blah blah blahhhhg

first day of 2nd grade.

2010-09-02T12:35:28Z

First day of 2nd grade: September 1. This is our 3rd year with the school+I love it. They've done renovations to the school. I'm not working both jobs+look forward to being more involved with the school this year. PTA MOM IN THE HOUSSSSE.

Images:

1: Excited. Nails painted white for her first day.

2. Trying to figure out who her teacher is. Her teacher is the one she was wishing for since last year. I met+like him already. Very kind.

3. Reunited with her best friend, Rachel.

4. The requisite, "stop taking pictures of me, mommmmm," photo.

park.

2010-09-02T09:46:26Z

Adventure Playground+the Berkeley Marina on August 8.

cuostralee tomato.

2010-09-02T09:28:14Z

socially conscious mountain lion.

2010-09-01T20:08:05Z

A mountain lion was found (and killed*) wandering the streets of Berkeleyyesterday in the "Gourmet Ghetto" section for those familiar with the area.

The streets of Berkeley! A few blocks from my kid's school, which is gated. Thank goodness.

It is Lorelai's first day of school today (more on that later)+I was able to hang out at the school for a bit to see her off+catch up with parents from last year+meet new parents. One of the ladies I met brought up the lion:

"What was he doing in Berkeley?? It was probably a socially conscious mountain lion. Going to Cheeseboard or somethin'."

I laughed. Hard.

*Poor mountain lion. The article that I linked quotes, "is the first instance that we've had of this sort of thing in recent memory." And, "authorities said they haven't found any reason why the animal would have wandered this far into the city."

It is obviously an anomoly. It wasn't there on purpose. It shouldn't have been killed, it should have been knocked out by a tranquilizer, treated for injury if it had any+released. Not ok. :(

justice for oscar grant.

2010-08-31T03:00:34Z

Oscar Grant III was murdered on January 1, 2009.

The verdict of involuntary manslaughter for Johannes Mehserle, the BART police man responsible for Oscar Grant's murder, was read on July 8, 2010.

A protest in Downtown Oakland was held that evening. Things were communal for a while until unrelated stupidity took over. I left when a glass bottle came flying towards me from a crowd about half a block away.

Before I left, I took some photos of our community who had peacefully gathered for approximately 3.5 hours to lament+grieve.

happy birthday, sis.

2010-08-27T12:41:05Z

I'd love to insert all kind of stories of awesome memories, but I'm quite selfishly keeping them to myself.

Instead, I'll just say happy birthday.

You're one of my favorite people ever.

Because of that, I wrote you a poem:

Olivia

I wanna call you HOElivia

But you're not a hoe.

That much, I know.

Happy Birthday, sis.

I... love you. (yuck, but true.)

lorelai on a sunday.

2010-08-27T05:29:53Z

boyfriend.

2010-08-26T20:58:39Z

I haven't had a boyfriend for a while. It's been over four years. I've exclusively dated two guys at various times during those four years who, as it turns out, weren't exclusively dating me. Faithful concubine. That sucked.

Sometimes I wonder what it'd be like to have a boyfriend. The last one I had was Lorelai's dad. And that... well... it felt less like a relationship+more like... I don't know what.

ANYWAY.

I wonder what it'd be like to have a boyfriend. One that's like, "Hey. Wanna be my (only) girlfriend?"

I'm mostly ok being single. There's three instances where, everytime they come up, I yell in my head, "I WISH I HAD A BOYFRIEND!"

When I have to bring the groceries in from my car. Even then, a boyfriend wouldn't be able to help unless he was around when I was bringing the groceries in.
When I want ice cream late at night. This is a common occurrence. At least twice a week.
When I want to cook something that I'm sure Lorelai wouldn't appreciate, but a sweetheart would. I cook for her plenty, but I just don't think she'll enjoy my fish tacos. Mostly cus the sauce I use is spicy. I bet a boyfriend would like them!

I mean. There's other times that a boyfriend would be cool. I'm sure you can imagine when. But those three bullet points above make me wish I had a beau every.single.time.

There's a few hurdles that I need to get over before I could be like, "Ok. I'm changing my Facebook status to In A Relationship." Some of them include:

Lorelai. Can't have a boyfriend without my kid liking, NAY! Loving him. Also, family. My family is so dope. They need to accept him.
Time. Space. Boundaries. He's got to respect them. I like alone time. I need it for a lot of reasons. Overshare of time/space/boundaries is not gonna work. I love being in good company, but need to be able to decompress or just chill solo.
Humor. MUST. BE. FUNNY. And must get my humor. This is a big deal. Hot+unfunny is like being Hot+a whale. Like, wtf am I gonna do with that?!
Trust. Blahblahblah. I don't have major trust issues, per se. I don't have higher trust expectations for a lover than I do anyone else. But I just want to feel good about things.
etc. etc. etc.

There are some perks, I imagine, to being my sweetheart. Just cus the relationships with Lorelai's dad+my pseudo-boyfriends crashed+burned doesn't mean that I can't have a successful, happy, fulfilling coupledom with someone, right? Here's just a small fraction of why I'd rock as a girlfriend:

I rock.
I have my own sh*t.
I like to build things.
etc. etc. etc.

This isn't a personal ad or anything. I think I'm managing the single life ok. Sometimes people in relationships are just so bummed all the time. I don't want that. I just want someone that'll eat my tacos.

welp. there's my vagina.

2010-08-26T02:45:36Z

I was sitting in my mom's home office one day, checking out the photo screen saver. It has photos for the bast 10 or so years that come up in random order. Pretty neat.

Except the time that my vagina came onto the screen. Spread eagle. Like, "HEYYYY WORLD!"

My sister snapped photos of me pushing Lorelai out of my love hole. Fair enough. It was pretty effing spectacular+the best day of my life.

But. Like. That photo... it's one for the archives, right? Not the screen saver. Keep in mind, Lorelai was a few years old at that point. So my goodies had been popping up on that computer for YEARS at the point of my discovering it!

Not only that, but I'm fairly certain my brother+sis-in-law saw it. That means my dad's probably seen it too.

*sigh*

When I asked my mom about it, she was super perfunctory about it. "Oh yeah. I guess I can take it down." She took it down. Like, hecka months after the discovery.

it's totally like this.

2010-08-26T02:43:52Z

From The Oatmeal.