I’ve like, lost my mind. I know, I know, you’re all, “Again? Or still?”

I bought a KISS CD today. Right. Cuz I’m 12 again, at a KISS show at the Memorial Coliseum, with Cheap Trick opening, and I’m wearing tiny little cut-offs and a baby tee and I’m like SCREAMING AT THE TOP OF MY LUNGS and like, banging my head.

Cuz I was such a little rocker you have no idea. That was my first concert, I’m not kidding you. My poor mother. (She called KISS and Rush “HISS and hush.)

I’m all, “get up! and get your grandma out of here!” Only I’ve listened to Lenny Kravitz’s version of Deuce so many times that listening to KISS, I’m all — “Huh. This is what it sounds like when they do their own song? Huh.”

“…tells me what i’ve got to do/I’ve got to/GET UP!” (Detroit Rock City.)

(KISS is all about getting it up.)

(It would appear.)

(Not that I’m trying to analyze KISS lyrics, for fuck’s sake.)

My teenage boyfriend, Chad, went into a blind rage one day, I don’t know what the hell was up with him. He’d misplaced his retainer again or something. And he smashed all his KISS albums. Then he suggested I smash mine, because, “It felt so good to smash the shit out of those albums.” Me: “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

One of the boys in my seventh-grade class had a big crush on me and he wrote out the lyrics to “Beth” on his desk, only he wrote “Nance” instead of “Beth.” I was like, uh, he’s kind of kooky?

I also bought Hannah Montana 2 for Wacky Girl. Next to KISS? Hannah Montana SUCKS!!!! (Don’t tell my daughter I said that.)

I think I need to get out of the house and into the air-conditioned car for awhile.

“It’s not often that someone comes along who is a true friend, and a good writer. Charlotte was both.”
— E.B. White

I think of this poem now, because the spiders have taken over our yard, our house, our basement. The Queen Anne’s Lace is in full bloom; the blackberries are ripening. It smells like fall, and it’s August first.

I’ll miss it when Wacky Boy stops saying, “Awwight” and “dese and dose.”

Alright? He’s getting so big — he starts kindergarten in just a little over a month from now!

Dose will be happy days for him, and weepy days for me. Until I realize I have my days free. What? Coffee dates? Uninterrupted blocks of time to write? Lunch with my husband? What?

wm

New website I just heard about.

Overheard in my backyard, just now — someone talking to a kid from one of the neighbor’s yards:

“Damn. Stop, OK. OK? Shit. You share with your damn sister. Bitch.”

(Please let him have been talking to a dog, not a kid. A female dog.)

(No, it’s not “enough” to call child welfare.)

From Overheard in PDX:

Pottymouth

Little girl in a stroller about 2 1/2, speaking to caretaker:
“Shut the fuck up.”

Caretaker (laughing a bit):
“Hey. I love you”

Little girl:
“Shut the fuck up, shut the FUCK up, shut the FUCK up.” (laughing)

Caretaker (to horrified passengers):
“Oh, ha ha she learned that in daycare. We just ignore it. ”

Little girl (leaning over in stroller and spitting several times on the floor):
“Shut the FUCK up. Shut the FUCK up, Shut the FUCK up”. (Spits on the floor a few more times before continuing her mantra.)

Caretaker: (Calling the father of this child on her cell phone):
“Yeah, she’s saying shut the “F” up, you know, in that cute little voice of hers.”

– Eastbound MAX on way home from work 7/25/07

— Overheard by Dyana, who writes:
(At this point, I am waiting for the girl’s head to rotate 360, and for her to puke pea soup.)

Wacky Mommy says: People, “No” is a complete sentence. Say “no” to children like this. Do not say they have a “cute little voice.” Do not just ignore the behavior. Do not laugh and giggle. Do not say “Gentle!” over and over until I am tempted to throw something at you. Say “no” and head for home.

So. If you went, how was Blogher?

I’ve started a new series: The Dogs of Portland.

Just fyi. Because I know how much you love dogs, Internet.

(PS — I’m going to get business cards printed, and hand them out when I take photos of dogs. So if you see your crazy dog here, leave a note in comments. thankyouverymuch.)

My post is up over at Grasshopper New Media. Leave a comment, eh?

love,

WM

Did you ever think about going over and looking at my Flickr pictures? That aren’t even mine they’re my husband’s? (Some of them are mine. Just not all of them.)

“Did you ever hear of the Napoleonic code, Stella? Now just let me enlighten you on a point or two. Now, we got here in the state of Louisiana what’s known as the Napoleonic code. You see, now according to that, what belongs to the wife belongs to the husband also, and vice versa. It looks to me like you’ve been swindled, baby.” — Stanley Kowalski, “A Streetcar Named Desire.” (more…)