Why pugs are the best dogs ever.

Exhibit A.

Exhibit B.

Nuff said.

P-

A very special day!!!

Dearest Pea,

Happy Birthday to YOU!

Here's the cake I would like to bake for you:












Here's the present I would like to buy for you, and then spend hours and hours playing with it while watching TV and eating above cake:



















HERE's the song I would like to sing you.

Miss you so much, wee pee.

All my heart,

P-

nest and egg.

p,
I miss you so much. So terribly lonely right now-- partly self-imposed, partly not, but somehow useful for these last 4 weeks. And yet there is a side dish to the crazy entree, one which your nesting post stirred up and seems worth throwing out to the wind...and you.

Let's get a few things straight: 1) I don't believe in motherly/mothering instincts. Seen too many moms without a shred of it. Some moms, I think, are genuine nurturers for whom the natural extension of nurturing would be that ultimate caretaking role--the raising of a child. 2) Never, ever, as a child did I imagine myself mothering my own children. I wasn't opposed or anything, it just didn't register as a kind of longing or dream. 3) Kids intimidate me: what the hell do you say to them? And why do they always look at me like I'm so stupid when I talk to them? 4) I don't believe that having children is the inevitable path for fertile adults. It's not necessary and I don't buy that it can provide complete fulfilment. And on and on and on...

And yet. My imagination is consumed by two things: the exam and having a baby. It's not what I imagined (at least not yet)-- this desire is very earthy (to tread dangerously close to clicheland)-- it's so physical and when I dream, I dream about the weight of my baby in my arms and about breastfeeding and the feel of her skin (yes, her) it's almost a feeling of desperation mixed with desire mixed with sorrow mixed with ecstasy. I can't say why this is happening now or why it's happening at all.

Any reasonable person (read: anyone but me) could chart and graph the thousands of ways in which this needs to be thought through and there are flow charts, I'm sure, and therapy to be had, and a husband to get to know and trips to be taken and books to write and and and and and and. No, there will be no pregnancy soon. But I would pay to get to do what I do four times a week when I hold a client's baby against my chest and wrap my arms around it and shove my nose into its neck to smell its smallness. And the sound of a mom, laughing and laughing at her baby scooting across the floor for the first time-- it's exactly how the world is so expansive. Everything is right there.

Maybe the macrocosm of our lives seems to contract as we get older and hunker down with our Rizos and matching silverware. But maybe the microcosm expands to finally allow us to be in a place where we can love the deepest we can and be, without the aid of an entourage, our biggest, best selves. As long as there's a guest bed for a pea, that is.

I love you...
your snuggling buddy,
p

A REALLY Good Friday

Dear P,

I thought you might appreciate this chance to stick it to the Christian Right.

Speaking of Easter, I was in a drugstore yesterday, checking out all the Easter kitsch, and I thought of you with love. I might cover the floor of my apartment with that fake plastic grass and make a Peeps garland as an homage to my darling Pea.

Also, do you know if SOMEONE'S birthday is coming up? ANYONE at all? It seems like SOMEONE might soon have a birthday, but I'm NOT ENTIRELY SURE.

Oh yeah, it's Perry Farrel. Silly me!

Love,

Pea

A new addition to the family

Pea,

Meet Rizo, our newest family member:










Rizo is good for lots of things. Rizo cooks rice. Rizo steams vegetables. Rizo could boil a mean cup of water if you wanted him to. Rizo looks like he could talk to you in a Jim Henson muppet sort of way. Rizo has four feet for stability, a special cup for measuring rice, and a special spatula for scooping. Sometimes we gather around and look at Rizo and wonder if Rizo will do tricks (nothing yet).

We have yet to use Rizo in any culinary activity, but we plan to very soon.

I can feel myself entering full-on nesting mode. As you well know, friend with whom I spend hours at Target and/or Walmart buying useless household crap, nesting mode is nothing new for me. Now, however, it feels different, because I'm preparing to nest in the very first place that I'll own. I imagine my green chair--the chair where I used to hold my baby brother (while wearing pink foam curlers, we were freakishly cute), the chair that one of my parents had to part with during the divorce, the chair that graced the very first apartment I ever rented, the chair that accompanied my pea across the country, the chair that is slightly the wrong shade of green and slightly the wrong flavor of the 70's--sitting in the middle of my tiny living room. I imagine Rizo on the counter, next to my bright blue blender, next to my silly pink spiky anthropomorphized soap dispenser, next to a bunch of other shit I'm very likely to purchase at Costco (a mere stone's throw away). I imagine pea on an aerobed, dreaming of the next day's cupcake excursion.

I have been warned that as I get older, the universe of things I care about will contract. If I'm not careful, I could develop a myopic obsession with Rizo and his cohorts in the world of *stuff.* At the end of the day, even my sentimental attachment to the green chair is little more than an attempt to concentrate my childhood memories into a material object, and one that I'm fully aware will make me the envy of all vintage loving hipsters. I try to be attuned to this risk associated with nesting, and anxious to remain engaged with the world and the things about it that matter to me. I happen to like my dog and my stuff more than I like most people, and sometimes this worries me.

The world of Pea always feels more expansive to me. Maybe we don't solve world hunger when we're together, but every mundane errand or task feels like a mission and an adventure. Come see me soon and let's put Rizo to work saving the world.

Missing you dearly,

P-

a day in the life

Pea,
It is everything I can do to keep myself from rehashing all of my symptoms and ailments from the past two weeks. I have no idea why I find EVERY SINGLE thing going on in/on my body so endlessly fascinating, but I'm pretty sure it's not so exciting to others. Even though you wouldn't say so, you'd be bored too. So aside from mentioning that I've had an inexplicable metallic taste in mouth and that my hands hurt, I'll keep quiet.

I've said this a million times, but I wish, so so wish, that you could work with me when I get these insane social service jobs because the commentary would be endless! You think diagnosing our friends/enemies/neighbors is fun? It's an absolute goldmine in drug and alcohol treatment. And don't think that I don't constantly flip through the DSM IV that is actually installed on all of our computers (Ack! Crazy Information Technology!). Last night I thought that a great exercise would be to list as succinctly as possible, every drama from one 5 hour shift. Here goes:

• kid accuses foster mom of choking him
• referral made to CPS
• a meeting b/n bio mom (J) and foster mom is negotiated.
• bio mom and foster mom have meeting in which they cry and cry and the rest is too complicated...
• B. (8 months pregnant) seems to have gone into labor. "it feels like I have to poop" staff: "DON'T PUSH!"
• B. goes to hospital
• "people are taking too many tater tots at a time" !!! an investigation ensues.
• R. reveals that she is suicidal and very very sad. She needs a pro bono lawyer. Her perp husband is being represented by the local Legal Aid so she can't use them. She wants her daughter back. I would too.
• L. pulls a stunt and manages to manipulate three staff so she can break some not-very-interesting rule.
• my co-worker exploded a can of air (the kind you use to clean computers) in the office
• Multiple conversations about what L said to whom and when. Detective work.
• We figure out that the tattoo on C's neck says "die all bitches." she hates all women. and all men, according to C.
• J is now completely overwhelmed because her kids who were in foster care (see above fiasco with abuse allegations) are now with her and are running around screaming.
• J's new baby, which I am holding so she can put kids to bed, pukes all over me.
• B returns from hospital carrying an enema. Doc: "you're constipated" B: "I went to the bathroom TWICE today" We started boiling the water and clearing off the table.
• JC's daughters starts to crawl. CHEERING!
• We finally confront L. who threatens to "turn you (us) in to your boss". okay.
• While being piss-tested, A. has a breakdown about her treatment. My co-worker is stuck in a tiny bathroom managing the breakdown for 45 minutes.
• add in about 10 crying babies and a couple of kids throwing tantrums.

Seriously, this could go on and on. The reprieve comes when they go to bed. Unless someone goes into labor or starts puking. Then it starts again. So meanwhile, I have no time to google all my symptoms while at work. WTF?

That's what I've been up to. As I was typing, I remembered that I'm working the grave shift tonight and I feel pretty safe saying that B will probably go into labor on my shift. Okay, enough of my keyboard diarrhea.

I miss you and you're missing all the fun,

your pea.

Tuff/ Not Tuff

TUFF:




NOT TUFF: