Thank You, My Friend

A couple of weeks ago I posted a link to a wonderful onesie to Facebook with the chastening plea that "Every minute you're not buying this for Maddsy is a minute in which you're proving that you're not really my friend."  Or something like that.  I'm not looking up the actual line because 1) I'm lazy, 2) I'm not a journalist, and 3) Shut up.  This is just a blog, so why don't you take your standards and shove them right quick.  RIGHT GODDAMN QUICK.

Anyway, I posted this inexpertly quoted message, and within a few days Miss Madeline received this expertly modeled gift in the mail.

Yeah, she was in the shit.

I have yet to find out who sent it, which is very exciting for me and deeply disturbing for SLB.  I'm assuming that the generous angel who sent this onesie reads this blog, or at least he or she will read it when I promote it on Facebook, and so I send him or her sincere thanks for his or her thoughtfulness and quick response to greedy demands.  We'll go far, my anonymous benefactor and I.  

And, yes, for those who ask tongue-in-cheekily, Madeline Mae IS just about the happiest baby in the world.    We're still exhausted by the nighttime wake-ups, but the daytimes are all about snuggles and smiles and kisses and uncoordinated wiggling on everyone's part.

Even the paparazzi likes to get in on the wiggly action during photo shoots.

She's totally going to sell that to OK! for thousands...

...or just blast through the photographer/subject divide for some sisterly bonding.

"Livy, get out of my light!"

Clearly adoration like this is worth compromising a few key shots.

Buy Me That: Caramel Apple Headband

EAT MY HEAD!

Yummers.

EEEEEEEEEEAT IT!

Community Property Is A Cruel Mistress

Because SLB can't divorce me without losing a lot of money, I'll be buying this dress for Olivia immediately.

I will, of course, be getting a matching shirt for myself.  And SLB?  Well, there's a bottle of bourbon with his name on it, provided that he's changed his name to "Mark."

Crap-o-lantern

In The Dialectic of Sex: The Case for Feminist Revolution Shulamith Firestone famously compared giving birth to "shitting a pumpkin."

Well, Ms. Firestone, it looks as if your work's influence has finally trickled down to the sweatshops of Oriental Trading/Terry's Village (Tagline: "Where your child's toys are made by a child his or her own age!).  Congratulations, and behold!

For the most feminist/festive of "I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant" subjects.

That there is a jack-o-lantern toilet set, and boy is it scary!  Now choose a pumpkin-shaped focal point and get to work!

Buy Yourself That: Addition to the Emotion Coaching Funpak of Yore

Parenting peeps:  Remember that one time when I wrote about all of the emotion coaching materials I was accumulating and then surprisingly that became one of my most popular posts at the time?  Of course you don't! You're all too busy expertly coaching your children in identifying and managing their emotional lives!  But, lucky for you, I remember, and I have a new addition to that collection.

Usually I'm not a huge Sandra Boynton fan - when she hits (The Going to Bed Book and Barnyard Dance have wonderful rhythms, adorable illustrations, and a loyal following at Me Show HQ) she hits directly, but when she misses (But Not the Hippopotamus is so tragic that I don't know how it got through editing - poor armadillo!) she misses completely.  Because it's firmly on the side of the hits, Happy Hippo, Angry Duck might be a new favorite.

Duck, how can you be so angry when you're so very delicious?

What it lacks in the honky-tonk rowdiness of Barnyard Dance and the gentle lull of The Going to Bed Book it makes up for in great illustrations of different emotions for toddlers and preschoolers.  The simplicity of the title belies its inclusion of more nuanced feelings and the culminating message of acceptance of and help for unhappy kiddos is reassuring even to jaded old readers who should be above finding solace in cardboard books with fewer than 100 words.  I highly recommend it to all parents who'd rather their offspring learn to develop emotional maturity as children rather than amuse themselves with narcissistic blogging as adults.  By which I mean all parents everywhere.

Buy Me That: Microphone Necklace

Because nothing intoxicates me as much as the amplified sound of my own voice, I must purchase this necklace

"Is this thing on?"

to accompany this shirt, an old favorite that I desperately need to replace now that my outlandish mom bosom has rendered it obscene.

"Oh, yeah.  IT'S ON."

And, as a treat for you readers, here is a picture showing me firmly in my element.  Here I am chaperoning prom in 2008, dominating the stage and soundwaves with my earnest yelling and wearing a totally jackass outfit.  Ah!  The memories!  The years of consistent and endless jackassery!  Beautiful nostalgia, take me away on your ear-splitting wings!

Nothing says "the best night of your high school lives" like this lady right here.  REALLY, REALLY LOUDLY.

Bought Me That

This is usually the first thing I see every morning when I wake up.

It's balanced delicately on the windowsill opposite my side of the bed, and it's such a joy to wake up to it backlit by the morning sun.  Yes, it's goofy, but so am I, and I take my inspiration where I can find it.  Find yours here.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!

What's up, peeps, or should I say disciples?  It's my Jesus year, so bring me some water, and I will turn it into pink champagne, drink it, and then burp so loudly that your eardrums burst and you bleed from the ears.

I said nothing about being a benevolent deity.

Also I'm going to treat myself to this, a mug featuring this image,

because I am also a Goddamn liar.

Happy birthday to me!  May my 33rd be the best and holiest yet!

Getting Out Of Hand

I have a problem of extraordinarily geeky proportions.  As a multiple English major (nothing quite screams WINNER! like typing that phrase), I love books.  As an uncontrollably materialistic nerd, I like expressing this love through commerce.  But when I showed up at the gym last week wearing this

Available from Out of Print Clothing

and carrying this

What?  Doesn't everyone have a Walt Whitman water bottle?

I realized that I was starting to become a caricature of an overzealous former English teacher instead of just being an overzealous former English teacher.  This realization is only further proven by the existence in my dresser of this

To Kill a Mockingbird shirt II

and this

F. Scott Fitzgerald shirt

At some point when I wasn't looking, it stopped being clever and just got sad.  And so I promise to stop buying lit-related souvenirs, as soon as I finish my collection with this.

Papa's thirsty, and so is Mama.

Buy Me That: Office Upcycled Suit Tote

Because it's time for Livy's snacks and diapers to go biz-cazh.*

Every girl's crazy 'bout a sharp dressed diaper bag.

Get yours here (and check out the sexy velvet version for when you take your baby clubbing).

*Douchebag for "business casual."

Buy Me That: Bug on a Bike!

I'm not even joking.  If one of you freeloading blog-enjoyers doesn't buy me this to hang in our new downstairs powder room, WE'RE THROUGH.

GET ON YOUR TRIKE AND RIDE!

SLB is out of town, but I can already imagine the conversation we're going to have if one of you doesn't pony up and mail this to me immediately.  It goes a little something like this:

Me:  Hey, look at this bug on a trike!  I love him!  What do you think about me getting it for the powder room downstairs?

SLB:  It's weird.  I don't want a bug on my wall.

Me:  Tough titties, Meal Ticket!  I'm buying me that bug!

SLB:  I'll be having bourbon with my oatmeal this morning.

End scene.

Get your - er, I mean MY - new bug friend here!

Ready for my Close-up

The closer and closer we get to moving into our new house the more and more I've been desperately combing design websites trying to develop a decorative flair.  It is one of my greatest fears that I won't be able to do justice to the awesomeness of our new house with my penny pinching, utilitarian ways, that my aesthetic timidity and financial self-denial (self-loathing?) will rear their ugly heads, and that we'll live surrounded by particle board and hotel-grade art FOREVER.  So, on The Morah's recommendation, I checked out Design Sponge today and found that site's "Living In" feature that marries design, commerce, and a shocking number of my favorite movies.

People, you have no idea how far up my alley this little feature is.  But you're about to.

For example, do you know that my current haircut is loosely based on Jean Seberg's in Breathless, a movie I've seen multiple times but can never remember.  Why can't I remember it?  Because I'm too busy looking at it to listen to it or pay attention to it properly.  My mind can recreate each of Seberg's outfits, gestures, and mannerisms, but I can hardly ever remember a single thread of the plot unless the movie is playing immediately in front of me.  So, I literally gasped when I came across the "Living In: Breathless" edition.

No, I'm no Jean Seberg.  But neither are you, so we're even there.

And those of you who have known me since high school will remember my reliance on a stubborn center part long after it was considered fashionable.  Hopefully that, plus my current over-reliance on opaque tights regardless of the season will be judged softly when I plead this:  Love means never having to admit that you look nothing like Ali MacGraw and never, ever will.

And I never even got into Harvard.  Not once.

But the movie honored by Design Sponge that slapped me silly with a nostalgia that would have made Proust choke on his madelines was the 1995 gem Party Girl starring a then-unknown and -unirritating Parker Posey.

H-h-h-hello!

I had this poster, which I'm almost certain I stole from the video store where I worked, on my wall all through high school.  I would "rent" the movie at least once every two weeks from work and watch it after a late night Saturday shift.  I tried desperately to layer long-sleeved t-shirts as the poster suggested, but found that my limited elbow-bending capacity made the look too uncomfortable to endure.  I wondered what, exactly, falafel and baba ganoush were.  And I still to this day crib the line about something or another making "my unborn baby grow gills."  

Make no mistake, this is not a great film.  But it is about a beautiful and sassy young woman living in New York and pursuing a dream of becoming a fabulous - fabulous! - librarian, which fascinated and delighted my small-town smart-girl imagination.

So, thank you Design Sponge for helping me while away a pleasant morning "living in" some of my favorite movies.  I'd call it a time-waster, but it was a true pleasure poking through these archives and reliving my love of these films.  And now, unstylishly, uncinematically, I have some boxes to pack.

Buy Yourself This After You Stick a Sock in it.

Hi, folks!  Yes, I am aware that I have been a neglectful blogger.  And, no, I will not be picking up the pace just yet.  We are excited here at Me Show HQ about our upcoming location to a WHOLE NEW HQ.  So posts will be less frequent as we box up our goods and transport them to our new digs a whopping 10 blocks away.  Oh, Ballard!  I just can't quit you!

Until then, suck it up.  Let this be your inspiration.

Follow my lead, plebes!  Get your copy of this poster here.

Or, if you're really desperate for some hot Me Show action, then get your parasitic arse over here and pack a box or two to hasten my return.  We are currently accepting applications for Moving Buddies, so submit yours today!

Bought Her That: Mini Marauder Hat

In an effort (and for a notorious grinch like me it truly is an effort) to make merry this holiday season, SLB and I took Livy to the Phinney Neighborhood Association's Winter Festival and Crafts Fair last weekend.  In addition to some quotidian vegetable wax candles and secret gifties we splurged on a fine fleece hat made by my friend Lynn for my friend Livy.

(Leif Erickson > Leif Garrett) < Livy

It's called the Mini Marauder hat, and it is awesome.  Lynn's company, Pingihats, sells at Pike Place Market and at her studio, Absolutely Fabulous, in Queen Anne.  You would be an idiot not to buy one of her designs, even if pillaging isn't on your personal agenda (the fox hat almost came home with us, too).  It is on Livy's, though, and she wears her hat with pride!

Hide yer daughters and yer cheddar bunnies!

In fact, I liked this picture so much that it made our Christmas card shortlist - in sepia, no less.

So old-timey, plus it detracted from the clashing patterns on  her shirt, jacket, and car seat.

We wound up choosing a more seasonally-appropriate photo that implies much less threat of Viking violence.  Maybe if you're lucky you'll be receiving one of these cards in the mail.  And if you don't, maybe you should consider being nicer to us and buying us more presents and fancy coffee drinks.  Just a little something to consider in the new year.  No pressure.

Buy Me That: Tippi Hedren Barbie Doll

Back when I was in graduate school the first time around I fell HARD for film studies and managed to finagle a degree in English by taking mostly film classes and writing about feminist film theory for nearly every paper.  Ever an enormous coward, I surprised myself by finding that I really enjoy the horror genre as long as I approach it from an analytical and academic standpoint (any other standpoint and I just pee my pants and stop sleeping at night) and did some fun work on Psycho and Rosemary's Baby.  But the most fun I had at the place where fun goes to die was in writing one of my master's theses on The Birds.

Tippi's costume and hair + Jessica Tandy's face = weird Oedipal shit from the get-go, yo!  MY GOD, I love this movie. 

As I was working on my The Birds paper, cleverly titled "Rip Her to Shreds" and featuring an introductory quotation from the Blondie song, I became strangely obsessed with the movie and its star, Tippi Hedren.  I went so far as to buy an autographed 8x10 of her as a victory gift once the paper was finished and to drag my friend Jacob to see her speak at a screening of the film at the Siskel Film Center, where Ms. Hedren took umbrage at my questions about the anomalously terrible hilltop scene and berated me in front of the entire audience. It was humilitng!  It was hilarious!  It cemented a fixation that necessitates this purchase:

Accuracy right down to the stilettos...

That, dear readers, is the Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds Barbie doll, and you'd do well to consider it under my name on your Christmas shopping list.  If it makes you feel more comfortable we can pretend that it's for Livy.  Of course, if she ever touches it she'll be grounded for weeks, so she'd better get smart and stick with playing with matches and kitchen knives.

Or, if she really must participate in Mommy's madness, perhaps next year I'll wear a Tippi costume for Halloween and then dress her up in a crow costume to chase me around the neighborhood.

Oh yeah.  Halloween 2011 - LOOK OUT!

Razzle Dazzle is a Feminist Issue

It's this video



that helped me gain the self-acceptance to adopt these REALLY tight pants as my new gym wear.

Eeeeek!  I think I can see that lady's Razzle Dazzle in those pants, Mommy!

Yes, they leave nothing to the imagination, but DAY-UM they're some comfy workout pants.  It required some conscious effort, but in the Lululemon dressing room I took some inspiration from Leslie Hall's confidence and decided to raise two well-fed middle fingers to the notions that little dumpling-shaped ladies don't get to have the good workout wear and that being traditionally attractive in what are essentially technologically tarted-up sweatpants is necessary.  And in a world where my recent babyless (Thanks, Oma and Opa!) shopping spree determined that I am an extra-small, small, medium, large, 8, 8.5, 10, 12, and one-size-fits-all ALL AT THE SAME TIME, it feels almost revolutionarily validating to break a sweat in my Razzle Dazzle Wunder Unders not because they make others feel good about looking at my body, but because they make me feel good about being in my body.  That's right.  My RDWU's come in a size juuuuuuuuuuuuuuust right.

Buy Him That: Havarti Shirt

Because we're bootstrappers, SLB and I both attended excellent state schools before launching ourselves toward majestic debt by going to fancy graduate schools.  Although he was accepted into a number of very fancypants law schools, he chose not to attend an Ivy League school.  I, on the other hand, did besmirch an Ivy Leage institution with my attendance, and whenever it looks like he's about to win an argument, be smarter than I am, or even just take a breath, I like to remind him of this.  And that's why someone (hmmmmm Santa?) needs to get him this shirt for Christmas.

Yes, it's a little cheesy (BOOM!), but it's awesome.  Get one here.

No, it won't stop the torrent of arbitrary academic abuse, but it might make me giggle enough to throw me off my game a bit.  That brief reprieve alone makes this shirt truly a gift that promises to keep giving.

Buy Her That: Maternity Skeleton Shirt

This one goes out to our fair Mrs. Weaver, who is currently getting plumper by the day carrying Livy's future partner-in-crime.

Skeleton baby by Suburban Belle.  Real baby by Mr. Weaver (gross).

Buy Me That: Mike Monteiro Print

How on earth did we survive Livy's first year without this nugget of inspiration on our wall?

It's available in two sizes at 20x200 and is much edgier and more unique than the "Keep Calm and Carry On" poster all of your twee hipster friends have.

Buy Me That: Cake and Cupcake Stands from Whitney Smith Pottery

Dig if you will the picture of a birthday cake for a family member.  Special, isn't it?  Certainly, for as long as it takes you to digest it and render it something I'd laugh at.  Memorable?  Not for long.  But a birthday cake sitting on this little lovely is a thing of beauty to behold every year you break out the family's traditional celebratory cake stand by Whitney Smith Pottery.

There's nothing sadder than an empty cake stand.

Or imagine the gleam in your little one's eye as you serve him or her a special candle-bedecked birthday cupcake on this darling little ceramic confection.

Also suitable for a birthday morning muffin, if you're the stingy, joyless type.

One of the things I'm enjoying most about being a parent is the creation of family traditions, and I think the special celebration cake plate and/or cupcake plate is going to become one of them.  I want Olivia (and, because he's a sentimental ladyman, SLB) to experience a thrill of anticipation and the warmth of nostalgia invoked by something special and familiar at each birthday.  Other holidays come with their own festive family artifacts (ornaments, menorahs, pumpkins, turkey costumes, etc.), so why not birthdays?  Besides, if cake is good and accessories are good, then cake accessories are just what each birthday requires to be spectacular.