how is spent my weekend as a ball of seething anger, or why jennifer merlin sucks...

so my children's mother, who will from here on out will be known only as "the egg donor" was supposed to watch the kids saturday night. these plans were made after days of leaving unanswered messages on her phone, to which she eventually replied- after making some lame excuse that her cell phone battery had died. then saturday afternoon about one hour before i drop them of at her "home", she calls to cancel wondering if she could just get them the following morning. jason, the kids, and i were in the middle of what was supposed to be an enjoyable outing to the tropical fish store to stock up on pretty fishies for our new tank. after hanging up the phone with her the first time, i paced the floor a few times like a caged animal. i then asked the kids to go over to where jason was on the other side of the store and made another call. of course i got her voicemail even though i had just talked to her, because if she answered the phone now, she might somehow be wrangled into watching her kids after all. anyway, i proceeded to spit about five years worth of anger at her in a message that was heavily decorated with f-bombs and the like. apparently only threats of lawyers and visitation rights, etc. is going to get through to the stupid, manipulative bitch. i have just so had it. all weekend i kept going from zero to rage in five seconds at the mere mention of her name. then when i picked the kids up yesterday, they tried to tell me whatever lame excuse their mother had cooked up to fool them. how lame! then she has the audacity to leave me a message about how "we need to talk because we are both 'adults' and can work this out." translation- "i'm scared shitless because after a year or so of constantly proving to be an irresponsible, unfit mother you're finally taking legal action." i'm sorry holding down a job for a record three weeks does not make you an adult- nor does watching your own children only when it doesn't interfere with your boyfriend's amature bar band practice. i absoultely HATE this woman. i understand that divorces are commonly not pretty and everyone hates their ex, etc. this is not what i mean. i mean i hate this person. she is a despicable human being. to be nice to her means you can guarantee she will try to take advantage of you. she takes absolutely no responsibilty for her actions, it is always someone else's fault if things she causes go wrongly, and we are all meant to feel sorry for her when her great attempts to just coast through life fail. ARGH!!!!!!!!!!!! i am so done with it all. i was shaking when i had to go pick up the kids and had to have jason come along with me for fear that if i went alone, i would surely end up on the eleven o'clock news... i don't know what to do about her or all this anger i have at the moment, but i know i am done with the lame excuses as to why she can't be a mother. she will be a mother if i have to get the state of new york to make her do it or make her give up the job officially. the idea that she now wants to sit down and talk is laughable. hey, here's an idea. i'll call you to set up a time to talk. when you call me back to confirm, i'll ignore my phone for three days and say the dog ate my homework as an excuse. then when you do finally get ahold of me i will set up an appointment only to cancel it an hour prior. we can do that over and over for about a year or so. then when you are as fucking frustrated with the whole routine as i am , then and only then will we talk like adults. i need a nap. of course that won't be happening because i have to go downtown to sign the kids up for an after-school porgram and then go work for ten hours stopping only to spend my lunch break driving the kids to my sister's house after they get out of school- that is if my sister calls me back to let me know if she IS watching the kids for me. why am i a miserable prick lately? you only need one guess...

mostly harmless...

aside from the recent rash of horrible covers and crap-ass remakes, there is one project that i have been looking forward to for some time now, and it's almost here. i am, of course, talking about the big budget movie version of the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy. this was one of the first books i truly fell in love with when i was about thirteen. it makes me giggle aloud reading it to this day- which i plan to again very soon, to refresh my memory for it's april 29th release. the fact that the story itself has survived several incarnations, from a bbc radio production, to a made for bbc tv movie, and then to a book , makes me less worried than normal about what a large budget will do to the original idea. after watching the trailer nine times or so, i can safely speculate that there is some amount of unaltered content that should appease die-hard fans of the book. as for the remainder of the film, we shall see. alan rickman is doing the voice of marvin the paranoid android so how off could these people be? i know that up until his death in 2001, douglas adams had a major hand in the process, so i have faith it will all go well, despite the fact that it is a buena vista production. when things get that close to the mouse, i get a bit itchy. i'm sure i will love it. the odds of my not enjoying it, at any rate, would be very, very improbable...

corporate america rapes my childhood, again...

this is it. the end of days. if signs like the oc or jessica simpson weren't enough for you... along comes the creative forces of the warner brothers crap machine to destroy yet another perfectly good "property" due to an insane lack of vision. i'll spare you the length of the tirade i went on back in the days that the tiny toons were introduced to the world, but trust me i'm just as upset if not more so. i'm just too tired at the moment to expound on why i believe this to be a definite sign of the apocalypse. if you don't believe me see for yourself. the world is being "revisited" and "reimagined" into absolute blandness and infinitely poor taste faster than the speed of thought. b'bee..b'bee...'b'bee...that's all folks...

so i just bought a camera the other day. i haven't owned a quality camera since the 35mm that was lifted from me by a heroin addict about 10 years ago. since i haven't rented a room to strangers in about that long, i suppose it's safe again. there was a time in my life that i enjoyed random creativity to pass the time,but the farther in time away from the old college years that i get, the more creatively lazy i have become. i've recently had the urge to recapture some of that happy wandering. i enjoy just strolling around town taking pictures of whatever strikes my fancy. there is something very soothing about just observing what is around you and perhaps recording it on film. film has now given way to a plastic chip that you pop into a slot next to the battery compartment, but the results are pretty similar. i've been snapping shots of everything in sight. i realize that i have forgotten everything there is to know about shutter speeds and aperature, etc, but it will come back. the bit i'm particularly thrilled about is this macro function on my camera; i can get up really close to things. there is something about getting down to the surface of an object, to see the texture of it. if i were to follow through on a path into art again- that would probably become my focus. i want to figure out how to set up one of those picture grids on this sight that show snippets of a photo with links to the full images, etc...

drunken HTML

apparently in my sloshy stupor last night i arranged a nice link to my artwork... feel free to look...

sisters are doing it for ,well, me actually...

thank god for my sisters(and my boyfriend). i don't know what i would do if they weren't constantly picking up the slack left by my childrens' useless mother. watch for the new sitcom coming to you from the makers of two guys and a girl... it's two aunts, a gay dad, and his live in boyfriend. the hilarity never starts! it's must see-tv for the sadist! and now i'm off to the other soon-to-be-canceled sitcom in my life- crap goes on (a.k.a. my job) ...

Rylee's spectacles...

a boy and his specs

check out rylee's first pair of glasses. doesn't he look smart? the kids are off today for parent/teacher conferences . sierra's teacher asked me in for a conference to discuss her lack of attention in class. apparently she talks too much in class. every report card i got as a child had the same observation- " mark is a good student, but he spends too much of his time talking to others."
i remember one teacher decided to move me from the boys table to the girls table in an effort to embarass me into talking less. little did she know the future fairy with whom she was dealing; i talked twice as much.
on a much more somber note- my first boss and family friend, paul perna, passed away last wednesday of cancer at the age of 50. i went to the wake yesterday. i felt so out of place. i didn't know many of the people, but felt somehow that i should. most of those present were successful, italian businessmen. i'm only italian...

State of Erosion Address

to help better understand the focus of the president's state of the union address tonight, please use the following link to serve as a set of footnotes. everyday i'm a step closer to building a bush shelter in my backyard, filling it up with canned goods, a few good books, a dvd player and hunkering down for a good four years or so...

retail is latin for "pointless"

in keeping with my latest decision to get out of the neverending trench that is retail, i've started considering other potential careers. i was originally leaning toward real estate, following in my brothers well-placed footsteps, but i'm not sure i can handle a two year stretch of financially shaky ground and inconsistent income. now i'm contemplating the merits of a role as insurance agent. i may be selling myself short all around, but i'm not getting any younger, and i'm not sure i can handle an additional x amount of years of schooling for an entirely new career choice. i can see why my siblings chose the professions they did, as they do not necessarily require a straight on degree. since i still don't have one of those, despite the fact that i have been paying for my as yet unfinished education for fifteen plus years, i guess the cheaper, quicker alternatives are looking more appealing. in my current single parent situation, i need either more money or more time. i have been working an open schedule of 60+ hours, nights, weekends, etc. for almost twenty years now, and it's gotten me nowhere. i need a job that enables me to get my kids on the bus in the morning, be home at a reasonable hour at night and have more than two weekends off in four fucking months. i also don't want to manage people anymore if i can help it. i don't have the killer instinct for it. perhaps it's not so much a "killer" instinct as a basic lack of caring about others for the sake of corporate policy. despite my rantings about hating people in general, i'd rather be well-liked by my colleagues than get the stamp of approval from some shallow corporate kiss-ass that would replace me in a second for a cheaper drone. anyway, a new job is in order.