Dear Penelope,

hello love. i've got my ipod in and used it all the while i've been gardening the last couple days. which i finished with finally- all the trimming and sorting and tilling and mulching and replanting is done for at least the next couple months- though there are some piles of debris i'll have to clear and that one sunflower that is listing to the left and refuses to die. also i planted snapdragons. and i finished your necklace. and i heard from eDD that they're sending out my check tomorrow. and i'm going on a spiritual retreat for the weekend with as yet unclear intentions but joanna got an image for me and cathyu confirmed it for me. j saw a marble in a mesh bag bouncing, either happily or gathering force, and said it reminded her of a slingshot. i told cathyu about the marble and the mesh bag and she said, it sounds like a slingshot to me and that the ball is gathering force. i don't know how either of them ended up with that except to say it was jesus. i did not get slingshot out of marble and mesh bag. i am curious though about the outcome. also i agree with mom about the statue but i won't say any more about it. except to say i didn't even say anything. she blurted that out all on her own. i can't stop her sometimes.

in othernews i've calmed down about the necklace thing. both people backed out who i offered it too and i don't feel obligated to make any more for the holy days unless someone approaches me and says, hey there, here's the $, won't you make them for me. but i do promise to find smaller pieces to put on etsy. meanwhile i have 3 left. and then i'm done! done! done! for now. or whatever. that means. either way thats not until january.

oh also i voted too. not that it did any good ;) i mean sure we're all very glad potsmoking isn't legal or whatever that stupid prop was about but i mean really i cannot shake my head enough about the governor and senate races. i'm glad the rest of the country is backlashing appropriately however. i did have to see 2 fb comments against republicans which i'll try not to hold against. at one point i replied "awwww. we're not that bad" to which one of daisys friends replied "yes, you are." if it wasn't such a punchline i'd be hurt. i replied back "*sniff". because you know, republicans have "hearts" too. and misty said she felt like she woke up to it being 2004. and i said, awwww. its not that bad.

in other other news i gave bodo a bath in the bathtub which i normally don't do ever but to see the dirt running off that dog! am-azing. and mom keeps sending me updates about grandpas surgery which actually didn't happen this AM and may happen soon? or happened and or is happening currently? i don't know. i confess to being only mildly interested as one watches gathering dark clouds in the distance.

though i am unusually snackish hence buttery popcorn and carrots and chocolate and tea with 6 dashes of sugar. and plums... which seriously i think i had a reaction to- i'm so going to a healer for this allergy shenanigans. fruit allergies are unacceptable. and though i do need to get personal health insurance, the idea of God straight up healing me is way better.

meanwhile i'm going to get a frappachino because its like 90 out and then i'm going to play video games for an hour or so and then i'm going for a walk with wendy. and i agree with you about cutting ties because bad timing is bad timing. but then going on hiatus for any number of things isn't so bad either. its like my necklace thing. hiatus. that's ok.

anyway i'm going to go now. my neck itches. i'm telling you- it was the plum. and then later i have to pack for the weekend and load songs on my ipod for all the meditating i'm going to do... that or crying about being alone-- designing a soundtrack for either could prove interesting- did i mention the couples retreat happening the same time i'm going to be at this st.marys something or other? well anyway something to blog about later- that and my outfits... and seattle, yah yah, if i ever.

xo, m.

january, by pen

Someday, I may or may not blog about the following. It's some of what I would have blogged about in January. Maybe someday you'll be treated to an explanation, maybe you will not.

-One day while it was raining, a teenaged boy, possibly deranged, likely just stupid and teenaged, walked backward down the street for several long paces until I could see him no more. Our corner is apparently a magnet for crazies.

-I wear socks inside the house with no slippers or shoes. Does anyone else do this and also, as a result, have exceptionally dirty-bottomed/holey socks? What is acceptable Sock Protocol. Or am I a total Sock Slob.

-I haven't really been exercising consistently as I aspired to after having Baby 2. But, I don't feel like a complete lump, I'm not eating total crap (only intermittent crap with several bouts of fruit), and so I don't feel too terrible about it? I would like to tone up. I'd like to do more aerobics. But I read once that Kate Winslet, who is beautiful and lovely, is not consistent with her exercise either, that she just does it when she has the time/drive, and so at the moment I am content to subscribe to this same philosophy.

-I saw "27 Dresses" with Mel, incidentally while the boys went to see "Rambo," and I loved it. In one scene, Katherine Heigl is ferociously cleaning her dishes, and says something about harnessing her chi. Perhaps this is what I am going for when I clean to make myself feel better, to reestablish control in some twisted way? Maybe I can just euphemism it all and now say I am harnessing my chi. I've blogged about this topic before, but I can't find the post to link it. Probably you wouldn't have looked at it anyway.

-Heath Ledger died. Mendacious commented that this is a terrible waste of hotness, and I have to agree. It's also just a terrible waste of talent and life.

-We needed to replenish our fish population, as we were down to maybe 9 fish. I swear I don't even see them die anymore, they are just one day dead, eaten, obliterated, and recycled into fish poo. But whatever. Anyway, I bought 5 new sunfire or sunset or sun-something-whatever Platy-whatsits from this guy at Petco who talked exactly like Kenneth the Page on 30 Rock. I mean seriously, if Jack McBrayer had longer, darker hair and worked at Petco in ILM, he would have convinced me to buy all 4 of the one type of fish so one wouldn't be left behind--and then accidentally scoop up another variety and convince me it was entirely okay for that one to be in our tank all by himself. Does he get commission from fish sales? Does he know that he has completely contradicted himself on the subject of so-called fish loneliness? I know not. Anyway, the fourth Platy-whatsit that Kenneth the Petco Fishmonger made me buy died, but I can't even bring the body back for a refund because of course it has disappeared.

-Paige is coming back to "Trading Spaces." Fired 3 years ago, and then invited back by new execs. I never really was on Team Paige, but as I haven't watched "TS" in a long time and suddenly Paige is back, I'm feeling nostalgic and might reconsider.

-The Writer's Strike isn't over. There's a few new good shows on, such as "Breaking Bad," but mostly, TV is a wasteland. There was a really great Strike Survival Guide in EW Magazine. I would have talked about that, if we were still in January.

-Katie Holmes is a vapid, Stepford-wifey space cadet, as fully apparent in a YouTube clip mendacious sent me. I was in denial, hoping she'd snap out of it, but now I'm just completely disappointed and missing Katie of yesteryear.

-Mendacious told me at some point in our project discussions that I have true talent for repression. I'd like to discuss this someday... something about the duality of my snark. I have notes on the matter. But it's not January anymore. So all I can provide is a Maybe and a Someday and a We Will See.

It's good to be back.

findings, by pen

Hello BlogNation,

We're back. We missed you! I might have missed you more than mendacious, I can't be sure. My compulsion to share all the boring details of my life only increased over the past month, whereas mendacious still seems hesitant? But this yin-yang-i-ness is typical of what we found while kickstarting our book project(s). Rest assured that in a month's time, I won't be able to think of something to blog about for the life of me, and mendacious will be all about it.

What we did during our hiatus: mendacious compiled all of our brilliant blog posts from the past 3+ years and whittled them down to something readable. Which means she read it all and was able to get a sense of our progression, and note themes, threads, and startling facts such as my apparent absence during 2005. It's really not that startling to me, because I know where I was and what I was doing, mainly puking my green guts out while pregnant with K.Lo and working at the evil corporation of VZW. And buying a house, moving into that house, and not blogging. After initial edits, mendacious passed along the blog copy to me, so I can read it, and I'm still reading. I know, it's sad, but we're talking about nearly 600 pages here, and I'm a slow reader, and hello, I have an infant and a toddler and a husband to tend to. Excuses, excuses.

Here is what we have accomplished: I think there are a few long narrative projects hidden in our blog, and this year it is our goal to develop them. My personal opinion (please weigh in) is that mendacious' job saga in particular is worth persuing, and she needs to pluck all job posts, dump them in a Word document, and take a good look. Also, mendacious and I will be working on a project together, as we have always dreamed of doing (like for real), by creating sitcom-like episodics from our blog matter. Because we are TV junkies, this project truly matches with our sensibilities, and will in fact be an homage to our favorite show forms. Does that sound all full of hot air? But no, seriously, picture it: a book featuring the characters of mendacious and penelope, with their (mis)adventures presented like a TV show, a three-act structure, and then End Scene. The blog-matter will provide the material for these episodes. You're so jealous.

You can think it's stupid if you want to, or overly ambitious, or still lacking a hook. But really, it's going to be a lot of fun, in the way that it will play with form and also (most importantly) celebrate us and our lives and our friendship, and also you, our BlogNation.

Here's what else we found:

-In the old days, mendacious and I struggled a lot to find our blog voice. Many times, and still to this day, we wrote a lot of stream-of-consciousness mumbo-jumbo, oftentimes in all lowercase. We're going to try to quit that. For the masses' sake.

-We also struggled very much in the beginning, in our Post Grad-School Purgatory-Like Existence, with the legitimacy of blogging, and whether it really "counted" as writing. Or at least I struggled. By now we (I) know it does, at least the way we do it.

-Mendacious and I used to blog back and forth a lot, each with a different spin on the same topic, and/or like we were having a conversation. We'd like to try and do more of that, from here on out, because it's fun, and because we are co-bloggers, after all.

-Some of our early blog posts could have been written yesterday, and some of them seem 10 lifetimes ago. This realization was shocking, and kind of sad, and kind of comforting all at once.

-Especially in the beginning, but still to this day, hardly anyone comments, and we both find this frustrating, mainly because we are complete narcissists and attention whores. This lack of readership and appreciation is really beyond our control, however, and we realize we need to get over ourselves. To some extent. Not really.

There are more blanks to be filled in regarding our absence, what we did, where we went, what we learned, and where we are now. But I will leave those blanks to mendacious for her return post--mainly because it is late, and my mind is mushy. See how that works, though, setting up the perfect lead-in for m?

For now, we are back, we are refreshed, we are ready to go.

Now, who wants to talk about the Gauntlet? Yeeeow!

HIATUS

Dear Blog-Nation,

We here at Pen&M want to wish you a happy new year and thank you for your readership because of which our screams, words and chuckles have existed in a non-void like place that is usually filled with fluff and stuff and fuzzy bunnies. As the new year clicks into place with the precision that roman calendars maintain we will be going dark as of right now. Today. Ooo, ominous. Yes, as Bruckner says, this is a stunt, a mere ploy for comments and adulation. We totally want those. There's no denying. But take heart, it's only for a month. We have some uh, things we need to do. It's funny because upon review of the first year it was a struggle to blog. We were always disappearing for scads of time- we actually waited for inspiration to strike, and now you know it comes like everyday. Like magic. And we've never gone dark not like ever. And even as I write this the secret golom part of us is rocking back and forth and saying, no, precious, no. Mainly because the blog is under our skin, is so much a part of how we communicate that without it, i don't know what we'll do with ourselves... okay there's like one thing. But anyway we'll be back in February. And we write this because we need to be held accountable to leaving. Otherwise one of us will be up in a stash writing secret posts about our last nights adventures or that one guy over there, fucking heckling us. Fucker. But look, we're assembling this blog into a book. Ooo, i said that outloud. Fuck. Anyway, wish us luck, take time to stroll through our archives and find the strength to keep blogging without us. We'll be watching. And we want your snark and your verve to get us through the dark nights, and be there when we return. Cuz we're selfish like that. We love you.

Most Sincerely, Your Humble Servants,

Mendacious and Penelope