faithsalutes

validation

Today I received in the mail a note from my Professor at Georgetown about my final paper. It said, "Faith, you are a damn good writer." I cried. Wow, do I cry a lot these days. Having a baby turns you into a baby.

Tears or no tears, this may have changed my life.

I think about writing everyday and several times a day. I write sentences in my head and see things that inspire me to write every few hours or so. No exaggeration. The problem of course has always been and will be two paralyzing states: fear and lack of discpline. Well fuck them, because the time has come. I will punch them in the back of the knees and kick their throats.

I have committed to myself to write. I turn 31 next week and felt as though there was not much to look forward to in life, aside from my boy growing up...

Thank you Mr. Yonkers for correcting the course. I will write.

31 is going to be good.

Join me for the ride or not, because I might write about you.

 

 

a brother

He is a spirit born from the descendants of the hand cart trail blazed by the Mormons, Zane Grey, OK Corral survivors, the Udalls, Geronimo, the Goldwaters, and of the Navajo, Apache, Ak-Chin, Yavapai, Cocopah, Havasupai, Hopi, Hualapai, Kaibab-Pauite, Pascua Yaqui, Pima, Maricopa, Tohono O’odham, Quechan, and Paiutes. He is a people of the musty red dirt and the scraggly mountains, of the sequoias and Aspen trees, people of the copper mines and the unforgiving promise of cotton fields blooming each June. His face appears in the storybooks that idealize the cowboys and indians and in tourist pamphlets that like to print text in turquoise and purple while toting the healing powers and sunsets. His spirit embodies the particles of the expansive blue sky and his leathered neck accompanies her sunrise each morning. Arizona had bore herself another first born son.

The last state in the continental US to be ratified, Arizona was not a state until February 14, 1912. He was born 70 years later in 1982. The day he was born his newborn aroma was the sweet scent of the rain after it drenches and floods the desert floor. The scent of her native creosote bush will stay with him always. He was born into hot in August, but brought that one hour from approximately 3 or 4 AM when it feels cooler preparing her inhabitants for the upcoming scorch of the morning summer sun. Despite his rich renewing scent and priceless cooling hour, he was born into poor. Though in this part of the desert, she genetically imparts a powerful mythos of promise to her poor sons. She has made them a promise and like her first born sons before him, he will fulfill her promise.

this is sadness.

along with every other cheesy thing with my name on it...like mugs and frames and jewelry and tshirts.

this dress is called the faith. it is everything i am against and more.

thanks for nothing Alice + Olivia

faithsalutes your gag reflex. use it.

my brother brought back the haiku, i was inspired

->and i would like to, too.

 

iggy pop et mowgli

i love you two, yes i do

but i need my bath today

 

no really, i need my baths back.

i have a baby, like everyone else i know

i had a baby and so did approximately 20 other people i know. so yeah, big deal.

i feel like every day i am doused in pixie dust and encouraging bible verses. that is what it is like. that part is a big deal, but i guess those 20 other people get the pixie dust sprinkle too. good for them. but look at my baby.

of course before the magic dust comes the labor or better yet, the laboring. and then after the laboring everyone wants to know..."does he sleep through the night?" and the answer is "no, he doesn't." he gets hungry every couple of hours. heck, i get hungry every couple of hours.

there is no pixie dust when you have your baby naturally. i had a little gatorade, but that was about it. i gave a lot of lip. a little bit of "shut up" and "stop touching me". a lot of the "f" word. but yeah, my boy came out all fine and dandy and the world is better for it. i am asking for forgiveness for the back talk.

he was born in July. we named him Ignatius. freak out, now calm down, no come back down...yes, Ignatius. my standard response, "when you have a kid, you can name them whatever you want." that is sort of how the game is played.

iggy pop, mowgli, and i make a pretty good team. we will need to recruit a few more star players to win the championship ring and all...but we will start by trying to win our division. i will settle for division champs for now.

sidenote: being a mom is fucking mind blowing.

i am still carrying around the envy of all flat abbed beyotches out there: a fancy brown line and 450393458 extra pounds around the middle. the older your baby gets the less people compliment you on how good you look (a friend, you know who you are, said this...). let's not lie, we all care. "it takes time, you just had a baby." shut your mouths.

my breastfeeding has gone from in privacy of my own bedroom to the public arena for the world to see. i have no shame.

i go with the flow. co sleeping, on demand feeding, you know all those things that will turn him into a pansy. so please comment away about all that. if i am still doing it when he is 5, call CPS, but at 2 months...its my way or the highway.

if you saw him, you would do whatever he wanted too.

faithsalutes my son, wherein lies all promise.

 

 

 

4 BLOG UPDATES COMING THIS WEEK. BE PREPARED TO HAVE YOUR MIND BLOWN.

blame it on RLS: restless leg syndrome

I can't sleep. Why? Because I started to get RLS in my third trimester. It will drive you batshit crazy. I am not even sure what that means, but I feel batshit crazy if this is what batshit crazy feels like.

Mowgli is sound asleep while I feel like my legs are having their very own anxiety attack. But really, I can't complain too much. Pregnancy has been realitively easy thus far. Now, note I did not say labor and delivery, just pregnancy. I have no idea what that will entail.

1. Did not get sick, but ate a lot of mashed potatoes and the like.

2. No stretch marks yet, but patiently awaiting their arrival.

3. No barf.

4. No vericose veins.

5. No gestitational diabetes.

etc etc etc

My stomach is large and in charge. I have been accused by many of carrying twins, but alas, my pregnancy genetic makeup just gives me the look of carrying twins. Which by the way, is so hot in Hollywood right now. Like, who doesn't have twins? I am so on trend right now...Life and Style.

All that being said, while I have so far escaped the usual torment pregnancy causes, my personal life has been a complete wreck. Illness, death, drama, cash flow, Mowgil missing in action while in school and working full time, rental nightmares, Spanky Loo sick twice, and the list continues. I think what I am trying to say is that God gives what you can handle. And handling all this has taken a lot of me, probably what barfing for 5 weeks straight would have taken out of me and bed rest.

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Team Faithsalutes is moving back into DC proper (Glover Park). We have been in the suburbs for the last 9 months and we liked about 10 minutes of it. The 10 minutes it took to sign the lease...before we realized it was hell. Not suburbs in general, just this one and the commute. So we are scaling back down from a three story place to a one bedroom apartment. This means getting rid of "stuff". Which we all know I hate managing stuffs, so I have very little of it compared to today's Western Civ modern consumer.

The scaling back also means the baby will be in a room with us until we get into a bigger place in a few months. So no nursery prep for now, but the nursery ideas and plans still stand for a little boy's room someday.

I have been stalking apartment therapy.com and other sites to help mentally prepare myself for the scale. I mean we have done it before, but with a large dog and a baby...arrangements will be drastically different. And I am now more dedicated than ever in the "everything has its place" mindset that comes with city living. I am also convinced that easy access to a large park/reserve across the street plus some of the best DC shopping and eateries in Georgetown up the street will keep us outdoors and active. Manhattan style...not much time spent at home.

Any small space living advice? Let me hear it.

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And in more exciting news, other than reproduction of a baby boy, Mowgli graduated from Georgetown and I will be taking his place at Georgetown in the fall.

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Faithsalutes trying to go to sleep. These updates seem pretty lame, but its just means to an end...occupation while legs deal with their anxiety.

 

 

neglected, missing from the handbook of life

that your hands look like you have been holding red Starbursts in your sweaty palms all day after makinga batch of red velvet cupcakes.

that black people in town care much more about your pregnancy than their white stranger counterparts. (they touch belly and i like.) MORE on this and a post to follow.

that shower curtain liners get so dingy, so fast.

that white people smell like cheese/milk. according to my former Kenyan roomates.

that clear nailpolish comes in handy so much.

that using a public restroom is more about avoiding the "mystery water" all over the floor.

that getting things in the mail felt so right.

that an expensive hair dryer and iron might make life easier...and i do not own either, but i wish i did.

that shaving your legs would be a lot of long term upkeep.

that having bangs would be a huge investment, risky even.

 that eaves dropping would become one of my best friends.

 

Overdosing on chicken skin is the American Mommy way

I am not sure if one can in fact OD on chicken skin, but I am pretty sure I did last night. I roasted a chicken (do not die of shock from me being in the kitchen) last night. I learned from a french chef how to shove all the deliciousness underneath the skin before roasting. I stuck my swollen pregnant meaty hands under the skin of that organic ball of goodness. I shoved butter, garlic, thyme twigs, salt, pepper, and love inside like a plastic surgeon injects botox underneath Nicole Kidman. The result was a crispy, HD possibly 3D ready chicken skin. I consumed all of the skin in one standing. I prefer to eat standing or in my bed laying down.

Overdosing on perfectly roasted chicken skin was sort of the climax of my eating habits this week. I have been scrounging around, eating every last bit of the last bits. You know how it is, the heals of the bread, the last can of beans, the last remnants of frozen veggies left in the freezer which I probably used on a soar neck a few months ago, meals made up of foods that should never be digested together...I am preparing the baby for the real world people. A world with a mom who will eat anything*, so get on board.

I am breeding an adventurer, I hope. That is how I have decided on my nursery theme...Native Scandinavian American Manifest Destiny meets Theodore Roosevelt. No, I am not kidding. Its complicated, but that is how I does.

 

Native=Think earth tones mixed with the bright coloring of beads traded for food.

Scandinavian=Imagine simple mid century design and Danish to Iceland's shores during Verne's Journey to the Center of the Earth

American=A Journery Down the Mississippi, Up Everest, Around Manhattan, Through the Sonoran desert

Manifest Destiny=Out on the land, pioneers, wooden blocks, handmade blankets for the cold nights in the wagon like the generations before me and the Mowgli family trip through Ellis Island

Theodore Roosevelt=He speaks for himself

Ponder a moment, reflect, think big...then scale back. Limited amounts of plastic, only the necessities, bright colors, some reading material, hand crafted. 

 

Faithsalutes all the chicken skin Nicole Kidman never ate and her fellow Australians, kindred in the rough and tumble.

 

*We ate at the Spotted Pig in Greenwich Village last weekend and I had to send a salad back because it tasted like a sea bed of salt. So, okay, not everything.

 

 

boy, thursday was one of those days you won't ever forget

on thursday i was informed by the Anne the Ultrasound lady that i would be giving birth to a baby boy in July. though i had been hoping for a baby girl, i was fairly certain i would be having a rough and tumble man child the first go around. mowgli was of course ecstatic about the news, because well, a baby mowgli is about the only thing that can out do a man mowgli. am i right?

the day had a strategic three pronged approach: find out sex of baby, inform family and close friends, and get to ladysmith black mambazo concert on time despire the rain and parking restrictions.

2 out of the 3 above made me tear up. 1. baby boy, wait i have to use the restroom again...tear up in the restroom and not in public (there are only two places i tear up in public-movie theatres in the dark and when soldiers return from service at the airport) and 2. at the opening gospel number done by ladysmith black mombazo. hearing that man sing "amen" in the middle of the call and response was inspiring and the perfect end to the day. we are having a boy, amen.

since thursday my days have been spent thinking about raising a boy. what that will entail...from boyscouts to discpline, from kisses to chivalry, from devotion to direction. i am embracing this role wholeheartedly as i remember reading so many biographies of great men in the past and how their mothers were great inspiration and sources of wisdom for them as leaders or as artists. i aspire to be a godly mother and one who is supported financially by their financially stable children someday...and one that will hire someone to bring me an afternoon cocktail on the veranda while i paint and say crazy things to my grandchildren. "bravo child, you are becoming an excellent orinthologist...now go fetch your grandmommy her kaftan for her afternoon nap...the tangerine one i picked up in marrakesh with your grandaddy in 2025."

the preparation for a child can be overwhelming...if you let it become overwhelming. i figure most of it will work itself out, like the stroller war outcome of 2011, breast pump situation, and decorating the nursery. i am more concerned about the emotional state of the mother and the health and well being of the child in the immediate six months following what will hopefully be a run of the mill get the baby out situation. i am not sure i can plan for when he is 5 just yet when I am not sure who my little boy will be just yet. sensitive? emotional? hits kids? won't shut up like his parents? etc etc etc. for right now, i will get fat for him.

sidenote: i am not as scared as having a child as I am of the other kids my kid has to play with after you go on the internet and read what their mothers are saying. stay away scary mom ladies.

here is to raising a man child. may God bless him.

faithsalutes preparation techniques.

 

 

when i was kid vs. when i was 30

when i was a kid i thought you were rich if you had your cereal not in cereal boxes but in clear plastic containers that made it easier to pour cereal (not sure why you needed it out of the boxes, but i thought it looked better even as a kid) and if you got to go every friday night to peter piper pizza like the Rossow's did and have tokens to spend. now that i am 30, you are rich if you are living the life you want to lead and have/building healthy relationships with friends and family. 

when i was a kid i thought you should eat a fruit roll up or a fruit by the foot (which i did not have until late into highschool) by unwrapping the entire thing at once and shoving the entire thing in your mouth. now that i am 30, i still think that is the only way to go. 

when i was a kid i thought cake was a waste and opted out at birthday parties. now that i am 30, i love me some cake. 

when i was a kid i thought saving the toenail i lost in a beautiful silk box my aunt made me was a good idea. now that i am 30, i am wondering where that box went. 

when i was a kid i thought going to Africa would be the greatest thing that would ever happen to me. now that i am 30, it was. 

when i was a kid i wanted to be an adult more than a kid. now that i am 30, i want adults to think i am an adult. 

when i was a kid i thought wearing deodorant behind my knees to keep them from getting sweaty was a good idea. now that i am 30 and living in DC, i think i might have to try it again. 

when i was a kid i wanted to be like alishia because she went away to college and came back with tennis shoes she painted herself. now that i am 30, we are friends. 

when i was a kid i thought jack in the box tacos were too hot. now that i am 30, i dream about the goodness that is catfood meat, wilted lettuce, fake cheese in a fried taco shell smothered in hot sauce. 

when i was a kid i thought my brothers were really smart and funny. now that i am 30, i know they are.

when i was a kid i thought i wanted to be the first woman of the President of the United States of America. now that i am 30, i rather flip burgers for a living.

when i was a kid i thought charles barkley was the shit. now that i am 30, i recognize his faults and still think he is the shit.

when i was a kid i did not like orange or lemon candy. now that i am 30, they are divine.

when i was a kid i thought riding in the back of a truck was better than going to Disneyland that one time. now that i am 30, my opinion still stands.

when i was a kid i messed up. now that i am 30, i mess up even more...but its different. you know?

faithsalutes bath time reflections.

 

30 in 4 Days = last minute Gift Guide for the girl who might not have it all?

Hunter Rain Boots, because I actually need them here a lot. And I want to be snobby about it and not get ones from Target.

More Vera Nuemann Scarves (I am wearing my collection out)

Anything in gold, faux or legit. For home or to flaunt.

Shopping for yourself online is exhausting, so you will have to be creative.

faithsalutes my last birthday without children.

 

 

i found drawings i did when i was 19 or 20

i still like them, but wonder what painting i cut up to make these little ditties. i hate every painting i have attempted. my style has evolved immensely, but it is interesting to look back and process those things that once inspired you.

goal" to like my paintings in my 30's and not cut them up.

on an unrelated note, Mowgli and i announced the good news about my pregnancy on facebook. baby due in july. people are funny. some people want to know why we waited to long to tell everyone. well, in 2011 terms maybe we waited a long time? people find out they are pregnant like 6 seconds in these days...but we only waited for the first trimester to be over after a devastating miscarriage a few months ago. sheesh, didn't want the unpleasant second go around of spreading that news again. alas, it feels good to have everyone believe our baby will be handsome, but OMG the child might not be... Mowgli had large ears as a child and mine stuck out like an elf...that is not a pretty combo, for instance. i am most definitely sure our child will be beautiful to us and more importantly to its Grandmas, but i am not promising anything to you facebook people. and who cares, i just want it to be able to do chores and admire me. looks are fading.

 

 
faithsalutes spending time thinking about her 20's and looking forward to living in her 30's not as a Tiger Mom, but as an Elephant mom. 

ps and yes, of course we are not naming our baby after you.

 

30 in 16 days = Gift guide for the girl who might not have it all? (round 2)

Because thinking about yourself is the only way to go!

NARS Nail Polish in Zulu Green

NARS Highlighting/Bronzer Duo in Orgasm/Laguna

Jonathan Adler Whale Butter Dish

Jonathan Adler Elephants Salt and Pepper Shaker

Anything associated with Charley Harper...anything.

decoylab Goal

Simply B Personalized Calling Cards

faithsalutes getting her to do list done in the next 16 days.

 

30 in 17 days = Gift guide for the girl who might not have it all? (round 1)

Well, I do have my health and Mowgli and family and Spanky Loo and a roof over my head and all that...but it doesn't hurt to want some trinkets to top it off.

I gave myself some perimeters this year, keep it under $250...but mostly under $50.

 

Leni Riefenstahl Africa published by Taschen

 

Economist Supscription and/or Harpers Bazaar Subscription...but I have always wanted to get the Economist each week.

Sewing Machine to replace the one that was stolen from our tenants that we evicted. Nothing too fancy.

A $50 shopping spree at SAS in Phoenix. RIBBON! Leather Scraps! BUTTONS!

A polaroid camera and some polaroid film

A plane ticket to anywhere

A piece of your artwork...whoever you are.

Mixed CD...

Not so frivolous boots, but kinda and I need some boots for real. My one pair of boots are pretty beat up, which can be cool but also not great with dresses or for professional attire.

Hermes Scarf Knotting Cards or here. Be inspired by watching this.

I need a coffee table.

Simple Times: Crafts for Poor People by Amy Sedaris

I never thought I needed anything, but I guess I do.

faithsalutes planning ahead.