…….and here are some pictures: (sorry, there a little “me” heavy. my sister’s the one standing on the grass.)

long clothed in the mortal coil,
waiting - pensive, fevered - for the familiar flash of the warm, warm LAN light like a green beacon in the fast falling november night. and night upon night upon endless, icy night until the days no longer exist and every distant whisper of tread to asphalt must be, has to be the at&t repair van. my life bisected into failed four hour increments of missed meetings and collapsed connections: 8-noon, noon-4, 4-8. weary. poised at the very edge of limbo. my fingers, like claws, numb; wringing the tattered ethernet cable desperate for the taste of
just
one
tiny
little
byte.
its funny how much time i had spent on the planet reasonably happy, all things considered, prior to the invention of the world wide web, doubly so when one compares that length of time with how long after my DSL’s subsequent disconnection that i began clawing at the phone jack and holding my modem up to the light moaning incoherent lamentations and — i’m not ashamed to say — obscenities.
and thus began the dark days.
and it rained and it shined but i felt not joy.
but O holy of holies
brilliant
respendant majesty
O black hole of white light
O knower of things
O waster of time
O alumum and plastic relic
aide and receive me ye angels in to your series of worldwide, publicly accessible of interconnected computer networks.

in the short hours that i have been reconnected, here are some examples of how i have obliterated a fuckload of precious seconds of my life:
learning about Scopolamine and lobotomies
being introduced to the master of GIFs, apparently,
checking out this weird video my next door neighbor worked on
uploading a bunch of photos
and checking out boobs and books

there are few things in this life that are as splendidly transcendent, as pure and utterly sublime in its existence, as representative of the very essence all that is beauty and goodness in this world as this one picture:

Highlighted for your convenience, note the majestic way the brilliant yellow rises sharply, like a sudden godsend, like a great lemony colossus shattering the iron-padded boxes that had formerly contained my scheduled, shuffling death, shift by soul-crushing shift. imagine now, that this yellow wave stretches out before you in an endless expanse, glory in a glittering sea of cadmium freedom. box after box after box; onward into infinity.
May 2nd is when i began my maternity leave. (read: quit my job) In honor, i have collected here a humble tribute with just a few of the entries in which i profess my loathing for my work:

gratuit-tize

Sewer south pacific: an argument for booster shots

as nina Simone says, “i’ve been workin’, and workin’ but i still have so terribly far to go”

fun with camera phones

no surprises here

long time no see, sailor

undercover on the food-service industry: part 2

you thought you had enough things to be self conscious about

the manditory exchange: professional

buzzz

Maternity leave was not exactly as i had expected it to be. I had envisioned a super-awesome free vacation in which i would finished everything i had ever started in my entire life but had never had time for. i would wake up each morning and play my guitar in my pajamas and sing until my throat got sore. i would meditate and work-out. i would take long, hot baths and complete all the half-read books collecting dust on my book shelf. i would draw until late in the evening, churning out comic after award-winning comic. i would then spend the rest of the night engaged in intellectual pursuits, learning spanish, updating my journal (HA!), writing long-owed letters to friends, teaching myself AfterEffects, etc, or just “nesting” through various martha stewart-esque home improvement projects and knitting. (yes, i actually knit now. i thought it seemed appropriate, considering the circumstances. and apart from yelling “GODDAMNHELLFUCK” slightly more than the average knitter, i think it makes me seem very “domestic.” another interesting note: this is actually the way i curse.)
and i must say, i came very close to doing all these things, but at the last minute, i decided to sleep instead. a lot. pretty much for nine months. as far as pregnancy symptoms go, you hear a great deal about morning sickness, which i never really experienced. No one tells you about the all-consuming exhaustion, the complete and blanketing fatigue. the kind that seeps like poison into your bones and weighs on your very soul.
(another thing that “they” don’t tell you is that pregnancy lasts TEN MONTHS! not nine. do the math: full term pregnancy is 40 weeks ÷ 4 weeks in a month = TEN MONTHS!!!!)
when i wasn’t sleeping, i was spending much of my time being very, very uncomfortable. when i had imagined being pregnant, i thought i would be me but with a great big belly tacked on the front.
it had never really occurred to me that i would not be able to put on my own socks. for anyone wondering, you feel solid, like someone had filled your middle with sawdust. and towards the end, nothing feels good.
you can’t sit.
it hurts.
you can’t stand.
it hurts.
you can’t sleep.
and on and on.
it had boiled down to the only enjoyable activities on earth being bathing and driving down large hills. and i had a relatively easy pregnancy.
so after all this, what kept me going was the thought “once the baby comes i’ll have all the free time in the world.”
i know.
you are all laughing.
i know that’s just inviting trouble. its like saying “what could possibly go wrong?” or like in horror movies when someone says “Guys? All right, you can come out now. Hey guys, this isn’t funny.”
i mean, i wasn’t completely naive. i didn’t think i would have a perfect silent accessory of a child who would match my outfit and take good photographs. but i did believe that i would have two or three hours when the little tike was quietly napping to steal away and draw or piss around on the computer. or at the very least be able to brush my teeth.
let me say that our little guy is really good natured as far as they go. he rarely cries, but that is mostly because we never put him down. as long as he’s in someone’s arms he’s pleased as punch, but he could be in a dead sleep, i’ll set him in his crib and in five minutes he’s doing something we call “gurping,” a prelude to crying. so we’re sort of forced into attachment parenting which is cool, but it has involved me watching a lot of daytime tv and eating with my right hand. (fyi: i’m left handed) i’ve really embraced domestic life. (see above knitting aside) i’ve added Oprah and Judge Alex to my list of daily viewing and its only a matter of time before i turn to soap operas. sad but inevitable. its only in the last couple days that i learned how i can get away with hanging out on the computer with him, which will revolutionize my life or at least cause me to watch less “Divorce Court”. so all of you out in computer-land have to forgive me for not commenting on your journals like a good internet friend should. but i HAVE been keeping up with all of your journals. except the boring ones. JOKING! only joking…….i read the boring ones too;) i have a lot of catching up to do. here are some comments that i had wanted to make, but never had the opportunity:
1.) i totally agree!
2.) i disagree
3.) that’s awesome!
4.) that totally sucks
5.) yeah, try drawing a blueberry in a lab coat then talk to me about hard. (you see its hard to put clothes on something thats totally round)

but, all in all, motherhood is rad (i think june cleaver originally said that.) Soda’s just learned to smile these great big, dopy, gum-filled baby smiles and when he’s clean he has this ultra-sonic baby smell that compels mama’s to sniff babies. (i’m not the only one, i swear!)
when he’s dirty, he smells like cheese.

dear spam,
I regret to inform you that I will never
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,
be enlarging my penis. This is due largely to fact that it does not, in all fairness, exist. I tell you this so that your endeavors are not wasted and you are not overly disappointed by my lack of response to your painstakingly constructed subject line “Studies show you need 7 inches,” scientifically valid though it may be. And so you can direct your efforts towards a more receptive audience. (I hear that penises are all the rage with the 18-34 MALE crowd this year.)
Yours ever true,
- a.
p.s. - please send more info on the discount valium. after all, with the baby on the way in june, one of us is going to need it.

internet, i think its time you met someone.


This is T.B.A.* (*a Rodriguez/Elowsky collaboration) and he will be making his debut appearance this june around the summer solstice. he comes fully loaded: two kidneys, two renal arteries, extremities, eyes: the works! (i believe in quality craftsmanship.)
Of course you know, this makes you all internet aunts and uncles. Unfortunately, this lofty relationship’s only real benefit is that you’re aloud to buy things for him. but due to the law of inverse proportions (the smallness of an object is inversely proportional to the degree of cuteness), buying baby things will cause you to squeal things like “wook at de wittle shoes!” and “its a hat that makes him look like a bunny!.”
cause when you get right down to it, the main reason people have kids its to dress them up in silly outfits and coo. T.B.A. will be no exception. We plan on not owning any actual clothes for him, just costumes. so its going to be “sweetie, would you like to be and astronaut today or a ninja?” and, yes, he can wear swimsuits as underwear.
the other reason we decided to have kids is, hey — i put in a good four or five years to get ‘em good and trained, and i never have to do dishes again!

if i could erase one song off the face of the earth it would be “Love Shack.” the world would go on much as before. wedding receptions would still have “Brick House” and “Celebration.” i just think that the collective consciousness of mankind would breath a tiny sigh of relief and the world would somehow feel just a fraction of an atom lighter just knowing that no one anywhere would have to hear some drunk girl shout “tin roof rusted!” ever again.

that would be the platform under which i would run if i ever decided to seek the office of “president of da earth.” (don’t worry. i wouldn’t let my P.R. agent bill it under some cheesy sound bite like “erratum for ‘Shack Attack’” ) also as another order of business, i would make sure that there would be more clearly posted signs at the edges of the earth. perhaps some fencing of some kind or a few those sassy orange cones that you see so much these days. its surprisingly easy to fall off.

i suppose by now you’ve noticed that i have been missing for, oh, three-four months or so. in my absence, i have taken up a new hobby: sleeping. it turns out that i am an INCREDIBLE sleeper. really. i hesitate to use the word “genius,” or “touched by the very hand of god himself,” but i am making some major advances in the world of shut-eye.
now, i’m sure a few of you novices dabble clumsily at what you consider slumber. i think its all very cute. 6-8 hour nap. but i’ve really decided to throw my all into this and have spent the vast majority of october-december asleep. i am a bit behind on all my basic housekeeping duties. all my plants are dead but its ok because there are new and exciting things growing in the sink.
i’m sure you all wonder how all this is medically possible. fair question. in the interest of raising public health awareness i have prepared a highly advanced and technical chart illustrating the intricacies of my condition.

so i walk out of my house the other day into the hopeful fall sun and i’m met with a letter from the IRS and then immediately accosted by a gang of 12 year olds. which is entirely too embarrassing to blog about. so i’ll talk to you about my phone.
a little while back my phone was subjected to an act of god. its has since been replaced with one of them microscopic chrome marvels that tie your shoes for you and translates text from french existentialist novels. ( Seriously, Sartre: learn the fucking language, ok?!) which is great, ’cause i average about 2 phone calls a week and this $70-a-month fashion accessory better pull its weight somehow. so for your viewing pleasure, i bring you: FUN WITH CAMERA PHONES: all grain and guts….like a haggis.

this is Jason’s olive trick. this is how we pass the time at work.

speaking of work: this is how i enjoy a meal. perched on a sticky milk crate, hunched over a case of white zin, getting up every 27 seconds to make sure that the cocky slime-ball at the bar doesn’t want to drop an another bill on a bottle of Moet. always checking to see if i’ve got bleu cheese on my chin or milk-crate-waffle-prints on my ass.

my cat’s biting my icon style. bela stands in the mirror taking myspace pics. you should see the one’s with eyeliner! oy vay.

let’s just get all the gratuitous cat pictures out of the way. this is rocky dynamo or as he’s better known around 24th st: “little stupid”

some interesting home depot graffiti.

elowsky being elowsky

more of the same, but i took this picture because the packaging design on generic products is just so fucking AWESOME sometimes!

Paper Mache Man has been spotted on the next street over! this is a crappy picture, but i was walking by and i didn’t want him to think i was stealing soul or anything and send his un-dead army of Thrifty Nickels and cornstarch to silence me. plus the added dread that just around any corner are roving bands of middle schoolers waiting to demoralize me and my fashion sense.

if i ever applied to secret-agent-ninja school, i’d submit this picture. this man, who had orange hair and dressed in a purple suit, hid no idea i captured his black and purple suede slip ons.
and what photo-cast would be complete without fifty pictures of myself?

i am on the edge of a dark precipice. the cusp of a strange and terrible decent beyond the scrambled signals of acceptable cathode ray consumption and it scares me. you see tonight i just watched scrubs for the first time………and i liked it. god help me: i liked it
sure you say so you like some slightly embarrassing sudo-sitcoms: who doesn’t?
you don’t understand
it always starts innocently enough. a little ER twice a week. just a little “trauma-drama” ® only on the weekends. i could quit anytime i wanted. but its a slippery slope we all tread, my friend. little did i know that i was only a few rounds of eppi and a intubation away from chewing my nails and pacing in front of my mailbox, waiting for “season 2 disk three” to arrive. ( note to people of the future: in 2006 we actually had to wait for movies to be PHYSICALLY DELIVERED to our homes via a now extinct service called “the U.S. Mail.” this was also back when we only had FIVE fingers! crazy, huh?)
it all kind of a lab coat blur after that. one day i woke up on the floor — who knows how long i’d been laying there — but i was covered in my own drool and i was watching Grey’s Anatomy.
fuck, man: sometimes i watch M.A.S.H.
that was one thing, but do i wanna cross that line. another “medical show.” really, now it the time for desperate honesty: if i seriously get hooked on one more medical show its suddenly ceases to be a silly way to waste my time and becomes a symptom of something deep-rooted and all together more disturbing.
for instance: the cat rule. i have two cats. that is the maximum number of cats you can have and still be just a person who happens own a couple of cats. anything after that and you’re one of those half-crazed “cat-people.” stinking of salmon and freshstep, peppering the entire english language with w’s and y’s that you know damn well don’t belong there. (”who’s a ittle-wittle fuzzy-wuzzy kitty-witty? )
(”trauma-drama” ® is trademark intellectual property of erratum press all rights reserved.)

this is bela gato. i don’t know if you can tell by the picture, but bela is a lot of cat. roughly 20+ lbs. of cat. he’s all the cat that anyone could conceivably need. (”so why”, you ask, “did we you another cat?” well, i’ll cover that when i’ve finished up the “my favorite things” series and start on my “things that wake me up twelve times a night and mutilate my feet” series. Coming soon!) he’s great company, well spoken, and only pisses on things if you leave them on the bathroom floor. ( which, unfortunately, includes the bathroom rug. i am in the habit of leaving most forms of carpeting on floor, the bathroom rug especially. but then, i was raised by wolves. )
some people have suggested that bela may be a touch portly.
like any dotting mum, must i vehemently insist that he is merely big boned. and, trust me, this is not easy.
people say things. contrary things.
like when –say — your landlords come in when they think you’re sleeping (maintenance) and shout “OH SWEET JESUS, HAVE YOU EVER SEEN ANYTHING THAT FAT IN YOUR ENTIRE LIFE!!!????”
it is even harder to remember when, as you sleep, you are being scaled by felines like you’re the sheet-capped Mount “that lady who feeds me.”
you know how the principal of the bed of nails works? you know how distributing the weight evenly over all the points decreases the pain felt?
well, imagine the exact OPPOSITE of that. its like being walked on by a watermelon with chopsticks for legs.

i would like to begin the first in a series of posts that i have entitled “A Few of My Favorite Things.” Now you may ask why would i devise such a bizarrely complex moniker for this strange and esoteric concept? why, its on par with “Snakes on a Plane” and that “Head on” headache cure they advertise on dr. Phil! (to take your mind off the fact that i just admitted that i watch Dr., Phil EVERY FREAKIN’ WAKING DAY OF MY EXISTENCE, i will now recite the “Head On’ commercial in its entirety: “Head On — apply directly to the forehead. Head On — apply directly to the forehead. Head On — apply directly to the forehead.” see how i did that? made you completely forget about….that…..thing i said.) Don’t worry: for those of you who never quite finished up on that quantum physics degree, i’ll give you the gist of the concept. so the idea is that i will post a picture of one of my favorite things and then i will tell you about it. yep.
so with out further ado…………

this is my bon jovi shirt. i got this shirt at the humane society thrift store in Pensacola, FL back in 199ironic-t-shirt. its has most defiantly seen better days, but what makes this shirt stand out in the ironic t-shirt world, amidst a sea of D.A.R.E. and “if mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy”, is the two inch high proclamation boasting in brilliant red and white — ladies and gentleman i shit you not —

“BON JOVI ROCKS YOUR ASS OFF”
indeed! the very idea! the very idea of bon jovi rocking ANYTHING off! i could set a glass made of cigarette ash on the edge of a coffee table — an ikea coffee table! — in a cabin composed of entirely popsicle sticks and held together by human spit, perched on top of an aluminum napkin dispenser and i could take the whole thing and set it on the very tip of a mountain and i defy bon jovi to rock that glass off, much less any securely attached (see above picture) section of my anatomy.
the only t-shirt that could possibly exist that could be any better than this one, would be the “bon jovi-couldn’t-rock-a-glass-made-of-cigarette-ash-on-the-edge-of-a-coffee-table-in-a-cabin-composed-of-entirely-popsicle-sticks-and-held-together-by-human-spit-perched-on-top-of-an-aluminum-napkin-dispenser-placed-on-the-very-tip-of-a-mountain” t-shirt. incidentally, if anyone is interested in printing those — which would, of course, involve printing on billboard-sized t-shirts — let me know.