Suddenly there is A SIGN on my kitchen cupboard. And what the sign says is this, in chunky Olde English lettering:

THOU SHALT NOT INDULGE THE MUNCHIES.

See the logic? If it sounds like a commandment from God, then I absolutely had better obey it. Right? Although, the way I’ve always pictured God, He wouldn’t be such a stick-in-the-mud. Have some Pop Tarts, God would say. Don’t worry about it! Remember, you had sashimi for lunch. The problem with listening to Him on these occasions, however, is that as an abstract being, God is neither taken aback by cottage cheese thighs nor startled by an enormous ass. (He is, after all, the ALMIGHTY.) So I always think He’s out to sabotage my eating habits — sure, eat a little, have fun. Thanks, God, but NO, I SHALT NOT.

Until, of course, I do.

Self Awareness is now spamming my comments. I guess we could all use as much of that as we can get, but I wish Self Awareness would bugger off for a while and spam someone else’s comments. And now remains the age-old (well, I say age-old; it’s actually very quite new) conundrum: Do I remove the spam comments, to avoid annoying any of my readers (all three of them), or do I leave them there so it looks like I’ve got more comments, at first blush anyway?

I left them in. But mostly because I am lazy.

Lazy is, in fact, the theme of tonight’s post. Because I am famously lazy. Yet I am always running about doing stuff, so this is a bit of a problem. What I find I have to do is build up a head of steam — I’m at my most productive when I’m on a roll, revved up, hauling ass, kicking butt, pulling an all-nighter and so on. And then I damn well push myself too hard. And when I am done, I’m spent — I’m exhausted, I’m starving because I don’t eat when revved up, I’m LAZY. I’ve been like this all my life! I do my best work with a gun to my head. I just fly by the seat of my pants. I’ve got a million of them.

But know what? Not lazy. Depressed. And not revved up. Manic.

Y’all get the picture? That’s right kiddos, bipolar with a capital Be. At first it was a theory. Now it’s an official diagnosis!

And here we go into our FAQ section.

Q: So that’s that, then. You’re completely fucking mental.

A: Well, yes but . . . not. The fact that it hasn’t kicked up until this stage of my life shows how highly functional I’ve been considering I think it started in high school. The research will show you that bipolar disorder is, these days, believed to be a matter of being born with a predisposition, PLUS a precipitating event, or set of events, or what have you. According to my doc, my case is extremely treatable. I just need to get on an even keel. Whatever the fuck that is!

Q: You’ve got to take meds forever though?

A: Shit, I don’t know. Probably, but even if I didn’t, I would be just my normal self: alternately revved up and lazy.

Q: Are you still breastfeeding?

A: No. I really had to grit my teeth over that one, but I got Julia to the one-year mark anyway, and stopped because of the meds.

Q: How do you feel about all this? Don’t you worry about being judged, condescended to, or discriminated against?

A: Me, I’m just Gretchen, no matter what label you slap on me. So I’m okay with it. Some people might not be. That’s their prerogative. I don’t shout I’M BIPOLAR from the housetops, but I’m not going to hide it either. And anyone who tries to condescend to me had better be packing some heavy artillery in the ol’ skull is all I’m going to say. A few people have reacted really oddly, as though it’s a stigma or will ruin my career. I don’t worry about that, any more than I worried about being female being a stigma or ruining my career. I ruined my OWN career, thank you very much!

Q: While we’re at it, just what the sweet jumping Jesus have you done to your hair?

A: Dyed it black. They say once you go black, you never go back; but I like to go dark in the summer and light in the winter with my hair color, just the opposite of everyone else. I mean, who can carry off black hair in the winter? Only someone with really good skin tone and complexion. That ain’t me, babe.

Well, I promised you a story that would involve, inter alia, Crown Royal, soft brown dirt and vomit (the Crumpackers usually call it yarp, a Ben-ism). I’m not about to disappoint. The camping, she was a nightmare. I should explain right up front that everywhere you see an asterisk, you should mentally insert the words “Julia continues to wail.” Okay, now go freshen your drink or grab the wine bottle or a doob or a cup of tea or whatever floats your boat. CAMPSTORY! Because I love you, I am sparing you the drive up there, which almost rent us apart as a family.

3:00 p.m. Arrive at campsite. It proves to be covered in soft brown dirt. The kids set about playing with the toys they’ve brought whilst Mom and Dad tackle the brand-new tent. The tent, she is a dream. Eight feet by twelve feet, and covered wall to wall inside with soft sleeping bags and pillows. I lie back inside, to test it out, romping with baby Julia on the sleeping bags. Julia squeals and grins but is, unfortunately, COVERED IN SOFT BROWN DIRT. As are the boys. I am talking head to toe, so that they look like Caucasian children playing Indian children in some 1930s movie. In short order, Mommy, Daddy and the inside of our sumptuous tent are also covered in soft brown dirt. (Bargain interlude: sumptuous Coleman tent cost $40 at Big Lots. Bonus!)

5:00 p.m. Mommy has bought Daddy some Crown Royal and a flask to put it in, because all men love flasks when camping. By five p.m., Mommy and Daddy are at their wits’ end from bored little boys covered in soft brown dirt and a toddler, meaning Julia now rather than Matt, who has commenced to wail. Therefore, Daddy starts nipping at the Crown Royal. Mommy does not do such things, so she makes a BIG pot of camp coffee — and I mean a BIG pot, 20 cups — and drives back to the general store to buy beer for Daddy and Pellegrino water for Mommy.

6:00 p.m. The camp coffee is not very good. The Crown Royal, apparently is.* The inside of the cozy tent is FILTHY from little boys WHO WERE TOLD NOT TO DO traipsing in and out of it, covered in soft brown dirt.* In fact, Julia and Matt by now are dressed only in diapers. We cook Spaghettios over the fire and I’m charmed by the sight of Sam and Matt eating them with a big serving spoon because WE FORGOT THE DISHES, but this does not last. This does not hold at all, and the kids are going nuts and I am looking at AN ENTIRE NIGHT IN THIS MANNER. I suddenly think I WANT TO GO HOME, and before I finish thinking it, the words are out of my mouth, followed quickly by these: And we’d better decamp fast if we want to make it down off this fucking mountain before full dark.*

7:00 p.m. We barrel homeward down the mountain. The descent is fairly rapid, and considering you go rather quickly from 5,038 to 826 feet above sea level (elevations culled from roadside signs; we make no representations concerning their accuracy), *. Julia is, after a while, joined in her wailing by Matt, who is clearly miserable although he can’t articulate a reason. We theorize that it’s the pressure in their ears from the descent. This may have been true of Julia, wailing, but Matt soon revealed the source of his misery when he yarped all over himself. Not just himself, either; all over his pants and my favorite hoodie and Ben’s upholstery. We pull over and clean it up, noticing with worry that smoke and/or steam is coming out from under the hood, although the engine temperature reads fine.*

8:00 p.m. Full dark now.* Mommy is driving and crying because Boolie has not stopped crying for, like, the whole hour and fifteen minutes it takes to get off the mountain. Daddy is now street legal, so he takes the wheel and heads west and north . . .*

9:30 p.m. Daddy blessedly delivers the family to BEST WESTERN COUNTRY INN in TEMECULA, CALIFORNIA, who blessedly have a nonsmoking room with two beds. Sam, long asleep and covered in soft brown dirt, doesn’t even begin to wake up, so we shrug and tuck him into bed. (Gotta love hotel life.) Matt wakes up covered in yarp and soft brown dirt, and he is NOT escaping a bath even if Hell ices over. So I throw him in the tub and climb in with him, and pull Julia in too for good measure, and the water turns BLACK. Ben and I estimate it took us each three showers to get that crap off us. Julia — finally — has stopped crying, because we finally realized she was hungry again, and a Julia mouth which is eating is otherwise silent. And we all settle in for a night of Camping In Temecula, The Right Way This Time.

FINIS.

Do you happen to notice that they are sleeping on HOTEL BEDS, not on SLEEPING BAGS? If so, you are noticing correctly. That should tell you a little about how the camping thing played out. I will tell the story later, but let’s just say that soft brown dirt, S’Mores, Crown Royal, camp coffee, an incessantly crying baby, vomit, and bored little boys were all involved.

I have either nothing to say or a whole bunch of tiny somethings to say on a myriad of topics, so:

Midnight Laundry. As usual, I am up at nearly midnight doing laundry and blogging. This is the only time I can steal some moments to myself, and this is how I spend them: folding clothes and tapping keys. Laundry is a sort of meditative experience when you’re able to do it uninterrupted and at a leisurely pace; I fold a load, throw a freshly washed load in the dryer, start a load, iron what needs ironing, and go off to read or blog until it’s time to fold again. It’s sort of pleasant out there in my garage, all alone, and things smell good; I’ve taken to using those infernal Simple Pleasures Tide detergent and Downy fabric softener. That’s “simple pleasures” as in if you’re taking pleasure in laundry soap, you must be simple-minded. (With apologies to the simple-minded, who can clearly outfox me.) They do smell good, with just enough floralness to keep Mommy happy without making Daddy smell like he’s light in the loafers, and I always spray linen spray onto my freshly folded clothes for good measure. This is a scent called “the Beach” at those Linens ‘N’ Things/Bed, Bath and Beyond stores that Ben so loathes, and it’s an interesting suntan lotion sort of fresh air thing. Hmm. And I remember back when my pleasures were far more exotic. Now it’s fabric softener. Okay.

Along the same lines, I would like to give a special FUCK YOU to the Ralph Lauren Polo line for making trousers of fabric with that special fuck you, I dry clean everything, you machine-washing chump, and my wife wouldn’t entertain the thought of picking up an iron anyway finish.

Matt’s Hair. Is no more! Or at least there’s much less of it. First I tricked him, then I pleaded with him, then I distracted him, but the mop has been cut into a nice little-boy thing which is neither bowl-shaped nor spikey. His grandmother will be over the moon, and now she can show about his picture without social awkwardness. Matt’s pretty cool with it, especially when I pointed out that Woody from Toy Story, whom he will be for Halloween, has short hair.

Camping. We’re finally going, at Palomar Mountain State Park — you know, up where they have the observatory. It’s a gorgeous place and I’ve not been there for ten years and more, and I suddenly realized that if we were meant to go camping whatsoever this year, we’d better get to it and fast. We leave Sunday noonish and decamp Monday morning; on the way home, we will stop in south Orange County so Mommy can buy some of the famous candy bars she’s mentioned to some of you. That’s right, kiddies, there’s a George Doobya Kush bar with my name on it, and I am pleased about that.

Question For The Class. Has anyone read a book called The Basenji Revelation by Simon Cleveland? I’ve purchased it, and will read it after a while, and am wondering whether it’s crap. Certainly, the brief blurb about the author on the back cover set off my uh-oh alarm. I, of course, bought it purely for the title.

Oh by the way, if you want to see the picture on the last post (which is LITTLE Crumpackers, not hairy naked middle-aged man meat), e-mail me for the password.

In other news, I finally got a pedicure! Rock.

The most wonderful thing about suddenly making money is that you get to spend a little of it! Ben and I are definitely of the you can’t take it with you and the we’re spending your inheritance schools of thought. We see it this way: We work very hard, and get little time to ourselves. Either of us could have a heart attack or a terminal illness or get run over by a bus any day. We will never let our kids want for anything, but honey, we’re kids too! And y’all KNOW that is TRUE.

Accordingly, I give you . . . . Ben! Whom you seldom see! And who is hot! Careful girls, he’s very very married! Used to be on the Beverly Hills High School varsity water polo team! Which is hot, and I know because my friend Holly said so!

And I also give you the view out the door of the Boudin’s at Metro Pointe, which is a satellite of South Coast Plaza (Ha! I live 5 minutes away from South Coast Plaza, the world-famous shopping center! And I eat there! With this hot guy! Who usually reads the newspaper at me, which is okay because I read the newspaper right back at him).

See, always with the palm trees. They are very quaint, I know, but people: THEY GET OLD. Man, do they get old. Ask the beauteous and elusive Mark LaBate and the like-a-brother-to-me Bill Toreki, both of whom live in Florida.

People, the boy is intense. I had the rare pleasure of spending a bit of one on one time with Matt this evening, since he’s the night owl — he’s the kid who stays up long after everyone else is sawing logs. So am I, because that’s the only time I get for myself, but sometimes Mom meets Matt when everyone is asleep and I get to see a piece of his mind.

We watched Home Alone 2, which is basically more of the same, but he squealed with laughter at each pratfall. He kept talking about the Statue of Liberty and how HE wanted to be the Statute of Liberty, and he showed me how he’d stand and turn his head. He’s sneaky smart, too — seems babyish until he brings over a kids’ anatomy book and starts pointing out organs and bones and muscles. (It’s okay, Matt, I won’t blow your cover.)

I love it that I open my arms and he launches himself into them and says Mom, I love you so much. I want that to be his earliest memory, open arms and lots of laughs. He is so enthusiastic! He saw a commercial for IHOP, and I told him I will take him there tomorrow, and he said Oh, we’ll have so much fun. I cautioned him that there won’t really be clowns like on TV and that the fair is over, but you know what? Matt will have a blast. Most days when I pick him up I hear Oh, we had so much fun!

My little hippie dude. Honey, I wish you a lifetime of that. I have a feeling the party will always be wherever YOU are.

I am not eating anything much and I’ve started working out at the gym this week and I’ve been a very good girl, Santa! SO WILL SOMEONE TELL ME WHY I HAVE PUT ON THREE FUCKING POUNDS?