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Don’t think I don’t realize the fact that I’ve been neglecting this blog lately only to post about dead folkses. More actual content coming soon, maybe. I’d like to promise but… you know how these things get.

So I’ve been processing this whole Michael Jackson thing, and other people have said it better than I could. Basically, if you were born around 1975 or earlier, Michael Jackson was IT. He was EVERYTHING in the 80’s. Yeah, he turned into something so ‘other’ that it can barely be explained, but for me, in elementary school, MJ was MUSIC.

But today Billy Mays died. To me, that’s just a huge, huge shock. Sure, MJ dying at 50 was shocking, but with the way that dude was carrying on, it was really only a matter of time. With Billy Mays, well, we expected him to be on our TVs for a good long time, hawking OxiClean and Orange Glo and Slider Station and a hundred other things. Wonder Mop (I do want one of these).

When Jillian was a tiny tiny baby and we were having marathon breastfeeding sessions, Billy Mays was there for me. He was there at 3:30AM, shouting about Orange Glo or some other thing that I just HAD to have. Even though the TV in Jillian’s nursery was hooked to the cable, we didn’t have a converter box for it so I only got about 20 channels on it. We had to watch a lot of network dreck in those days. But Billy was always there. His yelly presence was the music to which we drowsed, in those late nights/early mornings.

And now he’s gone. Limited time offer, my friends.

Farrah Fawcett’s death today was not a surprise. Everyone could see that she was on her way out, and it’s great that she’s not suffering anymore.

Michael Jackson, on the other hand… SHOCKING. Seriously shocking. Crazy! I’m going to sew sequins on all my clothes in tribute. And maybe schedule some plastic surgery.

We are potty-training Jillian. She is in underpants most of the day (aside from naptime and bedtime and if I’m at the gym, since the gym’s babysitting service doesn’t mess with that). Pee accidents have been minimal, and we have had a few successful poops in the potty, but for the most part, she waits until a diaper appears and unloads into that.

Usually.

Yesterday, she actually announced that she had to poop, so I put her on the potty. Ten minutes later, nothing had happened so I took her off. I was on the phone trying to schedule an inspection for the car and Jillian disappeared for a bit. Pretty much as soon as I hung up, she reappeared, all upset because she’d gone in her pants.

Sigh.

I know it makes her uncomfortable because she was really upset, but she won’t calm down enough for me to get her undressed in such a way that we don’t get poop EVERYWHERE. Including in my hand.

I’m not a girly girl. Not remotely. I own some makeup, but I couldn’t tell you where it is. My hair… we’re having a rough patch at the moment and I’m thinking of breaking up with it. Counseling might be in order before I decide to do something drastic and chop it all off.

I do like to paint my nails, though. Even in this respect, I’m barely girly - I have 2 shades of red, 2 shades of blue, a sparkly black, a deep burgundy color that looks like dried blood, a weird silvery-lavender, some kind of weird magenta with purple overtones that make my hands look like Tranny Hands, emerald green, and two shades of freakout pink that Jillian picked out. This is what my dad gets for objecting to purple nail polish when I was ten.

The nail polish I favor is the Sally Hansen X-treme Wear kind, since I do a lot of hard work with my hands and I like my nails to stay painted for longer than it takes for them to dry. However, nail polish is no match for gardening, it would seem. Which means the polish I put on my claws Friday afternoon is pretty much destroyed.

The garden looks good, though.