blue girl

'Scuse Me While I Kiss the Sky

Took this early one evening last week. Doesn't get much prettier than that.

All You Bloggers, Mushes and Children, Sing!

For ZRM and Jennifer, songs I discovered on an album I bought because of Can We Still Be Friends. I'd sit in front of my stereo with my headphones on turned all the way up, on the floor, holding the album in my hands, staring at and analyzing the artwork and the lyrics until my mom would make me turn it off and go downstairs to do something that was probably dumb and stupid that I didn't want to do!

The 14 year old blogger in me loved it cuz it was sorta lub, dub, lub, dub and sorta zoom, zip, hiccup, drip, ding, dong, crunch, crack, bark, meow, whinnie, quack.

And the 14 year old mush in me loved this one:

So, so sad. So *Sniffle* *Snort* *Squish* *Squeek* *Sniff*

The 14 year old singer and liberal in me loved, loved, loved, loved this one into infinity.

And the 47 year old singer and liberal still does. And you will, too, if you're still open to discovery. Put your headphones on and turn it all the way up, like I'm doing right now. Stare at the lyrics and analyze them for as long as you want. I'm a mom and I'm telling you it's not dumb and stupid at all... A bell in your head will ring!

See Ms. Malone, she lives alone
She spends another quiet evening alone
Sits in her study and stares at the phone
And a bell in her head will ring!

All the children sing
All the dancers start to sway in time
The orchestra begins to play
Somebody pours the wine
The sun and moon collide
Isn´t gravity a funny thing
The universe explodes apart
All the children sing!

Of Mr. Malloy
He´s always seen himself as one of the boys
He thinks that men are tough and women are toys
But a bell in his head will ring!

All the children sing!
All the birds are chirping harmony
The scent of love is in the air
Sunset on the sea
The Angel of the Lord
Just declared we aren´t worth a thing
The galaxy is null and void
All the children sing!

Crawled across a thousand miles of desert sand
Looking from an answer from a Holy Man
And this is what he told me with a wave of his hand
He said, "A bell in your head will ring!"

Here´s to the China man, wise and old
Here´s to the Eskimo, brave and cold
Here´s to the Jew in the holy land
Here´s to the Arab in his caravan
Here´s to the African, strong and proud
Here´s to the Redneck, good and loud
Here´s one to you and there´s one more thing
A bell in your head will ring!

All the children sing!
All the dancers start to sway in time
The orchestra begins to play
Somebody pours the wine
The sun and moon collide
Isn´t gravity a funny thing
The universe explodes apart
All the children sing!

Everybody sing!

The Kids are All Right

Dennis Perrin's been to Zuccotti Park, where he witnessed NFL-big cops and positive, unpretentious kids:

Something good is happening. It's too early for specifics, but a general definition is taking shape. Again, age and experience warn me against optimism. But I do want them to win something. To inject their determination into the larger culture. We sure as fuck can use it.

I want them to win it, too. And I'm feeling pretty positive about it.

Read the rest of Dennis' post here.

Check 'em Out!

In the check out line at the grocery store tonight, I'm unloading the cart. The Skimmer's behind me, looking at the tabloids.

"You want one of these? Just because?"

I got all snooty and uppity in my head thinking he was asking me if I wanted some rag that had Kim Kardashian on the cover, but as he asked the question, he turned and held up this.


"Oh, yeah! Look at him. So cute. So sexy. So... yummy."

"Yeah, I'm a guy. And I don't think I'd go as far as yummy, but he's pretty good looking."

"Wait, wait. Who's that in the inset photo? Ahhhh! Figures! Where's the Bow! before that Wow!?"

Do As I Say

The other night I decided to break out my Christmas pajamas. They are lime green and bright red and have a Snoopy pattern. I came downstairs. The Skimmer was watching TV. I did a little dance for him. A little shimmy.

He said, "Do you see why Blue Kid never calls home?"

"What? Why? Cuz I'm embarrassing?! I've always been a fun Mom!"

"Listen, there is no such thing as a fun Mom. That's why they are called Mom." Then he did his best Frank Sinatra impression, and said, "That's like saying, I have a swingin' Grandpa!"

Pshaw! Totally not true. I imagine there are swingin' Grandpas. And I know there are fun Moms. And rotten kids.

The moral of this story? CALL YOUR MOTHER.

And that goes for all you ingrates!

Funny Business

Aunt Snow at Doves Today has a post up about sexual harassment. With Herman Cain's sleaze-ball shenanigans in the news, I've been thinking a lot about it, too, considering myself lucky I haven't run into it all that much.

There was the time when I was in my mid-20s when the creative director at the agency I worked at wanted me to get him a cup of coffee. Not sexual harassment, but definitely sexist. But, nothing that a good, strong "No" didn't take care of. Or, more than likely, a good, strong, "No, who do you think you are, you big jerk! Get your own damn coffee!" didn't take care of. I was mouthy in my mid-20s.

But, it got me thinking about a time a few years later when I didn't even no that I should have said "No." I was too naive to know that I should have said "No." Even writing this now, I feel like a lot of people who read this are going to think it wasn't that I was naive, it was that I was dumb. And if something would have happened and I would have reported it to whoever I would have reported it to---even though I'm not sure there was anyone to report anything to---would have said about me to whoever would have listened, and we know most people would have listened and probably agreed because most people just love to gossip and usually don't hold themselves to as high a standard as they hold others---they would have said, "She couldn't have been that dumb! She had to have known what she was getting herself into. Why would she have put herself in that position? What could she have possibly been thinking?!"

I was in a meeting with my boss and a client, at the client's office. Not his real office, but a temporary office because his part of the real building was being renovated. His temporary office was in a trailer they had somehow attached to the building while it was under construction. I was in my late 20s, my boss was in his early 40s and the client, the president of the division of the company we did work for, was in his mid-50s. Average build, solid gray, unassuming, nice enough, kind of bland, not a threat. I put him in the category of a Dad-type man. As we were wrapping up the meeting, the three of us were standing near the door, discussing next steps when the client broke into the conversation, looked directly at me and said, "You have the most beautiful eyes I have ever seen." It was a little strange and uncomfortable for him to have said that, but I smiled, feeling a little embarrassed and thanked him and my boss immediately said, "Don't ever trust a guy who would talk to you like that in a trailer."

Which of course made me laugh because Tony always made me laugh because he had great timing and always said the funniest thing at the perfect time. I don't remember if Tony and I talked about that incident on the way back to the office and I don't remember if we talked about what happened a few weeks later when I was once again at the client's office for a meeting at the end of the day. At the end of that meeting, the unassuming, non-threatening, Dad-type figure wanted to drive me around to show me their products in action. They manufactured electrical connection thingamabobs that were used in those boxes that are attached way high up on utility poles.

This is where my "No" or my "No, I don't think so, you dirty old man" should have come into play. But it didn't because I didn't even think to say it and I got into his Dad-type car, a Lincoln Continental, and we drove around, off the beaten path, through parks and other quiet areas as dusk turned darker and he talked about this and that and every now and then pointed at utility poles, talking about what the thingamabobs were doing way up there.

I had no idea what he was talking about.

And I had no idea what he was really up to.

I don't know, but maybe he suddenly looked at me and realized he was looking at a daughter-type young woman and came to his senses. Because after 45 minutes or so of driving around in the dark, he drove me to my car.

I picture myself in that situation, driving around with someone who felt non-threatening, much like Sharon Bialik might have felt when she was driving around with Herman Cain, right before he put his hand up her skirt and tried to pull her head down into his lap.

But nothing like that happened to me. And thank God for that. Not only would I have been pretty traumatized by it, but I would have had to have listened to everyone around me saying, "You couldn't have been that dumb! You had to have known what you were getting yourself into. Why would you have put yourself in that position? What could you have possibly been thinking?!"

And my boss probably would have said, "I told you not to trust that guy."

And there wouldn't have been anything funny about that.

Hopelessly Imprisoned In His Own Broken Heart

From The Atlantic Wire, Jonathan Ames: What I Read

The first thing I look at in the morning is my phone, an Android of some sort, which I struggle to operate. I'm middle-aged but have the technical savvy of someone much older. I look at email, Facebook, and Twitter to see if any human beings known to me or not known to me have sent me some kind of message. I do this out of sense of needinesss and loneliness. By quickly glancing at these three things (I use AOL email which posts headlines of all sorts), I can get a sense if there's a world crisis that I should be aware of and frightened of before I head out for a coffee and go about my soft and frivolous day-to-day life in which no world crisis seems to have a visible impact, though I'm sure this won't always be the case so it's good practice to upset myself every morning in preparation for when I will need to flee, help someone, or genuinely panic.

When I head out for coffee and breakfast, I get a newspaper. By morning, I mean 11 a.m. or noon. On Mondays and Tuesdays, I get The New York Times because on those days I can do the crossword. On Wednesday's my I.Q. hits a wall puzzle-wise, but sometimes I pick up The Times anyway to see if I'm making progress -- I've been doing crosswords for two years now to prevent early Alzheimers and to waste time -- and sometimes I can actually finish a Wednesday puzzle, but mostly I can't and it's like scoring poorly all over again on the SAT's, and I regret the two dollars I spent on the paper.

So great. Read the whole thing here.