew, so I compensated with an overly-complex design (fish, in case you can't tell) and cursed up a storm. Halfway through the project I finally gave in a bought a seam-ripper. (I had hoped that NOT buying one would trick the sewing fates into leaving me alone, but to no avail.) Whatever, now it's done. I just hope it doesn't give the kid seizures.


Of course, emboldened by my success with the small baby quilt I decided that, hey, quilting is a breeze--why not make a big one for our bed? I looked up bed sizes and determined that 90 inches x 90 inches was a goodly size. Just how big is that?

No, not quite. More like 7.5 ft x 7.5 ft--30 3-inch blocks x 30 3-inch blocks. It doesn't sound like much, but I divided some of the squares into triangles, resulting in approximately 1150 pieces. Oh. Dear. God.

For scale.

I have finally come to my goddamn senses. The next kid is getting a gift certificate to Baby Gap.

LA photo essay, part 1

If your cross-country flight is ever delayed and you get stuck in the Memphis airport in the early afternoon, be advised that you will be completely, mind-numbingly bored as this composes the four-hour lull between the busy morning and evening times. That is, unless luck is on your side and you happen upon the first annual Northwest Idol competition held in the B terminal. What better way to kill a couple hours while you wait for Northwest to pull their shit together? "Broken aircraft", my shiny metal ass!

NI strayed from the original format to included a variety of acts: short stories, dancing, singing and public speaking. It was fascinating to be one of the only non-NW people there. Every performance yielded new insight into the inner workings of NW employee relations, and the revelations were sometimes unexpected. For example, the lady in the gold hat got a huge amount of sincere applause. The little white guy in the red bow tie (not pictured) did not fare nearly as well. He read a short story about a man and his dying wife. The woman standing next to me thought it was fucking hilarious.

Interviewing paparazzo

The judges

Interviewing Ms. Paula

Dancing: sexy, in an 'oh God Mom, you wore THAT to church' sort of way

Fashion modeling: new NW flight attendant uniform

Final dance number: they dragged away a chick who joined in the dancing 'on-stage' but let this random fat guy do whatever the hell he wanted

I don't know where he came from but he knew all the words and possession of the microphone, however it is obtained, is nine-tenths of NI law

The winner isn't pictured here--she performed near the end when my camera's battery started fading--but she was good. (I could tell because everyone clapped.) Though the best performance was from Paula Abdul. From thirty feet and a squint she was a dead ringer for the real dame, and she stayed in character the entire time. The best Paula Moment was during the performance in which a woman delivered a 20-minute tirade against injustice while instrumental countryish music played in the background. Everyone looked kind of uncomfortable, giddily embarrassed over the strange combination of solemn subject matter and setting. I looked over at the judges' table to see how they were taking it. Randy was keeping a straight face under his dark glasses and Simon was looking very much like he would give anything for a pair of his own, but Paula--Paula was just boppin' along to the beat. I've never been a fan of the show (Randy's carefully stunted vocabulary drives me nuts, Simon's comments are predictably mean, and I've always found Paula to be a mess of vapid niceties) but time spent with Fake Paula has really mellowed me. Tonight I'm feeling her.