Anniversary

It occurred to me tonight that a year ago today I posted this. One year.

In true Kris fashion I felt my shoulders and chest involuntarily rise, and the tinge of burning in my face that serves as my two-minute warning to locate tissues and a door that locks.

And then I reconsidered.

Because although you think that it – your hand clasped over your open mouth as your Closest calls to say he’s not sure he’s ever coming back to you and his choice to close years of knowing and loving you with a robotic correspondence about splitting up the Sprint bill – although you think that all of it will cause you to wither on the spot, that the weeping roadside with your hazards on will never stop, that all of it will kill you and on some days you wouldn’t really mind if it did, it doesn’t.

Sadly, it does make you listen to Christina’s Fighter 95 times in a single summer. But no, it doesn’t kill you.

Photo Opportunities

With Dad’s health completely inconsistent and the Spin Doctors being played on DC’s classic rock station, I’ve been thinking a lot about just how old I am. Yesterday, my mother actually asked me whether I wanted to be cremated or buried after death. I don’t think she anticipated the twenty-minute reply I gave her, detailing how she should definitely have me cremated unless my death occurred under suspicious circumstances, and then, no matter what lines they feed her about not being able to find my killer despite a wealth of evidence, she should have me pickled and buried until science and technology catch up with his sorry ass and my lifelong dream of being on a true-crime cable show one way or another is ultimately realized. Then again, she may have anticipated that nonsense, but I’m quite sure she didn’t anticipate a plan to have all of my friends, co-workers and blog readers to a central place for a really festive party possibly catered by Taco Bell, but only after a long, touching memorial service at which the right choice of sappy music left everyone weeping for the untimely loss of their Kris. She was sorry she asked.

But if the lengthy death itineraries didn’t do it, the opening of the closet my sister and I generally maintain holds one of our mangled, caged twins, made her sorry. Opening is actually a kind word, for last night I womanhandled wrapping supplies and decorative pillows and 70’s artwork to get to the three existing boxes of family photos (the rest are reportedly in slides, those wonders of technology we’re pretty certain won’t be making the comeback old boyfriends and Teri Hatcher have). Before they could object, I commandeered every walking surface for my reminiscing project, covering the floor in old-timey pics of my twenty-something mother in a swimming costume and black and white shots of my father that failed to do his beautiful, icy eyes justice.

I wasted little time on the ridiculous number of familiar pictures of my sister, the firstborn, which naturally translates into shots of her doing the same thing over and over again. Like eating. And sitting. And sleeping. And wearing a God awful Dorothy Hamill haircut before Dorothy Hamill actually did. Instead, I bypassed this photographic excess for the pictures of the miniature Kris, given that earlier searches of the family photo archives revealed little proof of life prior to junior high school. Mom attributed this oversight not to illegal adoption but being lost in the shuffle that was moving on multiple overseas assignments and a lack of time or interest in keeping such things in order. When you could be playing bridge and having high tea. Obviously.

She was right. Given the absence of Photoshop in the 1970s, I apparently wasn’t adopted after all. I discovered a picture of myself at only 15 days, wearing that same pudgy nose, being cradled by a woman who looked strangely like my mother if it weren’t for the dark hair of her youth. My birth announcement was next, yellowed and revealing that for 33 years I have been lying to others about the time at which I first saw the light of New Jersey. Photos of my already-ample chin barely sticking out of an awful frilly Pennsylvania Dutch concoction that boasted red and white and blue and yellow all in the same outfit! A dancing and pigtailed me in a full black leotard while the rest of the ballerinas are pretty in pink. A tiny Kris opening an almost tinier bike and my first Paddington Bear and the Donny and Marie microphone that I’m pretty sure I only relinquished when the literal flood of graduate school whisked it from my clutches.

Soon my parents too couldn’t resist the lure of the hundreds of shiny papers that littered their floor. Dad corrected the date stamp on one photo of a cherry-red convertible as decidedly from 1964, not 1963. He laughed out loud at a picture of my mother holding their first puppy Ginger in one arm while feeding my infant sister with the other. He lingered over a photo of a young version of himself sitting on the nondescript couch next to a mother now gone almost 30 full years. Mom scoffed at Senior photos of her poised and gentle face, captivating shots that left me wondering if that instant was the last in which she was so calm and seemingly carefree. She told me for the first time that the wedding dress in the photo still hung in her closet only 30 feet away. In the next moment she recognized a picture of her grandfather, one taken the day before he died. She recounted how that morning he’d taken her into the shady lane to practice tennis strokes, and how after lunch he’d had a heart attack, and left her life never the same.

So I’m thinking it’s time for more photos of us. Of me and you and the cats and the parents and the neighbors. When we’re standing in front of the White House and when we’re eating at our favorite local dive. When we’re dying Easter eggs or doing laundry in a basin in the backyard, and when we’re taking a breather under a tree the day before we teach our oldest granddaughter how to play tennis. Because at a time when my father can’t seem to remember what message my mother left for me ten minutes prior and Mom can’t stay off the phone with friends to finish a family conversation, these pictures made my parents fully present. And because as these three boxes revealed, twenty years later no one cares if you were wearing makeup that day, because the photos of the Twin Towers or that floral green couch or that Brownie uniform mean a million times more with you and your mom, with feathered hair and the same exact chin, sharing the frame.

Bygones

K Number 1, if we had married, I'd probably be living in Southern California. I bet we'd have had the ceremony in our hometown and you would have sung at our wedding. Like that teal suit that plagued me through many a college formal, you'd have worn a non-traditional tuxedo for which I'd secretly resent you. I'd be a nagging wife who'd pester you to get a real job. I'd be a loving wife who repeatedly removed from its sacred place in her jewelry box the first ring you gave her when you knew she was the One. I would have been on the verge of breaking up with you over the years for your strange appreciation for Hootie and the Blowfish and a penchant for using slang in love letters. But I would be in awe of your passion for life and your love for your parents and your pick of the perfect engagement ring and your all-time amazing ability to disarm a woman with a kiss. If I had married you I would be a dog mom rather than a cat fiend. If I had married you I'd have been a widow at 29.

K Number 2, if I had married you, I'd probably be living on a street bearing your last name. We'd have a top-of-the-line gas grill and you'd probably coach a little league team. We'd likely travel out of state once a year, and when we did we'd bump heads as to whether it would be to Disney or Yellowstone. We wouldn't have gotten pregnant yet, but we'd hang out with high school friends who had a few little ones of their own. We'd have an in-ground pool and an SUV. We'd go to firehouse fundraisers and church on Sundays. On sweltering summer Fridays we'd make the age-old trek to the Jersey Shore and our neighbors there would know us by first names. At family cookouts I'd close the screen door behind me to find your mom standing alone in the kitchen, and we probably still wouldn't have much to say to one another even in the silence.

Dearest J, if we had gotten hitched, it would have been quite a wedding. Only after a series of hints and possible threats would you have gotten up the persuaded courage to propose to me, and when I told and retold the animated proposal story you would blush and slowly shake your downturned head. I'm pretty sure your bachelor party would have been broadcast on the Internet, and would have involved at least three different bail bondsmen. We'd have a baby boy and we'd live in Northern California. You'd be the most responsive husband and a wonderful father, the man who would go out once at 3 a.m. to appease my cereal craving and again at 3:30 when you confused Froot Loops with Apple Jacks. I would find myself often frustrated by your quiet nature but rewarded at the tiny bubbles of goodness and wit that would make their way to the surface during an odd expressive moment. If we were married it's safe to say I'd be drinking hard liquor.

C, if we had made it this far I think we'd be living in Tallahassee, still doing the grad school thing almost a decade after we both started. We would have been married in a Catholic church in DC, and I probably would not have met half the friends you invited to the wedding. I still wouldn't really know what happened in New Mexico. A good bit of our furniture would be from Ikea, and much to my mother's chagrin, we'd have gotten at least two large tents and a thankfully smaller chocolate lab as wedding presents. I'd force myself on a regular basis to eat seafood and not to use puns to excess. We'd go to Martha's Vineyard for our yearly trip and I would find it amazingly rewarding to see my sunburned cheeks in the annual family photo. I'd remain in awe of your ability to make perfect rice and completely amazed at what a good, good man I had found to put up with me. A good bit of the time our lives would be spent in complete silence.

R, if we had gotten married we'd be living in Alexandria, likely in a small house in the back roads of Del Ray. We'd be regulars at the local coffee house, me writing on my laptop and you reading about the latest social revolution. I'd be doubling up on birth control while you did exercises you'd found on the Internet rumored to make your sperm extra nimble. I'd watch you play inline hockey on Wednesday nights and wonder why I never really fit in with any of the other wives. I'd pray for you to get your front tooth fixed. I'd bake miniature rum cakes and take them to parties at which I'd wish for once you'd mingle. Instead, you'd mostly just sit, writing or singing or whatever it is you did in your own head, while I drank Chianti to excess and contemplated forcing myself on your coworker under the mistletoe.

I should probably stop there.

Convenient explanation

I hope this dragon's parents are more gullible than mine were.









crickets.

Unsolicited Advice

Because I wanted to.

I’ve read lately that the Gap has lost its footing in the just-missed-J. Crew market. Am I the only one who’s not shocked? Last I went to Gap, the quality of both the clothing and the perfume was on par with the intentionally less expensive, big-glasses-wearing Old Navy, and the staff seemed more interested in using their newfangled breaker breaker 1-9 headgear than in picking up the unusually wrinkled and miniature tees strewn about the place. Mr. Gap, even in college, one does desire more than washed out hoodies and 14 different cuts of the same color khakis. Just a thought.

DC, buy some plows and let’s get on with this. Love, your Jersey girl, who knows only 36+ inches really warrant a late opening.

To my local corner store guy: Why, for the love, why not organize the goods? Why just open the freezer and throw the shipments inside, whether vegetarian burrito or Lean Cuisine meatloaf or canned green beans? And sweet Jebus, for what reason did I have to wake you up from a counterside deep sleep? All that product separation wearing you out?

Paula Abdul: Xanax, baby girl. Even the cheap stuff will do.

Hi, check card, next time could you be doll and show your little blue face before mama calls to cancel you? Although I really enjoyed that little game of hide and seek we played under the car seat, next time it would be awesome to find you before I drink the rest of the good wine.

ABC, fire his ass. If any one of us had said that crap 1) at the weekly staff meeting and 2) again ON A LIVE MIC AT THE COMPANY HOLIDAY PARTY you know our asses would have been canned. And why is this different?

To Obama and Clinton: it’s time to suck it up and pair off. I had to do it with Scott Asker for 4th grade badminton and now it’s your time. You fight it? Say hello to President McCain.

John Mayer, leave the blogging and Grey’s Anatomy calls to us me. In the will of life, we got the computer and you the Jessica Simpson.

It’s just not a sofa a single woman should buy.

And Tallahassee, you know, being the capital of Florida and all, I was just thinking we could get us some more meaty news. Please don’t let this hunter have been a Bowden.

And finally, get. some. perspective.

Overheard in the Shenandoah (Or Why No One Invites Me for Dessert Anymore)

* Photo and artistic license with the following courtesy of Kim and her GD Notebook. Ahem.

I spent the first weekend of 2007 in the setting we all know Kris loves best: a cabin in the Virginia mountains without track lighting, a package store with free wine refills or reliable cell phone service. (Oh, and numerous cruel stories about the resurgance of rural cyborgs, but apparently it's not cool to cry over your s'mores, p*ssy.) But it was all for a good cause; each beer we consumed both raised money for Jerry's Kids and - arguably more important - celebrated the years our dear Kim spent inventing the text message and supporting her "Buds Across America" campaign.

The following was overheard on afternoon #1, and shall not be forgotten until at least evening #859,324 of all of our young lives:

Kris, to group of camper friends and Kim's perv dog, who could not seem to stop showing the bare essentials of his ass to all who mistakenly looked toward it: Seriously? I don't know what's going on with your dog, but he sure has shown us enough of his piehole this weekend.

Kim, pursing lips to foreshadow impending blogger friend embarrassment: Kris?

Kris, to her empty wine glass and said imminent embarrassment: Yes?

Kim: How exactly do you eat pie?

I'm not sure, but I may not be invited back next year.

Living Single

Disclaimer: the following post is not meant to imply that I hate men or marriage, that I hope to remain single for the remainder of my natural life, or that I have anything against those who choose to marry, have children, or watch Lord of the Rings. Or those who have children while watching Lord of the Rings.

This single woman is not about to gripe about the relative affirmation that came in the form of this article and a gazillion others like it after the census data were released. It may seem strange, but I consider this a validation for me and my 20- and 30-something group of closest girlfriends, all of whom are either single or divorced. Currently single women make up nearly half of the female population. We aren’t freaks, or at least it isn’t this particular issue that makes us so; we aren’t just an isolated DC phenomenon, a product of a transient environment and an overabundance of middling Hill candidates; we aren’t alone in the desire for companionship coupled with hesitation about committing before our time. And we aren't settling like some of our mothers or grandmothers might have felt they needed to.

Love it, Love it, LOVE IT.

What strikes me as most interesting is one network’s apparent need to provide examples of famous folk to make the story (or the social situation) a valid or believable one. Stars! They are so just like us! They shop for Camembert at Whole Foods and buy their toilet paper at Nordstrom and some of them are even – gasp – single! It’s the Not that there’s anything wrong with that and the Some of my friends are black and/or gay and/or bionic Syndrome all over again. Ugh.

Oprah has long served as the independent, single woman’s poster girl. She's classy and paired with a supportive man and autonomous and stylish and probably a kick-ass best friend (She and Gale so aren't gay. Not that there'd be anything wrong with that.) But has anyone noticed the other models of singledom news outlets have been trotting out for display? I won’t name any of them here, given that I actually respect these women and would hate to hurt their feelings as I’m pretty sure at least a million famous people read my corner of the Interweb, but please, can you not pick us a hottie? One who didn’t go to school with Laura Ingalls and who has made a movie, spearheaded a philanthropic effort, owned a company, or stood up for herself (or her country), within the past five years?

These latter women represent what most of us as small children feared would result from a life living unmarried past pubescence:

• They are workaholics. They seemingly have no real hobbies. Except for knitting, and not in the cool way, in the smells-like-mothballs way.
• It's not just that they're single. They're pretty much asexual. Asexual, and not in just a preference way, but in an absence-of-female-parts way.
• If you look really, really close, some of them have a third eye. In an extra-eye-kinda way.
• They like men’s clothes. On themselves. And they look like they wear n*de hose and nursing shoes to big events. (That last should be enough for all of you.)

News flash: Not all currently single women over the age of 25 share Gollum’s charming features or are polydactyl, people (and Oprah and Gale SO aren't gay)! We are charming and cute and loving and some of us even have breasts and cool hobbies like blogging and drinking and playing hide and seek with our cats.

(Then again, maybe Oprah should remain the only poster girl.)

H to the mmmmmm.

At some point today, which we all know equates to after Kris drinks two to three cases of Diet Coke, I will be back to post on this.

The Almost-Live Simulblogging of Tonight's Golden Globes

Note to awards purists, there will be no coverage of those awards given to minor stars or major people unknown to me. Or any lifetime achievement of anything award. Or anything with which Roberto Benigni may even REMOTELY be associated.

Let's get started.

Most Inappropriate Pre-Game Comment
Seacrest Out to an unflappable Meredith Grey: Something about it being "cold" and her wearing a "white" dress, referring to her breasts as a 7th-grade boy might with the (thankful and) notable absence of any Tune In Tokyo action.

Is it Me or Does Sharon Stone Look Like
she should now speak with Phyllis Diller's voice?

Beyonce, I Seriously Love You, but What's With
the Body Vaseline?

Jeremy, Mama Is Here to Comfort You
I can't wait to become Mrs. Jeremy Piven. Kris Piven. Although it sounds like a new Lays product . . . "Now, NEW tangier and even MORE UNBEARABLE Salt and Vinegar Krispivens! Coming to a Lunchables near you!"

Note to Warren Beatty
Dick Clark called. Even he thinks you're looking a tad waxy.

To Most of the Women Nominated for the Best Supporting Performance in a) a TV Movie or b) the Completion of a People Crossword
Thanks for listening to your mothers and NOT clapping when your own names are called. Tres gauche.

I Should Dispose of the Lot of You Right Now
Given that Bill Paxton has been nominated for something, which in my opinion (which I'm pretty sure isn't libel according to Penal Code 867-5309) now demotes this to the level of the Nickelodeon Awards, but I won't. Because Hugh Laurie is speaking and sex dreams with an Englishman are now assured for at least another fortnight.

I Should Dispose of the Lot of You Right Now Part II
Some obscure acceptance speech reference was just made to Randy Newman, which usually means a painful snippet WITH INEXPLICABLE ARCHAIC VIDEO of "Short People", which makes the baby Jesus and this blogger weep openly.

Someone just played Vogue as screen legend Meryl Streep accepted her award.
Clearly an intern. Serrrrrrrriously boys. What's next? The Divinyls for Dwight Schrute?

My plan to drink every time someone mentions cruelly-named Tommy Schlamme isn't going all that well this year. Poor planning.

Within 10 seconds I saw a shot of one-hit wonders/nominees Marky Mark, Eddie Murphy, and Bananarama.
That may or may not be libel.

STYLE ALERT and WHOORL WEST COAST SPOILER!
DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN! or . . . Cameron Diaz clearly stole Suri Cruise's birth toupee for the event. I prefer it on Cameron, despite her Bjork dress sans swan, so at least that's good news.

This just in . . .
Zach Braff will be playing the role of the American farmer in aforementioned Englishman sex dream.

I'm pretty sure we can say one thing this evening about the generally amazing Mr. Clint Eastwood:
He got it at Ross.

You Go, America.
But why are all the waify, naturally-beautiful and incessantly perky women crying about a show based on this ugly duckling premise? This one's for us, Desperate Housewives. Back. off.

Warren Beatty is up for that loooong award + speech + fogie cryfest.
Bathroom break + cigarette. Hold please.

Off topic:
Kudos to my friend Kimmay for an extraordinary performance in her job talk this week in a state that likely serves roadside bawwwled peanuts. Atta girl.

Scorcese.
It's one way or the other. Die the hair black or these babies white. I'm just saying.

Randomness
-- I'm loving that Salma wore a toga. How very Belushi.
-- Are we sure these awards weren't sponsored by the BBC?
-- Brava to SJP for showing up to an awards ceremony held long after her most recent 15 minutes had passed.
-- Pllllleeeeeeeeeeease tell me someone else thought they meant the Science Guy everytime Bill Nighy was mentioned . . .
-- Tim Allen = possible stand-in presenter for an ill Edward James Olmos? Sinbad? Bananarama?
-- Brad Pitt has perfected the Paula Abdul clap. Nice, MC Skat Cat.

Arnold, Thank You for That.
Because Babble was exactly what I was thinking. With the exception of a few stumbles, and Angelina caressing Brad's neckline, and Borat actually stepping out of character for 2.4 seconds, NOTHING was exciting tonight. Gone is the true glamour and anticipation and realization of these awards shows. This is nothing new, so I'm not exactly sure why I continue to watch. I persist just as I'm hopeful for a month of continually clear skin and the return of the jello mold, I guess.

Until next time, honorably yours and on painkillers after that "We'll be bahhhk" comment,
Mrs. Krispiven

Thank God Bush is Addressing the Nation Tonight

Now there's ample time to blog.

Before I get started with the real-life accounts, let me just ask: has anyone else noticed that House has gotten way preachy as of late? Wait, is that libel? Slander? Slaughter? It can't be all of the above.

Anyhoo, so I've already told you that I attended the Washington Post DC Blogger Summit this week. Sadly, despite the weight that the word summit would seem to carry, the meetup was held in NW Washington rather than Reykjavik and no one with a full-on cranial birthmark seemed to be in attendance. As far as I knew. Given that HB and I arrived late, due to some Kris health malfunctioning that shall remain descriptionless and Flickrless, we were forced to sit in the front, courtesy of 4/5 of the room grabbing the back chairs closest to the chocolate-covered strawberries and the open Pepsi bar. You know who you are.

It felt nice to be there. It was rewarding to feel that these real life journalists wanted to hear what I, blogger extraordinaire who somehow made it onto a few dozen blogrolls, had to say. Of course, given said health discomfort and the fact everyone else in the room sounded as if they had studied at Oxford either this week or last, I remained mute and instead resorted to writing notes to HB 7th-grade style. At least I didn't steal all the extra blogger notepads from the empty seats. Ahem.

The Washington Post folks were great listeners. And have a genuine interest in how a reciprocal relationship between their online paper and the local DC blogosphere - not just those with a journalist bent - might develop. They want to increase our readership. Profile us. Put us out there in a forum to which few of us would have been exposed. Kinda cool, party people. Very cool.

I left this meeting as I do almost every other blog gathering (not drunk, you asshats, this was a school night): disappointed at the minimal role that personal blogs clearly play in the serious blogosphere.

Please. I have no illusions that I will ever make money off of this blog, or that I'll be discovered by the Simon Cowell of publishing and be whisked away from a life of research to days of stay-at-home feline-ing. But I think the distinction between the serious blogosphere and the writing that just isn't is a pretty apparent one, even though we don't speak it above a whisper at parties. Do you post? Regularly? Expect people to read you? Spend more than a few minutes of your day on your writing and commenting, refuse to push street-quality Xanax on people via robot spam, and confess to at least once dumping a post as it wasn't quite what you wanted to say? Don't tell me you haven't written something down so you wouldn't forget to blog about it in the morning. I can see your lies.

Fact Perception is, blogs about you just are not as important to the serious online world as any number of other sites are. Political blogs, food blogs, parenting blogs, entertainment sites, relationship blogs, neighborhood and community sites, et cetera and et al and ergo. I just want to pop a gasket that decent writing about the ongoing status of the construction on Route 1 seems to have more credibility than every one of the excellent blogs about LIFE that I consume obsessively every day. Yes, it may be about what she ate for breakfast. But rather than it being a dry statement about an even drier cereal, it's a post about how she pilfered Froot Loops from a suitemate's care package or an entry detailing how a childhood sans sugared cereal has produced an adult for whom Frosted Flakes constitute a bona fide food group.

Why does that not seem to matter as much? And when it does, that it isn't just good enough on its own; instead, we have to move it from personal to eight other categories that may describe it (i.e., Southwest DC resident, foodie, mommy, ancient car driver, Republican, divorcee, sports fanatic and bookworm). Why can't her writing not just stay in LIFE?

Interestingly, I'm not sure this holds true in the hard-copy publishing world, as the memoir (is there a closer, more comparable example?) seems to stand as one of the more rich and revered writing genres. I know I'd choose a well-written autobiography over a strictly tech, political, gaming, crafting, religious, cooking or window blind site any day of the week. But that may just be me.

Went to the Washington Post Blogger Summit last night and have much to post. First, however, I have learned I must scour my archives to delete any references to actual, real-live humans, cats, bars, monuments, and Tai Shan to avoid imminent charges of libel, flat out unkindness, and, well, libel.

Be back in 10.

I’m sick of having feelings for inanimate objects.

[insert joke about my exes here.]

On the way to work today I teared up as a wide-mouthed DC garbage truck devoured defenseless Christmas trees that still had plenty of twilight left in them (my live wreath stays on the door until Easter or a neighbor politely requests its removal due to odor and/or embarrassment, whichever comes first).

I vaguely recall already posting about my neurosis surrounding those IKEA commercials of old, the ones in which a stoic owner ousts an old desk lamp due to the arrival of a new model. It sits alone, in the street, in the dark, in what my mother would call an iffy section of town, as I often fear I will when I’m older and my 80 cats die.

True confession to follow that will likely make me lose your friendship, if ever ‘twas mine – I have a difficult time tossing animal-themed cat toys, despite their mangled, lifeless states and the frequent absence of their entrails. A one-eyed pig sits atop my nightstand as we speak, while I explore appropriate medical sponsorship/adoption options for the poor soul. I mean, obviously.

[Go rock the vote for your fave sites for the 2007 Bloggies. Because I’m pretty sure you know I’ll be crying for the losing templates.]

DC Yin and Yang

No doubt about it. Yesterday was a beautiful, historic day here in Washington. Not only did the new government folk clog up my route home with their ridiculously heavy and unnecessary braking, but Nancy Pelosi was passed the gavel to serve as Speaker of the House (with a much more stylish choice of hairstyle than that last guy, I might add).

She'll be the first female in the role, the first woman to stand behind a president as he delivers the State of the Union Address to millions worldwide. As I watched last night's replay - introduced by moonlighting male Bain de Soleil model Brian Williams - I inhaled deeply, absorbing the full significance of the day. On January 4th, 2007, Ms. Pelosi indeed began to chip away at that marble ceiling. And that day signaled the dawn of the truth for which I have long waited: that women, not the feared ones, will indeed rule the world.

In other news, I find it amazing that while we can put men on the moon, women in the House, and cheese product in the middle of pretzels, idiocy still exists in our urban planning. Does it not strike anyone as ironic that while you cannot park with hazards blaring to hug a loved one in the kiss and fly departure lane at National Airport, there is an actual sitting/picnic/shoulder-borne-missile firing area at the end of one of the airport's major runways? Does that not make less sense than the closing of Polyesthers?

Where did I lose you?

I can't understand why Bug runs away when I try to braid his hair

Yeah, so I'm pretty sure I have no idea how to spend down time. Most of my people were out of town for the past two days, otherwise occupied, or keeping a safe distance from Kris: Outbreak Monkey, so I was alone a good bit. And suffice it to say I was pretty gosh darn bored. Should I have had any visitors to the abode they would have noted that I accomplished a lot - read: the bathroom sink no longer bears those strange stains and the little ones' nails are clipped and quite possibly polished - but rather than pen a Pulitzer-worthy piece or a meh post for either Web site to which I'm hopelessly devoted, I engaged in, among other things, the following:

-- Spending a good amount of time trying to dislodge tuna from the no man's land between my throat and my nose, forced there by an unexpected cough;
-- Watching a ridiculous number of episodes of the Office and Arrested Development and Body of Evidence and House and I should probably stop there;
-- Sleeping;
-- Reading old issues of Wine Spectator and most chef bios on the Food Network Home Page;
-- Napping;
-- Avoiding Constitution Avenue due to my aversion to both traffic and dead old people;
-- Baking brownies and then actually cutting them into the shapes of cats and stars.

In the 7th grade, my mother working and me many moons from a valid New Jersey driver's license, I spent a summer at home with only sporadic play dates and trips to the town pool. I read almost a book a day for those few months. During that time the smut lover in me was a sponge for the Young and the Restless (a pasttime I apparently reacquired during the recent illness with no name). I also ate my weight in Ellio's pizza given my mother's absence from the house and my complete disinterest in firing up a pan to warm up Steak Ums. And I was perfectly content.

So I'm left wondering what could be so different at 33, with the clear exception of the valid driver's license and the use of tampons.

The irony is not lost on me. When I am running ragged I absolutely beg for time in the quiet. If I could just sit down for 20 minutes and watch a movie or the 80 things I have recorded. I haven't seen my parents in a week and haven't dusted the bedroom in at least 12. Do the cats even have any litter and when did Cricket start drinking wine?

But when all those things are taken care of, then what?