Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Monday, October 29, 2007

I've been so busy.

And I'm too busy to explain why so busy.

So why that pic above? Oh. Well while being insanely busy, my boy had a birthday.


His 1st Birthday, so they say, but what about his birth day?

You know, the day that he wasn't born, really, so much as emergency airlifted out of me. The day I met the love of my life, a stranger. The day my husband became my family, and later my hero. The day that caused me to spike fevers and shoot pus from my guts clear across the room. The day that made me crazy, if only for a little while. The day that I added "mommy" to my resume. The day that a floppy thing without a reasoning cortex made me move heaven and earth to have my work, work for my life. The day... you get the picture.

Now, here's more pictures of this "1st" birthday (the Chinese count it differently, but no better). Of all I have accomplished, making my baby's cupcakes -- beating the cream cheese, measuring the vanilla and plopping the batter in the cups -- was one of the best moments of my life, satisfying me on a primal level. Sad. True!

When my husband saw how stressed I was the day before and suggested I "just buy" the cupcakes, I went feral. My lip curled and I reacted as if he suggested we swing with the still-warm corpse of Joey Bishop. He looked, understandably terrified. Sometimes, just sometimes, I feel sorry for men. But then, I put the cap back on the glue.

My love for the bambino is so startlingly great, sometimes I wonder, why didn't we have him earlier? But then I realize he wouldn't be him, and I slam up against the near impossible probabilities that were involved in the making of "him" and I get dizzy and so I know why people just cop out and say "miracle" instead. Or as I like to think of babies now: a consolation prize for death. "Sorry you are going to rot slowly from the inside out, and see your loved ones disappear likes leaves from a tree, but here's a baaaaaaaby! A babybabybabybaby!"

Why the death talk? I can't help it. I guess because my father died in October. It was my favorite month until he went and ruined it for me. When I see the tombstones and the ghosts on your lawn, I no longer think "Yay, Halloween!" I think, "Aint it the truth."

My baby was born in October, which doesn't cancel out the death, it just makes the month the cruelest and the most beautiful all at once. I wish my father had seen "the Bam" as we call him. I am forever looking for my father, like a dog whose dumb stares are frozen in the direction his owner left him.
Weehawken mascot
But I gave the babe my father's ridiculous first name for a middle, and instead of crying (which I am tempted to do often this month) I man up and see I just have to honor him via my life. By continuing, enduring, loving, working. I don't think my father can "see" me now. Wish I did. But I do believe how he raised me -- with love and good sense -- is a flame that can not be extinguished within me. And if I can pass that torch to my baby, I can touch immortality and my father never died. They talk about how abused children become abusers. Well, shouldn't it work the other way round? I think it does.

Anywho, it's been quite a year for me. It has been terribly hard. And the hardest bits were not even things I can or ever will talk about on this blog. Shooting pus is dramatic, but in retrospect, almost braggably cool. Although I and the others who witnessed it thought I was going to die -- it was nothing compared to my worry over my [redacted] and dealing with [seriously redacted] and [redacted to infinity]. But all my friends, family and co-workers (yes, evil corporations? Not always evil, people) who truly helped me and loved me, their names are bedazzled on my heart, etched with glitter pen on the heavens.

Wait, it's my boy's birthday, why is this about me? Well it's my blog. When he gets his own blog he can whine about his life, and his awful mom. And he will. Oh you know he will.

OK, here's the big dismount...

Although it was, sing it with me -- very very, ohmigawd, so very hard for me -- and although if the manifold horrors of X, Y and Z hadn't happened, or if my baby had simply been kind enough to come out the clearly marked exit, I'd have been much better off; here's the horrible truth:



It's really hard for all new moms. Really really hard. Maybe you knew that? I didn't. I was of the "oh get over yourself you had a baby, you didn't cure cancer" school. So I think the fates bitch-smacked me harder for that. And that's OK. I deserved it.

But even with all the problems, I overcame. I appreciate everything more, most days, in between feeling guilty and anxious -- a heady cocktail no mom avoids; or being horrified and shocked -- when the untalented succeed, women get a raw deal or jealous when the rich float above earthly concerns.

Point is, even though life isn't perfect, it's good. And good, is huge. And I wouldn't trade my imperfect life for anyone's, and that's the Thor's honest truth. Life is harder than ever, but I'm going to keep having my cake and eat it too. Just watch me. Trying to work harder, run faster, and know that the impossible is possible. And grace is there for the taking. Yeah, being a mom is like being severely handicapped. Suddenly you can't do 1/1000 of what you did before, but you're like one of those annoying enlightened handicapped people who are like, "Sure, ever since the accident I've no legs and half an eye and incurable halitosis -- but I appreciate life so much more now!"

Yeah, I called some handicapped people annoying. I'm asking the fates to get me right? No! No more, fates! I get it! Get lost!

Speaking of cake (above: me testing yesterday's cupcake icing for the king), maybe I'm just happy that I'M CURRENTLY MORE THAN TEN POUNDS THINNER THAN BEFORE THE BAMBINO WAS CONCEIVED.

All the baby weight, is on the baby. That's probably more interesting to y'all than my kooky year one swansong. So here ya go... and here I go.
looking back
HOO HA! Cue: dancing, butt waggling, supersusiebowl shuffle

Thursday, October 25, 2007

My boys made the Court TV blog today: Check it out.
Hang, you've got something on your fur...

Seeing them here? No big whoop.

Finding a way to contextualize and display their cuteness on the corporate site? Genius!

Monday, October 22, 2007

Upon learning I am not going crazy.
a not entirely crap poem
by Susie

today i told young panera phil
(who is pierced and perfectly delightful)
about spotting a pair of parrots in edgewater

and he was like, "yeah, everybody knows the edgewater parrots.

they've been here forever.
they escaped from a pet shop
and now there are millions.

i live right next to parrot park
where
they fly up like pidgeons."

I am not going crazy.
Praise be!

There are (arghhh?)
parrots
off the stripmalled coast
of New Jersey.

http://www.edgewaterparrots.com/

Monday, October 08, 2007

I'll Believe You
...is the name of a new movie I have a small part in.

l to r Ritch Duncan, David Alan Basche, me & Mo Rocca
It opens November 9th. Here is the new offical site.

More info -- like what theater this star will be walking the red carpet at (even if I have to bring my own) -- soon.

Friday, October 05, 2007

For Hugo
on the occasion of his birth month

I can't wait
until you say "No"
get red in the face,
tell me you hate me.

Because this --
this is torture.

I hold you
and feel seasick with the weight of 1000 crushes.

This love
this crazy love
which has no soundtrack.

Whiny boys who pine.

Whorey gals who burn with passion.

Their love is wonderfully intense
like riding recklessly
in a speeding car.

This was crashing.

I was destroyed.
I went to seed.

I love
your incompetent slug-like kisses
trailing across my cheek, my arm.

I didn't like babies.
I figured I'd endure
to get to the good stuff.

But from day one
you have punished me with your cuteness.
Hugo 11.2.06 en69 -- 6 days old
You connected me with eternity.
You honor those who've passed.

Now I spend my days living for you
but trying not to talk about you.
Trying desperately not to be a bore.

Every minute I'm not talking about you is an effort.
Nearly a year of trying to "act natural" but I bet they can see my beady little eyes darting around for an opportunity to wax lyrical about your latest incredible dull acheivement.

And I don't blog about you, out of respect to the me I was before you, a woman would've rolled her eyes and clenched her teeth at the estrogen-soaked mess I've become.

And maybe I keep mum out of fear that love broadcast will summon the fates to snatch you away or render you rotten.

You are good and full of grace.

Thank God for your father. He has been my rock and his capacity for soaking up minutiae of you is limitless. I would tell you more, but he is British. And he is a man. And I've already embarrassed him into next week. Say no more!

And I would lay down my life,
if it meant you would go on for one moment longer.

I try to bank your snuggles, your eye rubs and your joy. I want to remember holding you on the carpeted nursery floor as the sun sets -- insane with love, convinced that I could die happy. I want to be able to dip back into this feeling when you crash my car, move away, steal from my purse, join a cult, date someone who hates me.

You made my life less important. You have softened my body and my mind.

I can't thank you enough. You have fulfilled me.

When I am old and hardened, wave this in my face. Shame me. Remind me.

Just don't become a serial killer for Moses sake, OK?

Love,
Mom
susie hugo 1.6.0602

Monday, October 01, 2007

Dig the title and the pic from this Conde Nast Portfolio piece:

"Ya want me to eat that sheet? No way!"

Back to blogging for bucks here.