So I was busy folding and putting away clothes and thinking to myself, “Geez, I’m such a mother.” Meaning a mother in the I-have-a-child-and-I’m-such-a-MOM-now sense and not in the sense of something you might yell out your car window at someone who cut you off. Not that I do that. The cutting off part or the yelling out the window part.

Because I’m really more of a quietly annoyed person, on the whole.

And I didn’t mean it in the sense of “Oh for crikey’s sake, how much laundry can one small boy generate!” though I certainly do think that to myself often enough. After all, he’s not even three feet tall yet. How can he go through so many clothes? Do they multiply in the laundry basket? Or is the fault really my husband’s and the many layers of clothing he wears as soon as the temperature drops below 65 degrees?

No, what I meant was that I’m a total mom because I happen to know that The Max (the aforementioned two and a half year old) wiped his somewhat snotty nose on a pair of my clean underwear while he was wandering by the laundry basket of clean clothes. But I didn’t know which pair. And instead of re-washing every pair of underwear, I just folded them all and put them away instead.

See, I’m such a mom now.

In other news of randomness, I made the many-layered husband read this post from The Bloggess about how she met Neil Gaiman, because they are both people I’d love to meet some day and find endlessly interesting and, in general, I consider them my peeps. Not that we’re hanging out buddies and, in fact, the closest I’ve come to Neil Gaiman was being at ALA while he was also there (and not being able to get my book signed by him because his signing time was actually opposite my signing time for my book AND the line waiting to see him stretched across the entire fricking building). The closest I’ve come to The Bloggess was snorting Sprite out of my nose while reading one of her posts.

Okay, not really. I don’t actually drink a lot of soda.

Anyway, regardless of my very nebulous (non-)connection to the both of them, in my head they are my people. Writer people. Odd people. Whatever.

And I thought the whole W00tstock thing sounded awesome. So I made my husband read it.

What I really should have done was take a video of my husband reading it as the expression on his face went from slightly curious to baffled amusement to the look of someone who is wondering whether or not he should hide the knives in the house. Just, you know, because.

His final reaction was “O-kay….”

And that was pretty much it.

Sometimes I feel very alone in my head. Not that it’s really a lonely place, per se, being as how it’s pretty full of random characters wandering around and bumping into things and getting into trouble. But they’re kind of hard to carry on a conversation with.

I’m just saying…it’s pretty one-sided.

In the interest of more randomness for anyone reading this who has actually hung on this long, here’s a wrap up of the random things that have caught my eye and my ire and my interest today:

Which is one of the few things that have made me smile today. It’s been a frustrating day. Actually, scratch that, it’s been a pretty frustrating five or six months. But anyway. A very cool video.

And then there was the huge debacle over Cooks Source stealing from a writer. Or infringing copyright. Or whatever you want to call their general asshattery. And yes, I just swore. I don’t do that a lot. In real life or on paper. But there are some things that you just have to swear about. And I think it’s great how everyone from @NeilHimself (which would be the aforementioned Neil Gaiman…wow, look at that, I actually tied two separate things together there, how do you like them apples?) to official publish-y outlets are backing her up. The author, that is.

Though then I have a moment of sadness that pirates can steal over 20,000 copies of my second book and I mostly get some troll who tells me I should be “grateful” about it. That is also asshattery. Of course, it’s really easy to get angry when you’ve got an editor (like the above-mentioned CooksSource editor) who so easily lends herself to it by being such an idiot (seriously, you have to click through and read what she said — it’s insane — thank heavens I’ve never had to deal with an editor like that). There’s an easily focused upon enemy in that kind of situation. Something to get worked up about. People who pirate books and music and movies are just kind of this “out there somewhere” cloud of faceless people. It’s hard to figure out who to be mad at.

But I’m bringing myself down again. Let’s move on to the NEXT RANDOM THING on my mind today.

A mom writes about how she and her young son took a bunch of flack from “concerned” parents over the youngsters choice of costume. I’m with the mom on this one.

Actually, I’ve got lots more I could say on that, but I think I’d just wind up getting myself really worked up. So I’m going to just leave it at that and let you read it on your own. I’m glad, at least, that the majority of the comments are supportive. Because I’ve almost about given up on reading comment threads in general as a protest against stupidity.

And on that note, I think I need to wrap this up and go find some chocolate. But wait, one last bit of random…my favorite poem for your reading enjoyment:

The Love-Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

By T.S. Eliot

Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherized upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question. . .                               10
Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”
Let us go and make our visit.

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,                               20
And seeing that it was a soft October night
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.

And indeed there will be time
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,
Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;                                30
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions
And for a hundred visions and revisions
Before the taking of a toast and tea.

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

And indeed there will be time
To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”
Time to turn back and descend the stair,
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair—                               40
[They will say: "How his hair is growing thin!"]
My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,
My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin—
[They will say: "But how his arms and legs are thin!"]
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

For I have known them all already, known them all;
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,                       50
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.
So how should I presume?

And I have known the eyes already, known them all—
The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,
And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,
When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,
Then how should I begin
To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?                    60
And how should I presume?

And I have known the arms already, known them all—
Arms that are braceleted and white and bare
[But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!]
Is it perfume from a dress
That makes me so digress?
Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.
And should I then presume?
And how should I begin?
.     .     .     .     .

Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets              70
And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes
Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows? . . .

I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.
.     .     .     .     .

And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!
Smoothed by long fingers,
Asleep . . . tired . . . or it malingers,
Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.
Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,
Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?                  80
But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,
Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald) brought in upon a platter,
I am no prophet–and here’s no great matter;
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,
And in short, I was afraid.

And would it have been worth it, after all,
After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,
Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,
Would it have been worth while,                                             90
To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
To have squeezed the universe into a ball
To roll it toward some overwhelming question,
To say: “I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all”
If one, settling a pillow by her head,
Should say, “That is not what I meant at all.
That is not it, at all.”

And would it have been worth it, after all,
Would it have been worth while,                                           100
After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,
After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor—
And this, and so much more?—
It is impossible to say just what I mean!
But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:
Would it have been worth while
If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,
And turning toward the window, should say:
“That is not it at all,
That is not what I meant, at all.”                                          110
.     .     .     .     .

No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous—
Almost, at times, the Fool.

I grow old . . . I grow old . . .                                              120
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think they will sing to me.

I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.

We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown               130
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

(given that it’s posted all over and T. S. Eliot is dead and I think that the poem itself is in the public domain now due to it’s age, I think I’m okay posting it here. Because I don’t want to be the asshat* who infringes on someone else’s copyright. But here, go learn more about the poem while you’re at it. There. I’m being educational.)

* Note to Self: learn some new curse words. Asshat is getting old.