I Do Love Me Some Indie Movies

But this is pretty funny. How hot is Alanis here? I would say shame on you, Ryan Reynolds, but it's not like Scarlett Johansson is a piece of milk toast or something. Shout out to Horley on that one.

My Mother's Red Hat w/Alicia Silverstone & Alanis Morissette from Alicia Silverstone

Why It's Never a Good Idea to Watch Picture Perfect and Then Take an Ambien

Dedicated to Kerri Keogh and Meghan Hilliard (calm down, Horley, I'll dedicate the next one to you)

Why, you ask, why are these two things not a good combination? Because when you've wasted an entirely beautiful Friday afternoon watching Jennifer Aniston run around with a bad red dye job (complete with streaks of blond around the face) and high-waisted white jeans as she pursues the Kevin Bacon of our youth (you know, the hot Kevin Bacon, complete with that tan and low side muscle above the jean, the Footloose Kevin Bacon, the one we all incorporated into our adolscent masturbation fantasies) but then falls for the kind, yet not-so-tanned and glamorous Jay Mohr, a wedding photographer she met at weird, a wedding! and then hatches the kind of crackpot plan we know will never work, yet we root for it all the same, because just their proximity to one another will create the kind of love most of us have just dreamed of, well, if you're single and your mother has a brain tumor, it's going to haunt your night.

"Kate always lived her life by the rules....some rules are meant to be broken."

What I'm saying is, do not watch it, go to work, come home from work late and pass out only to wake up like an hour and a half later, at 4:30, say, unable to go back to sleep because you keep thinking about the parallels of your life and this stupid fucking movie, and the fact that your mother might have less than a year to live and why haven't you yet gone to a wedding and met some handsome stranger and fallen in love? If you had, you might already be married by now, which would give you time to pop out at least one grandchild for your mother (who has exactly zero of them at the moment) and then you could feel like you were doing something with this shitty situation, evolving it into a beautiful baby that your mother would get to hold once or twice before she dies.

Then you might start thinking about why you didn't take fuller advantage of just this kind of opportunity last month in San Francisco when your college friend got married, and you got to borrow the hottest dress ever and rocked it.

Hmm. Rocking it a little too hard here, Missy. You're all like, "Whassup?"
Let's try another one.

Better.
One kick-ass dress provided by Kerri Keough: Free
One kick-ass pair of Cole Haans with Nike Technology
also provided by Kerri Keogh: Free
The fact that there were one and a half single men at this wedding,
all of whom were gay: Priceless

At this point, you will take that half tab of Ambien at 4:30 am, just to stop thinking about all of the above, and then you will wake up at 9 am, shaky, with swollen tongue and the vague sense that your head is leaking, but you really couldn't say from exactly where.

It's a cautionary tale, peeps. Picture Perfect + Ambien + Angst over Mom's brain tumor = no bueno. No bueno at all. Not even one little hint of fundido.

So I Missed Michael Jackson's Memorial......

But I've got a really good excuse. A fantastic one, I think, although one that I don't have a custom made Versace suit (which the entire Jackson family wore) with which to announce it. It's also my excuse from being almost entirely absent from this blog this month and there's just no easy way to say it, although I've been saying it now for almost six weeks.

My mom has a brain tumor, the wicked, cancerous kind. The same week my sister became officially five years cancer free, my mom's biopsy came back as an aggressive glioblastoma and my life as I've known it ceased to exist. For those of you who don't know me personally (and I think there's a good handful of you out there) my mother is my heart; she is where I derived my sense of humor, my love for books and writing, my empathy, most of my worldview and the balance of my smarts. She is lovely, she is young (63 on Monday) and she's dedicated the last 30 years of her life to hospice and social work. I can only begin to hope to give back to this world what she has.

It's been a whirlwind as this thing has progressed, and we are lucky that right now it is only affecting her right leg and a little bit of her right arm - but what that means is she needs a walker and lots of help to get around in the house, and that she is in a wheelchair outside of the house. It's strange how quickly we've all gotten used to this: my active, walking, hiking, yoga-doing mother now sits in the living room for eight hours a day. But here's the crazy thing: she's really happy. She's surrounded by the people and things she loves (not to mention her puppy Charlie) and she is receiving amazing visitors and insights daily. I hang on to her happiness when I feel the most despondent, and trust me, I'm pretty fucking despondent. Today is a decent day, however, and one where I haven't collapsed yet. I'll take it.

Ma (a.k.a. Bobbie) using her chair to propagate her hippie beliefs. JK, Ma!

I don't know how much I'll be writing about it here - she has a site set up that I've been posting on intermittently, and I'll link to them here. Here are the two I've posted in the last few weeks. *Warning* They are more than a little despondent. But still funny. A little, anyway.

http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/bobbiema/journal/4
(for mine, scroll down to Monday, June 29, 2009 3:30 AM, PDT)

http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/bobbiema/journal/2
(for mine, scrool down to Saturday, July 4, 2009 4:34 PM, PDT)

Her posts are great too, although they go on a little (ok a lot) longer than mine, and I would advise starting from the beginning, as otherwise, they won't make a lot of sense. This way, I figure you can tune in for the funny here and read the other stuff if you'd like. What I've written is not easy, but it is the truth, so do with it what you will. Who knows, I may say fuck all that as this thing goes on and post it all together. I have no idea - and if I learned anything with my sister's cancer, it's that one day to the next, it is futile to predict what will be transpiring and how I will feel about it. Chemo and radiation start on Thursday for six weeks (although she will take chemo pills one week a month for the rest of her life) and that will be a whole different ball of wax - I still have yet to understand why the treatment has to be as bad as the disease itself.

Anyway, I will still be posting frivolous shit and witty observations as they come, because that's what helps me cope every day anyway, and this is no different. It felt weird to keep doing that, however, without providing a little personal context.

Thanks for reading, and send her some love and light if you can. Many of you already are, and I couldn't be more grateful.

A Little More About Me

I know, you've been dying know more, right? Like it keeps you awake at night, the question of, "What makes Abby Mims tick?"

Well friends, I have a couple of answers for you, courtesy of Forces of Geek.

http://www.forcesofgeek.com/2009/07/geek-profile-abby-mims.html

I promise I will update this blog soon, and perhaps post more regularly. Lots of shit hitting the family fan right at the moment, and I'm still trying to sort it all out, but I miss making the funny here, so I want to come back as soon as I can. Seriously.

And to the person who posted the, "This blog sucks. I'm just saying," comment, you, sir/madam can bite me. Big time.

Given Recent Events, This Makes Me Very Happy

To quote Jezebel, "The first rule of pug fight club is we don't talk about pug fight club." Indeed. Wally is totally going to dominate. I just need to get him a hat.

Fairytales and Other Big Fat Lies

In my next life, I'm going to be Sarah Haskins. Or Sarah Haskins + Tiny Fey + Sarah Vowell with a dash of Ira Glass and David Sedaris thrown in for good measure. At any rate, this is one of my favorite Target Womens in a while. Best line, "Milk will also bring sunshine to a land devastated by your period tears." And next snack time? It's all about the Philly Cream Cheese.

Scandalous No, Relaxing Yes

Some days, I so wish I was 23 again, so that I could regale my public with stories of my recent trip to Mexico, wherein I met a hottie at Rock 'n Roll Taco, who spoke only paquito English, had a kick-ass tan, washboard abs, and refused to let me buy even one shot of Cuervo or my own plate of nachos. We fell in love in the space of 24 hours, and then I wept non-stop for the next few days at the thought of him returning without me to Mexico City, as I returned to the dull marketing job I hated in Seattle.* But alas, it's 13 years later, and a good vacation to me at this point (aside from that fireman in Costa Rica) involves the following: sitting on my ass in the sun, eating good food, having a few drinks and much girl talk with Margi. Which is exactly what I had. There is no titillation here, only sunshine, and some lobster that I swear to God, melted in my mouth. Our hotel was one step down from the Four Seasons, and so stunning that photos can't really do it justice. But I'll try.

This would be the lobby. Did I mention it smelled of love and eucalyptus?

The view from our room. Eh, not bad.





Our private pool. There were like 7 other people staying at the hotel.
Or more like 8, since it was all couples. Did we care? No.

Yep. Just a little bit stunning.

We found ourselves alone most of the time, that is until Jeffrey popped out of my suitcase one night and insisted I'd invited him. He enjoyed the mini-bar, made some bad decisions (like drunk dialing his ex, and copping a feel with Margi), but he eventually relaxed and enjoyed his time in Cabo. So much so that he's still there, and we are left with nothing but the memories:

Goodnight, Sweet Prince.

I have the kind of red-eye in this photo that appears to be un-fixable, so just focus on the butts if you can.

Everything was fabulous there, except for one moment wherein Margi nearly disappeared into the booth she was sitting in, and was suddenly overwhelmed by the size of the menu.

"Mom, Mom," she said, whispering.
"Can I please, please have the jalapeno poppers and the mac and cheese?"

At any rate, it's hard to be back in reality, especially when your insane pug decided to pee ALL OVER YOUR FUCKING APARTMENT because he was pissed that you left. Literally. I only wanted to kill him for the three minutes after I walked into my beautiful place (on an 85 degree day) and nearly passed out from the smell. It's gone now, and I've recovered. Mostly. These little girls who decorated him with roses yesterday helped.

So adorable it hurts my head.

It's a good thing you're cute, buster.

Tonight it's back to mojitos and douchebags. Do wish me luck.

*This sort of happened, only the guy was a sweet, Jewish kid from Massachusetts, who I did indeed meet at Rock and Roll Taco, (minus the tan and the washboard abs) where we danced and then proceeded to make out surrounded by trash on a dirty Rosarito Beach and were then locked out of our group hotel room (everyone was passed out and didn't come to the door even as we pounded on it) and were forced to sleep in my car. A snazzy Toyota Tercel. I did fall in love with the Jewish kid, however, because that is what I was famous for doing in my 20s. Meeting men on vacation and falling in love with them. Ah, to be young again.