Did you know that most people, myself included, spread the peanut butter side first when making a Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich? It’s ludicrous when you think about it: The jelly has so much more to loose!

Have you ever tried to teach someone the english language? It’s absolute rubbish! homonyms? homophones? homographs?!?! Here’s a novel thought: think up a new fucking word. It’s not that hard. Widdie, floths, meork. There’s three right there.
My guy is crazy about letters right now. 19 months old, thinks that a lion lives in our kitchen sink and can’t climb down stairs on his own, but knows his whole alphabet. Upper case, that is. Those lowercase ones are pretty out there. His forefathers didn’t have the forethought that someone might actually want to pass this knowledge along. I don’t know how to break it to the kid that “Q” and “q” are somehow the exact same letter without shattering his faith in the entire superstructure of human kind.
Being a parent really allows you to look at the world anew and find a whole bunch of asinine things you’ve never noticed to be personally offended by. But at what cost? My poor kid is going to be the known as that “homeschooled weirdo who speaks Esperanto, measures in metric, and uses the dvorakin keyboard. plus his mom knits his clothes. “

Sebastian discovered the moon tonight. I’m sure he feels we should contact NASA or SETTY some similar astronomic cataloguing body. It was very primal; some “2001: a space oddity” kind of shit. He discovered the moon in the same way scores of men have discovered the very same moon since the infancy of the human race.
He learned the word immediately too, which is impressive, considering he knows maybe 5 words at a deep stretch and only if you count “bck” for “book” and “uh oh, spaghetti-o’s” as word….and even then it denigrates into a garble like the monster in “Young Frankenstein” singing “putting on the ritz!”
He does know over 70 ASL signs. Which constantly astounds me, but at what cost?? you see: the biggest musical influence in my life right now is “Signing Time.” If you’re not familiar with the show, it stars this ultra-bubbly lady with color-coded tape on her fingers who teaches your kid (and you) sign language and sings songs she writes herself with embarrassing passion.
And the songs are Infectious and have the same preda-natural, humanly intrinsic quality as christmas songs do in that you’ll be walking down the street humming something for 20 minutes, not even aware you’re doing it, only to realize you’ve been singing “Jingle Bells” for the better part of half-an-hour for all of creation to hear. And then you get mad at your brain for being sucked into it! “Stupid pedestrian brain! You’re sooooo lowest-common-denominator.” Only, instead of “jingle bells” its “The Diaper Dance” or “Do You Know the Colors of the Rainbow?”
But Sebastian loves it. Absolutely loves it. He signs to tell us to put in on. It is the first logo he recognizes. (a concept both amazing and frightening)
And he uses it (sign language) to tell me all sorts of things, like when he hears a dog outside or when he sees an airplane or when his dolls need to go to sleep. The other day he insisted that there was a baby in my burrito. He kept signing “baby” and i asked him “where” and he kept pointing to my burrito and nodding, then preceded to get down to eye level with it and “talk” to it. I’d like to say it put me off my dinner, but, hell– i was hungry.
I haven’t posted much lately, because I didn’t think anybody wanted to hear about my dumb ol’ kid, but then I thought “screw you guys: i’m talking about my dumb ol’ kid.” It’s impossible to have this front row seat to the physical, emotional, and cognitive development of a real live human being bearing parts of your very own genetic profile and not want to talk about it all the time.
but occasionally I do have some adult pursuits worth mentioning. Elowsky and I had a table at the APE this year with our friend Sharon and a nice girl who writes a zine about poo.

Some nice young men from the EPA showed up at my door with a bunch of paperwork declaring that my sink be declared a protected wildlife sanitary. Luckily, one of the agents’ clipboard was stolen by a puddle of what appeared to be some sort of hyper-evolved stir-fry or I would be forced to give daily tours to Japanese tourists and sell overpriced shot glasses out of my bathroom. funny…..i can’t remember the last time we actually ATE hyper-evolved stir-fry.
I suppose it’s time to do the dishes.

next weeks episode: who knows what evil lurks in the heart of the diaper bin?

If i manufactured ice cream, and perhaps i should, my brand would be called “Chock full of Stuff” (or, alternately, “Hella Stuff” but only on the west coast. the east coast version: “Mad Stuff” ) and It would be mostly the things one finds in ice cream, only a lot more of them. Ridiculously so.
For example, my version of Cookies n Cream would be entire sandwich cookies loosely held together by ice cream.

In other news (yes, I, for one, call ice cream pipe dreams “news.”), a photographer friend of ours is working on his portfolio and shot some great pictures of our little drool machine. They can be found here http://www.flickr.com/photos/edmdusty/sets/72157606447825572/show
You should check out his other work and hire him for all of your photographic needs.

I just brought some new clothes for my cell phone. now he looks like a centurion.

Without question, my diggs ain’t the Taj Mahajhal. We are, if not dumpster divers, then my man and I must fall into the the decidedly less romantic classification referred to — usually in middle school and with some degree of pointing and laughing — as “trash diggers.” My couches — one found curbed, one inherited from when my i mean A coke dealer went crazy and gave all his stuff away — are black. An off-white, discount ikea throw perfectly hides the cigarette burns and the growing 3 ft gash Cousin Corey made when he slept on it for week with a wallet chain. Together with the roadside rug and the plaster-meets-spray-paint lamp the ensemble screams “i just moved out of my parent’s house.” I’m one cinder-block-and-two-by-four shelf away from….well, what ever fate they reserve for people who use cable spools as coffee tables..
Let me tell you about my pillows. They’re a motley crew of mottled, matted heaps that look as if they quite possibly may have, at one time, been made of something that might have resembled fabric or at least an organic compound of some sort, but now look like the unsanitary resting place for “do not remove under the penatily of law” tags. My bed is where polyfill goes to die. So one day i thought to myself “I’m an adult, for christssake!” and I set out to buy myself some nice, sensible adult pillows. Turns out I’m allergic to down. Who knew.
At least I finally retired “Old Scratchy.” Old Scratchy was just the disemboweled innards of a pillow, in all its polyester-hunk glory, stuffed into a case. I wanted to take a picture of it before I threw it out, to show all of ya’ll, but elowsky said, “Please don’t tell strangers how we live.”

Anyhow, I digress….
The true purpose of this post is to tell you about my various electronics. As I sit here, I am stareing at my computer speaker that, at any given time, is jabbed with thoughtfully placed household items in a half-assed attempt to fix an electrical short. Its a paperclip right now, but we’ve covered the gambit: pens, pins, a screwdriver weighted down with the kind of decorative brick-a-brack one finds in one’s grampa’s study (provided one’s grampa has a study, as opposed to a “Radio Shack” franchise like mine did) , an open pair of scissors, etc, etc.
Jurry Rig is my middle name. Erratum “Jurry Rig” Hernandez or Martinez or whatever….
No one can work my can opener but me. even with detailed, hand-illustrated instructions.
Running my washer is like playing wheel of fortune: it involves a great deal of dial spinning, there’s usually a speed round, and time is of the essence. Ok, that was really the best metaphor I could come up with, but it really IS complicated. There are no less than eight additional steps needed in order to run a simple load of laundry, including a portion that involves a 10 second window in which you have to drop anything you’re doing and dash to the washer or else it will blow a circut and shut off. The fun part about this is, if you miss this step, you don’t know when, if ever, you will be able to turn on the washer again. Could be 2 minutes. Could be 2 hours! Who knows!
And the Gordian knot nature of my washer is due in part because it is a “Montgomery Ward’s” brand, who i think have been out of business for, like, ten years and it, itself, looks like its at least 30. and partly because…..well, let me just advise you, gentle reader: Never get drunk and stand on your washer for any reason. They’re just not really equipped for it.
But the Grand Dame of my personal world of craptacular appliances, The Queen Mother of all was my television set. Given to me in 1998 after my cat broke my first ever television set, this idot box was the electronic equlivant of those “one-legged, blind dog answeres to the name ‘Lucky’” posters. The power button had long sinced imploded and so you actually had to insert you finger inside to the set to turn it on. I’ve had people come over to my house and flat out refuse to touch it for fear of electrocution. And once you actually powered up the monster, I swear to Edward R. Murrow, that I could eat an entire bowl of oatmeal before the picture came in. And, of course, by picture, I mean fuzzy, rabbit-ear shadows. Because I don’t have cable (and while you would think the lack of quality programing might hinder me in some way, let me assure you: I don’t watch any less TV, I just watch really bad TV.)
The “channel down” button hadn’t worked for some time. You miss your channel, you’re in it for a whole ‘nother round. The remote hung in there for a good while, of course, after the first incarnation had been eaten by a dog. Its eventual death came slow and agonizingly. I just didn’t want to give up the ghost. (READ: get the fuck up to actually change the channel.) And so after contorting to all manner yogaic poises and applying all manner of makeshift remote control poking devices, it was quietly laid to rest in a somber ceremony at dawn. Only the cat and I were in attendance.
And at this point, I would like you to extend to me a hand into the, well, the late 20th century, for I gots me a $10 telly off the craigslist and one of them fancy pants digital converter boxes.
Its fucking brilliant. Instead of wavy lines, everything is broken into pixels. (i thought there really were 2 simultaneous Bart Simpsons, suggesting something perhaps about the duality of man. Turns out, the Simpsons were not really deep, my reception is really poor.) Plus I get, like, 30 PBS-es. Every morning Sebastian and i watch Signing Time. and then I watch the channel that shows all the telecourses. Abnormal psychology and childhood development before nap time and then, the language of photography after lunch. Its rad. And also frightening, to any one that’s aware there’s a “wedding TV’ station.

When i am playing Tetris, i invariably and almost without realizing it, imagine the game being called by sports commentators; a running critique of my playing as if i’m a competing in some sort of Tetris Olympics.
“she’s trained hard all season and was really showing heart coming into this competition, but she’s getting sloppy going into level 9 and oooooh that move is really going to cost her. ”
“The block was right, the placement was there, but this is just clear example of over-rotation, Chuck. Frankly, i’m surprised at such a rookie move from such a seasoned player.”

(p.s. the first guy was named Chuck.)

every time we have any sort of “weather” at all here in the bay area, the city shuts down entirely. no lie. its always the biggest story on the news “Yes, Dan there appears to be some sort of precipitation falling from the sky. there’s no word yet on exactly what the liquid is, be will be broadcasting live throughout the night as this story develops.”
and every time someone breathes too hard, my internet goes out. but i’ve met some extraordinarily nice service repair men in the process.
unfortunatly, my internet was down the other week when we walked out of the house to find there on the sidewalk a dead rat the size of a guinea pig and a pile of human fecees, also roughly the size of a guinea pig.
i’m sure there’s a story there, but i was too busy getting a tetanus booster to find out.
the next day, which just so happened to be my birthday, they had both miraculously disappeared.
i considered it a present.
Happy Birthday to Me.

Date: Oct 30, 2007 8:55 PM
Subject: hello old friend
Body:
dear andrea,

you suck.

love, ziti

p.s. congrats on the baby, and HOW THE FUCK HAVE YOU BEEN DOING?!?!?!

Date: Dec 11, 2007 3:20 PM
Subject:
Re:hello old friend
Body:
Dearest Mr. Vucci
I can’t tell you how pleased I was to hear from you, but I am afraid I must correct you as to a matter of misinformation contained in your previous correspondence dated 10-30-07. In that letter, you had stated that I “suck.” This is plainly a misstatement of fact as numerous documented reports and eyewitness accounts will support, I am, in fact, AWESOME!
In April of 2007 there was a double blind study conducted at The University of California, Berkeley in which it was found overwhelmingly that, not only was I awesome (see above) but that I had charted so high on the Awesome Scale/Rad Index that the current equipment used to measure such things was deemed inadequate, being wholly unable even to handle the extent of my particular degree of awesome and thereby ceremoniously refusing to assist in any further testing. The machinery was quoted as saying “My work is completed; My life’s mission, fulfilled”
If you are interested in more information, visit your local library where you will find exhaustive volumes compiled on the subject of my awesomeness, both as a phenomenon and as a utopian model for future civilizations.
We thank you for your attention in this matter.
Andrea
p.s. — check out the little fella: