This shoe was the work of a 90 pound puppy.  Puts Charlie Chaplin’s shoe eating ways to shame.  They used to be good boots.  I need boots.  I don’t need puppies.

It’s safe to say that my head is all over the place right now.  Not necessarily in a bad way.  I’ve got a lot of parenting stuff I want to say, I have book updates, I have living arrangement updates, there is the question of blood and bacon (still) in cooking, the dog training, the extra walking, the fact that we’re at war, the baddest nastiest bloody nose we’ve seen in months which splattered even my socks, and then today someone told me “You should really do something about your obesity” and everything sort of drained from my head for an hour and a half.

Still, today was a good day.  A little weird, but good.

I wish I hadn’t let that comment about my rotundity get under my skin because, being a terribly (and irrationally) contrary person I immediately bought myself an obscenely big chocolate chip cookie and ate the whole thing.  What’s stupid about it is that I haven’t eaten one of those in over a year because they make me feel sick.  I don’t have much of a sweet tooth.  I suppose if I could have pulled a  beer out of my bag right there in the street I would have chugged that instead.

A moment of silence please, while we all contemplate the destructiveness of the irascible nature.

I was riding my bicycle all across town, I could have just gotten on my damn bike and reveled in the knowledge that I AM DOING SOMETHING ABOUT MY OBESITY.  So what if the pounds are reluctant to budge even when I’m being good and conscientious?  I have been riding my bicycle more and I have been taking the dog for 20 minute brisk walks at least 4 days of the week (Philip takes her out too).

Now that I’ve spat that out I can let it go.

You all know I read food blogs for a living.  This gives me a front row seat to all the food trends barreling through the food world which, if you didn’t know, can be fascinating.  One of my favorite games is spotting foods to truly gross Max out.  You might think, considering his dislike of most foods that this would be boringly easy.  The funny thing is that when he can’t smell the food there are a surprising number of foods he doesn’t think seem all that gross, just as long as he doesn’t have to eat them.

He did explain to Philip that the reason why pasta really offends him is that it looks like tape worms.  I have to admit that I don’t like sprouted things, especially in soups, because the little sprouty curly cues look like tiny maggots.  I can’t eat while the thought of such perfectly benign beasts are floating through my head.  I’m a lot more like Max with food issues than I allow anyone to know.

The bacon craze has yet to abate.  I think it will not die down until someone discovers that all bacon eaten in conjunction with sugar will poison the liver due to chemical reactions between the tritophatic lymph-pins and the non-soluble demigloxins.

Max and I are most amused/disgusted with weird meat trends and his favorite to date might be the maggot cookies.

That is not a lie.  I have seen (and been haunted) by photographic proof of someone’s maggot cookies (with chocolate chips).  From a paleo eater’s kitchen.  Okay, they were actually meal-worms but it’s all the same to me.

A close second is the plate of glazed chicken feet.  We are especially fixated on the toenail clipping that must occur before full enjoyment may be had sucking the feet of juicy goodness.

The most recent two dishes that have nearly unseated our favorite hunt for the most bizarre foods are:  blood pasta and chocolate blood pudding (not to be confused with the savory boudin noir).

Pasta made with blood.  It’s fascinating and horrifying at the same time.

Chocolate blood pudding.  Dessert.

Such a fun game!

Two people have read my book.  TWO.  I wrote a book and two people have finished reading it.  I will write a detailed post about this soon.  My friend Lucy read it and wrote lots of notes and asked questions and I will be transcribing them all to my working third draft for due consideration.  Soon I will have my friend Emma’s notes too and I will add them in.  This is really cool.  But it’s also a little weird.  I have been alone with this story for a year.  No one but these two friends have in their heads the whole story.  A third friend has just asked to read the second draft too.  I begin to shake a little.  I can take the critiques, they are kind and helpful cause I’m not in a brutal writing group or class where people feel it’s their duty to find your work completely wanting.

It’s just weird.  It makes me feel a little skinned.  A little opened up in a way I didn’t expect.  So this is a new part of the book writing process for me to get used to and experience.  I think having readers is really important.  I’m all excited and scared and open and ready to go forward but first I think I need to stop dragging my spleen around on the ground.

Max is at the charter school.  People: this mama’s relief is grandiose.  He’s had a fabulous first three days.  He’s already been allowed to learn a little animation on their video game building software.  He came home excited about algebra.  He gets to eat lunch wherever he wants and he can do what he wants for recess.  When he comes home there’s no stress and fight over the homework that is just too much on top of 7 hours of him having to fight his natural instincts and to conform to uncomfortable rhythms and other people’s needs.  He can come home and just be.  We can be together.  My relationship with him can be less about monitoring his experience in school and slogging through the stress of the homework.

I know I’m waxing poetic and you’re thinking I’m going to end up disappointed.  I’m not naive.  I’m hopeful.  My kid is always going to have challenges around other people and in the societal structures others build, but when he starts struggling I do have a lot of hope that this school will approach the problems with ideas, strategies that might work for him, and without making him feel punished for who he is.

Speaking of- I find I’m really wanting to develop a no-tolerance policy for adults in Max’s life or activities that will crush him.  Anyone who punishes him for being who he is should not be allowed to do so.  I know this is not practicable nor is it healthy.  The kid is going to grow up and there will be six billion people who won’t see the world like he does and he’s going to have to find a way to cope and take it in stride.

I’m going to have to cut this communication short(er) because I’m all distracted by The Daily Show and the power they have to help me manage my extreme anger about us engaging in a third war.

It’s amazing how our country keeps finding the funds to fight new wars.

People keep decrying the horror that is public schools and moaning about the terrible education our children are getting.  There’s a direct correlation  between how much money public schools get and how good the education our children are getting.  We’ve been cutting funding, cutting programs, cutting salaries for years.  Every single time we do that we tighten the noose of the public schools.  But we keep blaming the schools for the deficit.  Like we expect teachers and schools to run on air.

God but my ex-country is stupid.

Enough of that.  You know what there is in this world worth celebrating?  Kittens!

Wait- I said I was going.  I hope you all have lusty dreams.

I don’t really.  I just said that because it’s what popped into my head.

Good night!