I have several ACTUAL stories in the works but they are Big. They require Effort. And right now I am teetering on the precipice of Shaving-My-Head and Running-Through-the-Streets-With-a Rubber-Chicken-and-a-Jug-of-Milk singing, “I am a plebeian juice badger!!!” or maybe “Waxy robot knickers!!!” or even *all lyrics composed by your’s truly.

So all you’re getting this week is a bunch of stream-of-consciousness blather.  You see, I’m suffering from crazytown exhaustion for no great reason.  Why can’t I check into the hospital like Rhianna  and let them inject me with things to make me feel better? Then I could tweet out a lame apology to “all my fans!” while soaking up some sunshine at a spa clinic in Southern California. Why can’t I do that?

My fried desire to exist can be attributed to several factors. 10, actually. Here they are:

1. Monday2. Tuesday3. Wednesday4. Thursday5. Friday6. Saturday7. SundaySo I’m feeling a little bit of the “Don’t mind if I do!” kind of crazy. But really, those 7 things are surmountable if I can just take care of the following 3.

1. Exercise2. Stuffing trash into my face3. Forgetting to go to bedAnd then there is the artist’s affliction (Blaaach! I hate using that word.  ”I’m an artist.” So pompous! “I’m a queen of the universe. Just look at my hair and my teeth. Flawless.” But using the word artist makes me sound LESS stupid than my usual self-definition.)My affliction is that as soon as the boys go down, I go into denial over the existence of housework and I want to create all the things!And so, to sum up:

A. My world is a cluttered disaster.

B. I’m tired and out of shape.

C. I’m mentally fried from my day (nights and weekends) job.  That I wouldn’t trade for the world.  Because who cares if I’m pathetic when I have awesome offspring?!!I’m putting together some New Year’s resolutions. I’ll let you know how that goes…..

We spent Thanksgiving over at The Dark Knight’s parents’ house.  It was great. The weather was spectacular. Even when I ate too much I bent my foot wrong and my flip-flop burst, it was ok.  I just went barefoot (after wearing my father-in-law’s shoes to Walgreens to buy some new flip-flops.  Apparently they don’t sell flip-flops ”in the winter“. Whatever. Sounds like bad business to me. )

I like getting together with that family because The Dark Knight’s brother, Spartacus, has at least 18 kids and they pretty much keep my offspring busy all day. So after the meal I get to tip over onto the couch and eat all the Pixie Stix.WHY!!!!!????  The only ones left were orange and I don’t even like orange. But they were in reach of my fat greasy fingers so I crammed them into my face.

Anyway, after I ran out, I decided to take advantage of the slave-labor babysitting and sketch out a blog.  Within seconds I could hear crickets it was so quiet. Something was not right at all.I could feel their hot lazer eyeballs boring into my device.It was creepy.And so I threw it into their midst like a slab of meat.The end result was 50 new apps, a drained battery, videos, pictures making everyone in the room look fat/ridiculous, drawings, and unnerving voice recordings.  Here are a few samples of the day’s work.

I left out all the ones that made any of us adults look like wildebeests.  So, like, all of them.

You’re welcome.

A photo or two.

The 6-year-old announcing her need for chap-stick using the “Turtle Voice”Turtle

And, a sketch.Nicely done, descendants, nicely done.

Sorry its been a few days since I posted last.  I’ve been so busy.I’ve got a couple in the works. Just you wait!

I’d like to be prepared to illustrate it correctly.  My old drawing stylus was chunky and flimsy and Seigfried kept sticking it up his nose and smearing fluids all over the screen.  I “settled’ when I bought it, anyway.  So tonight I spotted my dream stylus at Home Depot. No wait, whats that other big obnoxious place…..Best Buy! That’s it.  And I brought it home and did a trial drawing for my inevitable academy award night.Which is better than the one I did with my old stylus.So there you have a glimpse of the art you COULD be viewing, if only I weren’t so lazy.  But at least now I can do more detailed drawing in the event of an Oscar nod. Its best to be fully prepared.

So my father-in-law, Mr. The Dark Knight Sr, is a structural engineer. He are real, real smart.  Thankfully, he’s seen some of my grandest and most subtle hints of brilliance, (which is fabulous because I love to look intelligent in front of those kinds of people).

Like the time we were eating dinner with him and Honey, and they were all saying smart things and I was chowing on some pineapple.One of those bizarre masticating hiccups occurred after I stabbed a huge piece of pineapple with my fork and tried to bite it in half because it was way too big to fit into my mouth (run-on…..).It slipped off my fork and I COULD NOT get it to sever in two.I hunched over in hopes that it would detach and fall onto my plate.It was not a success.I was trying not to be all grabby with my food, so instead I took advantage of the awesome power of motion.And that didn’t work out for me, so I finally gave up and made use of my phalanges, including my often underutilized opposable thumbs, and I pried it in half. It took quite a bit of effort, and in the end a tiny nugget was all I managed to rip off, leaving me with a gargantuan wad of stringy fruit to somehow process with my mouth closed! I chewed and chewed and chewed and chewed. And as I chewed I glanced casually around the table to check for witnesses.But, that’s ancient history.  I’ve changed and grown since then.  Yesterday was a good example of that.  It didn’t start out great, but it definitely got worse.

The boys were all…And then I had to go into work that night because we’d received a truck-load of furniture and the store looked like this…So I pushed and pulled and hung and stacked and hid things….The store began to look marvelous again. But I was mentally and physically obliterated so I left. I walked to our car, which used to belong to Honey and Mr. The Dark Knight Sr.

I got in and tried to turn the key…I tried everything.But nothing worked!  Not a single thing. And I did it all at least 4 times. So I broke down and called Mr. The Dark Knight Sr.And so, late at night, Mr. The Dark Knight Sr had to drive all the way over to my place of business and try to fix my car.  He tried the key.He turned the wheel.He messed with the brakes.(I did notice, however, that he failed to push any of the buttons. I’m just sayin…)But then he tried something I didn’t think of.