Five will get you fifty...sometimes even more.

What shall we write about today? We have a commitment to keep.
Look up. What's there? A jelly fish. 

There is a floppy, stuffed toy jelly fish sitting on the books just behind my laptop. It’s from the Beanie Buddies collection, but we didn’t buy it for that. My kids were little and SpongeBob SquarePants was big. Jelly fishing!!!

Now my kids are no longer kids. My older son is twenty-three and my younger son will be twenty-one this November. I don’t know why I kept the darn thing. I am a sentimental person, but usually only sentimental about things my kids were attached to themselves. They liked the floppy pastel multi-colored jelly fish, but it wasn’t a beloved toy. Mostly it sat on one or the other’s bed.

Property of United Plankton Pictures
and Nickelodeon Animation Studios.

But there is a happy associated memory. I remember driving in the car, both of them in the back seat and hearing a commercial for the some summer special of SpongeBob cartoons. Many of them involved jelly fishing and they talked about it in the commercial. Catching (and then releasing) jelly fish was a favorite hobby of SpongeBob and his friend, Patrick Star. ‘Cause that’s how they rolled. Occasionally they were grudgingly accompanied by Squidward Tentacles, SpongeBob’s and Patrick’s neighbor. Squidward lived in an Easter Island head. SpongeBob lived in a pineapple. Patrick, who was a starfish, lived under a rock. A starfish living under a rock is the least insane thing I just told you about.

It is my considered opinion that the people who create this shit are all high as balls, all the time. Ceaselessly high. Or perhaps simply very, very creative on the fly. I can do that, spout funny nonsense without being high. It’s when I’m trying to make something more permanent that I have blocks.

Hmm. Created by Stephen Hillenburg, who is a marine biologist, cartoonist, animator, director, producer, writer, and voice actor. Okay, so probably it's the creative thing.

ANYWAY…After the commercial for the summer special was finished, we’d sing the SpongeBob SquarePants theme song. All three of us, together. It was pretty awesome. A totally happy, anxiety free moment with children when they were little. Those are rare for me, totally pure happy memories. My brain manages to infect a lot of my happy with unhappy, telling me I was not a good mom. So I kept the floppy jelly fish because it  reminds me that we had happy. I have never fully analyzed that before, the keeping of this particular toy which seemed to have no deep sentiment attached to it.

"This is where I chill. Where I relax. Where I chillax."
- recent jelly fish attributed quote. I think he got it from somewhere else.
He's like that.

Interesting what can happen when you sit down to write for five minutes because you made a commitment...because you want to write all the stories you have in your head and sell them and be paid to write more and having a bit of money would be nice and you know this is your thing, your lifelong thing so why can't you just DO IT ALREADY...I'm getting off track.

Interesting what can happen when you simply begin typing about the first thing you see when you glance up. And I thought this would be a dull prompt. I made it up myself, this prompt. Just today! 

I don’t remember if we ever named the jelly fish. For some reason I refer to it as he. Jelly fish do have genders. However…they do not have brains.

And that sort of explains the whole earth experience, in my considered opinion.

I leave you with this:

Seriously, what the fuck, Outdoor Swimming Society?
What the hell is that freaky mask?

Wanna see some pictures?

I'm going to be hanging out at a family friends' house today with TheMan, helping haul branches as they get trimmed off trees. As I'm not having a better idea of what to post today I'll leave you with some pictures.

2011? I think.

December 2010
Cortiva Institute of Massage Therapy Graduation photo
Me and my Twin. We look ecstatic because we were DONE.

Arizona Renaissance Faire - February 2010

Houston Renaissance Faire - November 2011

 

October 2012
Dexter on the left, DB on the right
photo by A Sunshine Moment Photography

 

October 2012
DB on my left, Dexter on my right
This look is The Eyebrow and they inherited it from me.
'Ware the The Eyebrow. They do it much better than I.
The students have surpassed the teacher.

Tuesday is "self-pity" day. Every day is "miss my sons" day.

Today I need to drive up to see my sons and give them both a driving lesson.

I miss my sons. I miss them a lot. I worry about them and miss them and miss them and miss them.

I do not feel capable, today, of going into the 5 Ws. I just miss them and worry and miss them.

Once a week driving lesson is not enough for them to learn driving. But there’s more that goes with that story too.

And I miss them.

I want to be able to be there for them, make sure they eat, make sure they feel supported, motivated, loved. I want to be able to watch SFDebris with them. I miss them.

So this is not much of a daily writing exercise, because all I can say today is I miss my sons.

...in which I am silly and whingy by turns.

I am not feeling the muse today. I'm about to get my period and...yes, that's right! I said that OUT LOUD! Uterine lining will be shed tonight! Fear my mighty mood-swings! Cower as I stomp through the house demanding chocolate and searching for a heating pad!

Okay, I'm done now. Anyway, perhaps the muse...shall we name her? I'm influenced by the Greek mythology I read as a child, so I envision any muse as female. Should I choose one of the original nine muses? None of them really fit for blogging, except maybe Clio as the muse of history-which I suppose technically fits because the second I click publish my words become a reference to the barely passed past. But I don't like "technically." Let's name her something else. I'll have to think on it. Maybe my muse will provide her own name somehow.

I'm cold! I want a cigarette! Guess I'm not done quite yet.

Moving on! My muse did not show up. Except she sort of did, because obviously I'm typing right this minute. She's phoning it in. I hope she's not musing some other would-be author. I want all the muse for myself! Maybe she's out climbing trees.

The flood of hormones is amplifying the pinball tendencies of my brain.  I have to get dressed for work, I should start now even though I have forty minutes before I need to leave, because in this state of mind it will take me that long to get ready. I am unsatisfied with this post. But at least I posted.

Hey. Hey. Hey. I almost forgot. I have an idea for a collaboration with my son Dexter and myself. Stick-figure comic book histories! I would research the history of something...say, salt. Like way back to the beginning research. Write it up in my own particular idiom, paraphrasing it in a funny way while still maintaining accuracy of fact. Have Dexter illustrate them with his stick figures! His stick figures are not just regular old stick figures, they have definite Dexter style. At least, I think so. I am his mom, it's possible I have a slight bias. I'll have to post some so you can see what I mean. He's been drawing them for ten years now, he's really developed their...je ne sais quoi. Helping educate people through funny! It's the best of two awesome worlds! Two great tastes that taste great together! That is the Reese's Peanut Butter Cup of ideas!

Hey, no one is allowed to steal that idea, that is MY idea! I claim that idea. Copyright! Dexter needs a real job, he's twenty-one and can't drive yet, for Christ's sake!

Okay, seriously I'm done now. My laptop battery is running down and now I only have twenty-four minutes to get ready. Twenty-three...

Nothin' to see here...

I miss my kids. I miss DB and Dexter. Yes, it's only been a month since I moved and I've seen them periodically. It's not the same as having them under my roof and making them dinner and hanging out with them watching SF Debris get his sci-fi snark on. I know they're eighteen and twenty-one and this would happen eventually. Shut up. I miss my babies.

not pictured: DB and Dexter. Dexter would never wear that type of sweater.

The above photo shows David Bowie and Bing Crosby singing The Little Drummer Boy/Peace on Earth. It has nothing to do with me missing DB and Dexter, but it captures the kind of cognitive dissonance we all three think is hilarious.

The unexpectedness has been removed.

It is one of those mornings where time just gets away from me. I was up at 5:45 am, now suddenly it's 7:21 am and I have to get ready for work.

Note to self: Do not start reading Cracked.com articles in the morning. You will never get any work done because you will always want to chase down the interesting links.

So...last week, when I was packing up the last of the books at the apartment, I came across my copy of A Clockwork Orange. I thought DB, being the vaguely counterculture, rabble rousing 18 year old that he is, might want it.

Me - "Bub! Have you read A Clockwork Orange?"

DB - "Not yet. I've been meaning to."

Me - "Here, you can have this copy."

Dexter (older brother) - "Hey, I'd like to read that too."

DB - Hands the book to his brother, "you can read it first. Just give it back when you're done."

Yep. Those are MY kids!!

This story sounded far more hilarious in my head, but I'm out of time. So here's a picture of DB attending a district 300 school board meeting a few years ago, to join his fellow Youth Labor Committee friends in protesting the proposed severe budget cuts.



Comrade Drakon Mal'chika