So, humdedum..what have I been up to? My brother, Mike, my sister-in-law, Carie, and BABY JOSIAH (everybody say "AWWWW!!!") are in town visiting. It is so much fun to play with JO....I've fed him, changed his diaper, soothed him when he was crying, walked him to sleep, rocked him to sleep, and best of all, he has thrown up on me at least ONCE every day and I didn't even care. He's ADORABLE. This will sound terrible but lately I've been seeing a lot of UGLY little babies, but not him and I SWEAR I am not being biased. He has big hazel eyes, and a perfect little Gerber baby mouth and he smiles a lot. Wow, this is TOTAL deja-vu (writing about this baby!) and he giggles and he kicks up a storm everywhere he goes. Wherever my sister is, I know she is just grinning her big dimpled smile at him all the time. It's good to see my brother as well. I haven't seen him since the whole nightmare of Hawaii last December. They are such good parents!!

For the past week or so I have felt like Larry and I's relationship was tearing at the seams..I mean just about to FUCKING END. We have grown so distant from each other. It isn't like we fight or anything but we are two planets rotating in our own atmospheres (wow..that is SO psychedelic...NOT!) and we never collide into one another. The other day I just totally lost it. I cried and cried and he held me and I told him that I didn't want to lose him but that something had to change or our relationship wasn't going to work out and he agreed. We've been talking more and things seem better for now. Who REALLY knows what the future holds, though. I don't even really feel like going into details about things here anymore. I have started writing in a paper journal again. I feel the need to be more private these days.

I'm totally addicted to YouTube. Because I was listening to The Stranglers yesterday I watched a bunch of live performances on YouTube today. I remember hearing them referred to as the "ugliest band ever" or something like that and I always assumed they meant that they were physically repulsive, but they aren't (in fact the bassist, JJ, was downright SEXY) and in fact I think they earned this name because of their sarcasm and because they had really "ugly" (bitter, angry...) attitudes. I find them totally hilarious, actually. I know I've talked about the Stranglers before so I won't rehash how amazing the bass lines are in many of their early songs. When Ron (my first major relationship way back in Carbondale in 1988) first played them for me I thought he was joking about how good they were. The keyboards were so goddamn cheesy, but I've actually loved them (mind you, only the stuff in the late 70's, early 80's) ever since. That concludes my Stranglers worship.

Mom is slowly regaining more and more strength. I wouldn't say she seems healthy again, though, not by any stretch of the word. I don't know if or when she ever WILL be back to normal. Then again, between having ovarian cancer and a murdered child, why would she be "normal"? What the hell is "normal" anyway? Certainly not me or anybody I know. Thank God!!

do the jerk * do the frug