Lately, I've been thinking about whether the recent spate of home-invasion movies ("Funny Games" remake, "The Strangers) is a commentary on:

1) the insecurity we feel in our homes due to post-9/11 lies and wiretapping from the most powerful sources in our nation, or
2) the insanity of going to a summer home/vacation spot when oil is at $130/barrel, or
3) nihilistic youth disgusted that the "greatest generation" led to a generation of greedy-greedy-mine-mine-mine baby-boomers.

Or maybe it's something else entirely. Suggestions in comments.

Forgot to mention: my buzz-like-a-hummingbird gestational diabetes test came back negative. Which is good, because Starburst jellybeans are pretty much my raison de etre at this point.

So, I spent all morning praying for my two friends who had job interviews today, and it seems to have paid off in an unexpected fashion: my standby group does not have to appear for jury duty tomorrow! Praise Jesus!

According to a poll on AOL today, Massachusetts has the fourth dumbest drivers in the nation. Only New York, DC, and New Jersey scored lower. Find out if you're a smart driver by taking this quiz! I missed three out of 20 -- probably would have done better but, you see, I've lived in Massachusetts for four years.

This was a good week for new babies! The Comtesse welcomed her second child (and first daughter), and Steve was present for the birth of his sixth (!) grandchild, Solomon Saint John Sloan. Hearty congratulations and cyber-cigars all around!

Two of my blogosphere buddies have job interviews this week, and I'm kind of hoping to hear about something I applied for myself, so I've been thinking a lot about job-interview tips. I think it's important to give a potential employer a good glimpse into your true personality. You don't want to be stuck at a job where you don't like anyone (and nobody likes you) because you weren't true to yourself during the hiring process, right? I always put forth a genuine, albeit a bit muted, version of Motormouth whenever I'm talking to a first-time client or a job interviewer.

I think that's the most important tip, besides asking a question that has to do with the within-five-years history of wherever you're interviewing.

One of my buddies is interviewing at a largely Hispanic company. How largely? Well, he'd be the only gringo there. These are the tips I e-mailed to his girlfriend, to read to him at the appropriate time:

DO drop a carefully timed "de nada."
DON'T, under any circumstance, make reference to the "Frito Bandito."

Really, this stuff is golden. Maybe I've missed my true calling as an interview coach! Or maybe not.

I really needed to get my garden started, and I'd considered skipping church to work on it this morning, but we didn't go to church last week and I couldn't justify skipping it two weeks in a row. So after church, once Lex was napping, Monstro loaded the 120 pounds of compost into his car for me and I drove to the Community Garden.

Only problem was, I forgot to bring my key to the Community Garden Shed, where the wheelbarrows reside. And just when I was thinking to myself, "How in the devil am I going to move 120 pounds of compost from the trunk of Monstro's Saturn to my garden plot," I looked over and saw two of our gaming buddies get out of their car, with their friends from out-of-town in tow.

"Hey guys," I said, after shaking hands with their friends, "how'd you like to help me out?"

So they carried the three bags of compost to my garden, allowing me to prep the soil and plant my homegrown seedlings.

And if I'd skipped church and done my gardening this morning? I'd be sh*t out of luck. Or, in this circumstance, compost out of luck.

While I was awaiting my blood draw at the lab, I took a glance at a bulletin board chock full of photos of the staffers' families, boyfriends, etc. One of the guys on the board was *really* cute. It wasn't until I'd stared at the picture for 10 seconds that I realized I was looking at a photo of Bon Jovi.

You Belong in Sacramento

You're a little too down to earth to be considered a true Californian... But you're still too weird to fit in anywhere else! With its diversity and cultural opportunities, Sacramento is just enough California for you.

Please note I had to fix two typos, so maybe I don't really belong in Sacramento. Marin, maybe... :)
Thanks Carlin for the quiz link!

I'm 26 weeks and five days pregnant and anyone who's been pregnant for that long can probably figure out what I did this morning to celebrate: chugged down a bunch of glucose water for my gestational diabetes test. Everyone complains about the taste of the drink but really, if you slug it all the way down the back of your throat you can hardly taste it. It's like mostly flat Fanta lemon-lime, but without the annoying theme song (there, now scores of people around the internet have that song in their head. You're welcome).

Guess it's been a while since I've been artificially stimulated because mere minutes after drinking the sugar water I was buzzin' like a bumblebee. No wonder hummingbirds flap their wings so fast -- they survive on this stuff. I got very silly very quickly and was soon beating the rhythm to "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" on my thighs while I waited for the doctor to see me.

I'll get my results tomorrow, maybe Tuesday because of the three-day weekend. Came home and went straight for the protein, gobbled down a three-egg omelette with ham, cheese, and red peppers in about the time it takes to drum the first two lines of "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida", and washed it down with a big glass of milk. Oh, and some toast with peanut butter -- might as well have a little hair o' the dog, I figure, in hopes it'll keep me from crashing like a meth-head on the highway.

So, here's a rundown on the stellar awesomeness of some of my friends in the blogosphere:

Becky saw Duran Duran in concert whilst in the midst of a multi-day business meeting, and blogged about it on her cell phone.
Anne is finishing her poetry book and it's getting published by a university press.
Fringes is getting married in Vegas sometime before the end of the year, and announced it in a blog post that hearkens back to the pre-Civil-Rights movement.
Ms. Strega has been tapped to teach creative writing this summer at my alma mater.
Monstro is getting up at 5:30 tomorrow morning to go teach so we can buy groceries.
And, the Comtesse might be giving birth even as I type this.

As for me, I took the boy on a play date this morning and scored a free double stroller. Not as cool as my friends, maybe, but it's something. Oh, and this is my five hundredth post on this blog. Do I get a cookie?

"Gays and lesbians have a constitutional right to marry in California, the state Supreme Court said today in a historic ruling that could be repudiated by the voters in November."

Woo hoo!

I just finished writing my new one-act, "The Association." Had to take a little time away from it because it was feeling too bloated. I cut the cast list in half and tightened things up. And made it more ridiculous. And now I'm really happy.

A ten-page comedy about poverty and hunger. Who'd've thought?

Fringes just read it and said she laughed aloud. Whoot!

"I was considered slow. While my classmates were reading their textbooks, I drew in the margins."
--Dearly departed artist Robert Rauschenberg, 1925-2008

Had a great Mother's Day. Got a cute Star-Wars-themed card from Lex and the Peanut, and a lovely card from Monstro with a certificate good for one day of heavy lifting and garden mucking. Great stuff! Monstro and the other men from church cooked a Mother's Day brunch for the congregation, and his chile egg puff was the first dish to get all eaten up. When he was still at church cleaning up I called Fringes and we had an on-the-same-page "to the punctuation mark" conversation, which was just as awesome as I knew it was going to be (and I'd set a pretty high bar, let me tell you). After Lex woke up, Monstro cooked us some dinner -- we had our first barbeque and our first corn of the season. Great, great, great. And then we watched Friday's "Battlestar Galactica," which made us happy we'd taped "King of the Hill" to watch afterward.

And now I have to go buy a new power cord for my PowerBook. Bye!

Monstro and the kids and I are participating in the Western Massachusetts Relay for Life this June. Yes, June, that blazingly summer month when I will be *seven* *months* *pregnant*. Please support our fundraising efforts by plunking five bucks (or more! we're not choosy) into our donation pile. If you do, Monstro will do his fat-man dance for you. Just don't tell him you heard it from me. :)

I have a new hero. Her name is Bonnie Richardson and she's a-maz-ing. See for yourself!

It's amazing what one woman can accomplish when she gets up at five in the morning. I've graded my photo finals and developed a from-scratch logo and logo/letterhead treatment for a client. Oh, and I read the news and caught up on a couple of blogs. So I think this afternoon I'll either go to a movie or take a big nap!

Monstro: (writing a check for the church offering) "What's today's date?"
Motormouth: "Uh... the fourth."
Monstro: "Well then, May the fourth be with you!"

Every year I walk into that one. Every stinkin' year.

The reason for much of the bloggy silence this week was due to the fact I was working balls-out for a new client. I just sent him the finished document. It's 39 pages of 14-point Times New Roman (to reduce eyestrain for all involved). And I wrote it in 13 hours. That's with 2-3 drafts, people.

I am off to numb my throbbing head with some dumb TV. Then I need to clean the house for our game night tonight!