(besides mikey, hazel, LOST, ghosts, crafting, my own mortality, and all the things i usually think about)

1.) last time i gave paisley a bath, i used the infamous bodywash that gave me that hellacious rash back in november of 2007. i figured i needed to do something with it after months and months of being afraid to even touch the bottle to throw it away, so i started using it to scrub out the litterbox. now the litterbox is gone since the kiddens are in foster care, so again it sits, still practically full. i thought a test bath couldn’t hurt the dog – she’s probably tougher than i am – so i gave her one after christmas and she seemed fine and smelled lovely. in the car on the way home to canada i could smell farm on her and made a mental note to give her a bath (which i still haven’t done), and wondered if i should try the deadly soap again or just throw it away after more than a year. only then did it occur to me that that bodywash is the reason that hazel exists. it’s the soap that gave me the rash that the doctor thought might actually have been caused by my birth control which i then stopped taking just in case which ultimately lead to hazel’s conception. if not for that bodywash, the first iafrate offspring would be someone completely different. bodywash is one of those things that i used to spend fifteen minutes selecting (i started using plain lavender bar soap after the incident), smelling at least twenty bottles and rarely buying the same thing twice. i pass countless drugstores and grocery stores on my walk home from work. the fact that i went in THAT particular drugstore and, after fifteen minutes selected THAT bodywash, are the primary reasons that hazel exists. which kind of scares me. it should be more likely that she NOT exist. which makes me wonder about the wonderfulness of all the kids we are NOT having. which is not a good thing to think about, because my cousins & my mom & i had a lengthy baby name discussion at home, and pretended we had to name 13 kids with a certain letter of the alphabet. i could only think of two names i’d really like to name a child with ANY letter of the alphabet.

2.) my ten favorite singing voices of all time, in no particular order: mikey, andy, chris coole, max heineman, chan marshall, sam beam, elliott smith, gillian welch, will oldham, and nick drake. if i hadn’t been BEGGED to go to a show in parkersburg, wv, in july of 2002, i probably would not know the first four of that list. that was the only show that a girl whose name i can’t remember ever, ever went to with us, who was walked to her car by the guys i was there with when the show was over, which is why i was sitting alone on the sidewalk, which is why josh came to keep me company, which is why when mikey came to talk to him, i was sitting right there & got introduced.

3.) my ten favorite (movie) actors and actresses of all time, in no particular order: phillip seymour hoffman, susan sarandon, tim robbins, meryl streep, morgan freeman, dustin hoffman, william h. macy, john cusack, frances mcdormand, & edward norton. brad pitt gets an honorable mention because he’s my favorite on-screen eater and coffee-cup-faker. via the kevin bacon game, i’m connected to all of them.

4.) i really, really, really want to learn how to quilt. i think i will try to make a doll quilt for hazel, who doesn’t even have any dolls, but i should start soon if i’m going to pull it off. it can go with the little doll sling that i plan to make for her whenever she starts playing with them. even *i* played with dolls when i was really small. i loved my cabbage patches just as well as my tonkas. if she never likes dolls, then she can just use them on a cat. we already know that dietrich likes to be worn around & hidden under blankets. if people ever give her barbies and she decapitates them that is okay, as long as she’s not using a box cutter to do so. no good ever comes of cutting off barbie heads with box cutters.

5.) something happens every single day of my canada life that gives literal meaning to the word “homesick”, except on the days that we get to hear bluegrass. on those days i don’t care if mikey is listening to j marinelli in the next room (like right now). or if i break a black bear pint glass (didn’t cry, by the way – breakthrough). or if i know that everyone in whatever circle of friends is doing something really fun and we aren’t there with them (birthday party, new house party, show, watching lost all in the same place, etc.). only two things have ever made me prefer being in canada over wv on a certain day: the foggies’ christmas show in 2007, and easters at the dominican house.

6.) i will never make hazel eat or drink things that make her gag. i don’t care how healthy they are. cooked spinach and cow milk and scalloped potatoes don’t exist in our house anyway. i never understood that last one. i love cheese. i love potatoes. why not cheesy potatoes?

7.) my cousin has a tattoo of a sack of potatoes with the words “why not” as if it were the name of the company. “why not potatoes?” – i think it is the best tattoo ever. it’s pretty much every tattoo any of our friends has. why not a coffee cup on your foot or a deathstar on your ass? why not a mechanical squid looking thing? why not a giant deer head? why not a cupcake? why not a crack-fly? not that i don’t like all of those tattoos. except the crack-flies – hate those. i want to get a maple leaf tattoo before we leave canada. i’m no longer getting the ISBN of hazel’s first book – i might have mentioned this. stamped silver bracelet instead, and then a collective kid-related tattoo when we are done procreating.

8.) i should start keeping a set of funeral clothes in west virginia in case someone dies while i am there.

that’s all i can remember.