steffani's OLD skool poem of the day!!!! *Penelope*

just found these again whilst digging through my BOOKS to put them on their SHELVES (imagine how wicked awesome this is after 15 years of wandering...just try to imagine!) and thought it could be FUNNY to post them on my blogs... just for OLD times' (desperate intellectual exhibitionalist's) sake...

bon appetite!



Penelope

She always says bless you to sneezes

She whirls constantly out of control

Headlong into Hindsight

Hurt

She cries tears of maddening anger and bliss

stagnant in mind and body and soul

But always chasing after the Sunshine

Unrequited

She's had years and years of practice

read millions of words and phrases

said more in her life than most others

Unknowing

She feels like she did as a six year old girl

Like she's living what she's gonna be when she grows up

Only now she can't stop writing it down

Unleashed

She only desires love and dreams of fame and silence

Understands Evil and Freedom and Intelligence

Potential beats in her head like a drum

Pounding

There may be hope for her later

She's way too wrapped up in the Now

Herself, her old Lovers, and Others

See if you're not touched by It

Anyhow....

*written january 23 1997

aged 20 years old

my old myspace quote (so's i have it)

"Boldness has genius power and magic in it. Until one is committed, there is hesitancy; the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness: The moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too. A whole stream of events issue from the decision"

big pink posterboard saga of 2008

on the morning of mothers day 2008 i had one of my famous "nervous breakdowns".... (yay)

later on that day, i went on a 6 hour trek to target with sebastian. my "present" from jonathan was that he would watch the babies while i went to target (which at that time i didnt know how to find and it ended up taking 2 hours to drive there haha) because his mother had sent me a ($25)target gift card for my birthday a couple days prior.

i wandered around target for a while and during so bastian finagled me out of $4, so i had $21 left in my target card i had driven 2 hours to spend.

i decided that the only thing that would make it even half way worth it is if i bought SOMETHING i have NEVER bought before...no toiletries or cleaning supplies or duplicate pajamas or crap from the dollar bins...

so i ended up buying a CREATE YOUR OWN FAIRY TALE book kit. i figured it would maybe cross that "learn how to play even though you are a grown up" thing off the list. (and especially since i never "learned how to play when i wasn't a grown up)

whimsy, man, dig it...

anyhoosies...i had a few bucks left and was NOT going to go back to target anytime soon. so i bought three big pieces of hot pink posterboard (and a neon green one for bastian) in order to somehow MAP OUT MY LIFE on them so i would have a HUGE, HOT PINK DISPLAY OF WHAT WOULD BEGIN TO MAKE ME HAPPY OR MAKE ME FEEL AT ALL IN CONTROL OF MY LIFE (ha!)

now, we all know that i am a granolawoohoo type girl who OF COURSE has read every SELFHELP book in the world and has of COURSE heard and read and even seen in her own life, stories of people who have written to-do lists (both miraculously grand and also small) and lost them and then found them later and they had DONE EVERYTHING ON THE LIST without remembering that they had made the list...

so...at that time, may*, i was still shopping at walmart. i was still smoking and drinking soda. i was living in a house that did not feel like home at all. (and on and on and on)

*things have changed since then!

i sat down the next morning and had ANOTHER (famous) nervous breakdown because i couldnt seem to MAP OUT MY LIFE ON PINK POSTERBOARD, like i had planned.

(HOW WAS I GOING TO CONTROL MY LIFE IF I COULDN'T CONTROL MAKING LISTS?!?!?!?!)

this posterboard got rolled up and taped (by jonathan at some point, its his tape not mine) and put in the spare room which was the JUNK ROOM (the robins egg blue parlor) and we found it day before yesterday when we moved things in order to get the new carpet....(do you know that feelings behind my whole CARPET THING?!?! DO YOU??!!!)

anyhoosies...here it is, folks...the pink posterboarded masterpiece entitled:

THINGS I WOULD NEED TO EVEN START

(start what??!! dear god, steff! what is the what?!?!)

*denotes things that have either been acquired or accomplished thus far (THREE MONTHS= 90 DAYS) later....

enjoy! (its better and kookier and more psychotic on posterboard but you should get the point)

FRONT PARLOR

*Organized

Furniture bought

*Floor re-done or recovered

New Front door

(2 out of 4)

LIVING ROOM

*Painted

*Floor Redone

*Computer Desk

*Organized



KITCHEN

Painted

*Cabinets Cleaned

*Organized

Cloth Cover for Side Without Door Under Sink

*Kitchen Chairs

(3 out of 6)

BACK ROOM

Organized

*Bins, etc

Floor Covered

*Dryer

(2 out of 4)



BASTIAN'S ROOM

*Bed (exactly the one he wanted)

*Entertainment Center

*Organized

A/C electrical

(3 out of 4)

OUTSIDE

*Lawn Mower

*Weed Wacker

*Jonathan committed to yard work

(3 outta 3...+ i am composting and we have a beautiful fire pit)

CAR

*Insurance

*Ohio Liscence (voter registration)

Paid off (5 more payments!)

New Plates (expire 2-09 haha)

*Maintainance (oil change, etc)

(3 out of 5)

MISCELLANEOUS STEFFANI BUSINESS:

*Stick with current bill budget

*Find New place to buy formula

*Start Making Bellas Baby Food

*Find New Way About Diapering (partially cloth bella AND found biodegradable disposables)

*Start Recycling

Vaccuum

Wall Fixed On Stairs

Window Replaced in Bedroom

Space Heaters

Hunker Down for Winter Before Its TOO late

*Find Hypnotist to quit smoking (didnt need one)

*Find Hypnotist to quit soda (didnt need one)

*get a way to drink water (we are now an 8 gal water/week family)

so...there it is folks. there is so much more blessingwise...but thats the rundown straight from the pink posterboard idea of the centrury.

lost angeloss

i went to l.a. once...i finagled my way there with bobbys grandparents...

it kinda ruins the whole movie business for me...just having been there a bit.

i am GRATEFUL i got to go there, really i am, in that lifetime ago when i was married to bobby and i was young, (and god was i fat...i probably weigh the same thing as i sit here), and bastian was three years old.

you have to wait at disneyland in this weird line to meet "mickey mouse"....

anyhoosies...

thats kinda how i feel about my DEPRESSION today...

that its all disneyland and greasepaint and smoke and mirrors and i am just a tourist.

(and no one cares to visit anymore...and why should they, the chamber of commerce is sleeping on the job...)

hollywood blvd where all the stars are is all sexxx shops! (for transvestites, etc)

i went on the week prior to the oscars. i saw bruce vilanch from across the street. i have been "intimate" with a rockstar...i have been closer to fame before...

bobby gave me a little fake oscar statuette thingie from a gift shop. it said BEST WIFE. i wonder where that thing is now....

we went on a "date" to hollywood (we had been staying in west covina, for those in the KNOW) and when we were driving back on the 101 we heard that sublime song about the riots...it was kinda too fairy tale good to be true, but it really happened...

the first thing you see on sunset boulevard is Home Depot...no shit...

but if you keep driving you pass the viper room, which i made bobby do...and you see where river phoenix died...(THATS a time warp)

now bobby is gone too..

i have this other life...

and the DEPRESSION stalks me like a walking vulture...

i fight, don't we all know i fight it hard?

i can't imagine how boring life would be if i had been to europe and africa and iraq and all the other places in the world...i know how there are the same stores at the same exits all over THIS country.

Home Depot, no shit...

and the lebrea tarpits are in the middle of town. right on the street.

beverly hills is weird. seriously. weird.

when you are in LA it feels like you are going to fall into the fucking ocean at any second. it is the end of the universe. and you can FEEL how california just kinda ripped off the edge of asia...you can tell it is supposed to be in asia, or that it is VERY much like asia would be like.

the rain is just saltwater. salt water falls from the sky. the rain is aqua.

i gave my hostess a bar of soap from Universal Studios that had the Bates Motel on it.

you have to HURRY to take a shower because you KNOW there are MILLIONS of people who want to take a shower too...BILLIONS...

don't get lost in ThaiTown...

but the best/worst part of going to LA...

oh, i forgot the part about how when you drive around (neighborhoods, mind you) you wonder which house is ben afflecks... oh, maybe that was just me... you KNOW one of them is his house though. you KNOW you are in his town. and EVERYONE ELSE famous and stuff... that is oddly stalky and comforting at the same time.

AND i forgot that the NICKELODEON (sP) animation studios look like a carpet store or something, they just have (had) the rugrats painted on it or you wouldnt know....

the santa monica pier is a bunch of flyover airplanes with messages on them...

and it is EVERYTHING that has ever been said, written or sang about and soooo sooo sooo much more....

bella has three teeth (a haiku)

two "big" bottom ones
one shard of a top front tooth.
she is grinding them

what i would say if i saw shad wion

if i saw shad wion right now i would tell him about how i was driving on high street in covington today and i saw a yard sale and they were selling the psychadelic 7UP signs from the SHANGRI-LA...

he would like that story...and i think that once i told it everything would be okay and the last 15 years would disappear *poof*

i never think of him...maybe twice a year...on his birthday and some other day or something (or anytime i see patches)...

this was one and it was nice.

testicular dorkitude

so on monday night, sebastian and i went to the iga store uptown for potatoes...on the way out we got more than we bargained for!

we saw a pickup truck...for instance, say it was a dodge pickup truck....

hanging from the trailer hitch thingie was a set of uhhh...plastic testicles of some sort...

bastian was the first to see them. he said "why would someone put balloons on this pickup?"

i looked closer. i said "i think its something else"

at which point he said " are they nuts?!"

i said "yeah i think they are."


i swear to you, i have ALWAYS prided myself on my intelligence and worldly wisdom and i had NEVER seen this before.

bastian said "are kids supposed to see that?!" (he was absolutely flabbergasted, as was i, really)

i said "i guess so, because you just did"

then he said "why would they do that?"

i said "i dunno...why don't you go back to the grocery and ask everyone if it is their truck and if they are supposed to show it to children and why they are doing it?"

he laughed. so did i.

in relating this story to my best friend, marci...i said "are the testicles on the pickup trucks new or have they always had them and i am naive?!"

she said "i would say that they have had them for at least 20 years, but that is as long as i can remember."

gross.

pumpkin eaters

i call minivans (and the ladies who drive them) "pumpkin eaters" because they remind me of the nursery rhyme of peter peter pumpkin eater who locked his wife in a pumpkin.

i have RESISTED the whole minivan thing...VERY VERY VERY STRONGLY because it is so antithetical to my own internal wanna-feminism.

but those days are kinda coming to an end because we have FIVE people in our Lumina now...and two of the ones in the backseat are in carseats and the other one in the backseat is constantly miserable.

at this rate, we will never take anyone else along, no friends, no nuthin... and its just very uncomfortable now...

so my mind has always wandered to an econoline van with a pop out back seat and a pop in bed thingie to cart the kids around in and also travel or spend the nights out somewhere on date night...

then my husband could put his failed art school career to good use and paint the outside all psychodelic and cool...

that's as close to the "van thing" as i would ever allow myself to wander...

and besides, they are FUCKING EXPENSIVE....

my best friend has one that will cost (just off the lot, no improvement, maintenance, five dollar a gallon gas, or insurance) TWENTYEIGHT THOUSAND DOLLARS...

in my opinion, it may as well be TWENTY EIGHT MILLION and JUST THAT STUPID...

i cannot imagine spending that much on an item...transportation or not...

but something has to be done...

so this morning when i was dropping bastian off at his "ecosplorers" summer program at the local nature preserve...(bibleschool for the pagany set hahaha) my mind wandered to these ladies (these "pumpkineaters") in their poop brown and shitstorm grey minivans and my pity turned to trying to think of a solution...if not for THEM, because i guess they don't have a problem... than for me...

how could I, in a good steffeminist way, resolve to ever owning the minivan that i so desperately need...and the ANSWER was quick to come to me...

why dont they paint them GIRLY colors?!!!!

these women, these pumpkin eaters are in DRAB PUMPKINS...as if the humiliation weren't enough to their girly, notsexyanymorebecauseihavekidsandiamgettingolder psyches!!!!!!!

pink! like my toenail polish!

glossy hot colors!!!

TEAL, if you insist!

but SOMETHING prettier and GIRLIER and SEXIER and more BEAUTIFUL....

a pretty pumpkin rather than an industrial, institutional, jailcell colored minivan! YUCKKKKY!

so i may be pricing minivans and i MAY be looking to get a pink one...somehow...probably will buy a beater one and go to maaco...but how gorgeous would that be??!!!

i would start a movement, i know it....

i feel now, that there are millions of women who NEED me to start this....

(i fluctuate between gutter self esteem and delusions of grandeur, i know this)

just think, why aren't women doing prettier things than what they are settling for? why aren't i?