Pilgrims never wore leggings.

Yikes- over a month since I’ve posted!

I was thinking about “Leggings aren’t pants” this week. Someone who I like very much said to me “Erin, promise me you won’t let your girls wear leggings as pants.”  To which I had to reply: “No.”

I can’t make that promise, I won’t, leggings as pants are *in* right now, as a child I dressed like a pilgrim because of my parents’ religion, I never fit in or dressed like my peers.  I did my best with what I had but at the end of the day it was obvious that I was not dressing like the rest of the 10 year olds in 1986.  Fashions then were ugly too but who cares? It’s what people were wearing.

So if my girls decide that “leggings as pants” is a trend they want in on, I’m going to ask them what color.  Because when they are 35 and their friends are all talking about “can you even believe we wore that?!” they’ll be able to say “yes!”  and not “No, I was dressed like a pilgrim”

On Becoming A Spectacular Liar.

Rob Brezsny wrote this horoscope for Gemini (which I am):

In the coming weeks, you Geminis could be skillful and even spectacular liars. You will have the potential to deceive more people, bend more truths, and even fool yourself better than anyone else. On the other hand, you will also have the knack to channel this same slipperiness in a different direction. You could tell imaginative stories that rouse people from their ruts. You might explore the positive aspects of Kurt Vonnegut’s theory that we tend to become what we pretend to be. Or you could simply be so creative and playful and improvisational in everything you do that you catalyze a lot of inspirational fun. Which way will you go?

Now, I certainly don’t believe in Rob Brezsny reading the future. But. Who doesn’t love foreknowledge of skillful and spectacular lying?

I design jewelry, being creative is how I fund the fun and sometimes necessary extra things that occur in day to day life. Sometimes it’s a weekend in Disney, sometimes it’s tree removal… Anyways, I’m also almost paralyzingly introverted and part of living this creative life means I have to sell my work. To strangers. While smiling. In show type public settings. It is in those situations where “this same slipperiness” helps me so much. (though I attribute it to years of training in acting and social situations, not interstellar juju)

 

 

Seven Years in Tibet, er, Austin.

Seven years ago we moved from the suburban South Shore of Massachusetts where I was born and lived in the same town my dad and grandparents were born and lived in- to Austin Texas. It had been a particularly awful winter where on more than one occasion the snow had completely buried the cars in our driveway and I’d started taking the greyness of February pretty personally.

So now that everyone has amazing friends, schools that they know how to get around in and we are starting to fix up our ridiculous cookie cutter one-story it makes perfect sense to talk about moving back. No, I know, when I put it that way it seems awful, I’m trying to be mindful of how my kids might be viewing the possibility. (They are excited, and nervous and wondering if they can spend vacations with their Texas friends- yes.)

Our fun Austin lifestyle is not lending itself to a plan for the future, we have three years to start paying for college, seven years until they’re both in college and my husband and I like each other enough to want to start planning for a fun- travelly- empty nest retirement. I got an excellent job offer that will even wait long enough for us to move over the summer rather than shake the kids up and make them jump in mid school year.

So Boston, again. But with goals, giving the girls a start free of student loans, and for us a tiny Key West bungalow with a shop and lots of high jinks and old age adventures because while no one promises us tomorrow it’s good to have a plan.

(Being a grown up is exhausting!)
(Hopefully next month I’ll have a good story about the abandoned asylum turned luxury apartments that I want to live in!)

Pretending to be Pregnant for Better Parking

Ordering 150$ in exercise clothing made me hungry. So I took the opportunity this week to eat everything in the goddamn world with a 32 ounce fountain coke. I love my children, they are pretty awesome but it is in the frosty contents of an earth-killing styrofoam chalice from Sonic that I see the face of God.

Just kidding, I’m an atheist.

But fountain coke is the shit.

So yesterday I went cold turkey. And by cold turkey I mean that I met my friend for Bloody Marys, a Captain Morgan with Cranberry & Pineapple and a Blue Moon with orange slices. No scurvy for me! But also no caffeine, for two days in a row and NOBODY has died yet.

I had to, I was so bloated that I could pass for 6 months pregnant and get the fancy close-in parking at the kinds of stores that have that. I considered doing just that though, and letting little old ladies in line at the store rub my belly for good luck while telling them it was called Tallulah.

I still might.

Don’t ask strangers if you can rub their bellies, maybe they’re just coming off a 30 day milkshake binge and are too lazy to park far away.

Not what you’d call sporty.

So the thing is, and we can talk about this more later, I was in a cult or two as a child. This impacts more parts of my life as an adult than you might imagine. Extremes of any kind are something I really avoid, also groups of people who might be extra fanatical. Runners. Vegans. Paleo eaters. Those girls who flip tractor tires in un-air-conditioned warehouses- Cross Fitters! They seem nice and well meaning, like the buff exercise world version of the wholesome Mormon boys on bicycles. Juicers. Especially juice fasters.

I try to keep it all pretty middle of the road, and as a result I’m a little squishy. It’s fine. I blame it on quitting smoking, unfortunately that blessed event was 22 months ago and while most days I would trip a bitch for a cigarette I can’t blame my sourdough pretzel habit on my jones for nicotine. Ok, maybe I can, but I shouldn’t.

So I don’t know- do I want to run? I’ve had a strict “run from danger only” policy and even then… Are my kids safe? Because really, if they’re safe then that bear seems to be coming too fast for me. It’s probably hopeless.

Just five minutes ago my squishy self researched “running clothes for fat girls” and I found a bra that I think will keep the girls pinned down nicely while not giving me uniboob, I don’t care, I refuse to have uniboob, I don’t need to run that badly. I also got some cute shorts and a pair of socks… Will I actually run? I might never tell you. Because at some point someone will tell me I will learn to love it, that it is good for my soul, that I should stay away from the windows when the angel of death is flying by.

For real. That’s a thing. We’ll talk soon.

Boom. That happened.

Had this textversation with my husband… who wants to be called Blevvins. So we’ll call him Blevvins.

B (for Blevvins): Alls I’m sayin, is that the only way I know how to celebrate Affleck’s new role is Chinese food. It makes perfect sense. Think about it.

Me: Perfect sense. Chinese food! And applesauce!

Me: I had a thought. Since there is no linear time Ben Affleck has always been Batman.

B (for Blevvins): Still not buying Affleck, cause if there’s no linear time, he has never been Batman. And never should be.

Me: Except that a thing can not Be and Not Be at the same time in the same way.

Boom.

Batfleck.

The Law of Non-Contradiction always applies.

PS- yes, I’m taking liberties with both Einstein and Aristotle. But I can. Because superheroes.

First Post

No one expects a cat picture on the Internet.