You HAVE to come and see the BABY!

Hello! Sorry no postage lately.

I got super crazy busy after the election - and by "busy" I of course mean "drunk" - and then on Thursday I took off for Fayetteville, Arkansas for a long weekend with Trish, Mike, their six-year-old OB, and their brand new, two-month-old YB...AND, for a huge added bonus, Erin, who also flew her preggers self down from Philly.

Oh, what a good time that was. I got an UNBELIEVABLY cheap flight there - turns out Fayetteville benefits hugely from being nearby the national hub of both Wal-Mart and Tyson, and the fact that apparently assloads of Texans who need to fly there on a regular basis. Hence, my round-trip ticket cost far less the gas would have cost to drive there...hell, it was less than our trip to Wurstfest, forty minutes south of here, last weekend.

This is the tiny bug himself, giving one of those early smiles that I miss so much from my own children:

Totally worth the price of admission, I say.

Northwest Arkansas is really, really beautiful, and Fayetteville, college town, home of the University of Arkansas, is a nice, tolerant blue beacon in a landlocked sea of Republican red. Trish took us on a winding road up the Ozarks to Eureka Springs, a lovely older town, founded on the industry of the healing hot springs a century ago, and now a quaint-n-touristy shopping destination.

Here's Trish and Erin after our scrumptious and healthy lunch of Eureka Springs french fries AND nachos AND onion rings:


Well worth your journey, if you are in the area, for the awesome cliffs alone.

Saturday, we went to this artists' colony outside Fayetteville called Terra, wherein they make millions upon millions of glass bluebirds:

and have little traipsy paths through the woods for the kidlings and the new-agey among us:
That was a great little day trip. (Hell, yeah, I got a bluebird. Because they're cool, and hand-blown, and that is what one does.)

Oh, man, though? COLD. In the twenties at night cold. I had on a sweater, a sweatshirt, and a coat there on Saturday afternoon. It felt kinda good, though; 80 degrees in November (which is what awaited me upon arriving in Austin yesterday) just does not feel right, somehow.

So, now, I'm back, recovering (although it was not super wild, me partying with a new mom and a five-month-old pregnant lady) and working. I'm sort of bemused at Obama's election; I find it difficult to reconcile my loser Democrat self with actually WINNING for a change. It's strange; like breaking in a new pair of shoes.

However pleased I am with the results from the national election, it's of course bittersweet on the local level. We lost two hard-fought campaigns for the U.S. House and Senate, and this state still remains reliably red, thumbing its nose in the face of an entire NATION shifting the other direction. Baby steps, I suppose.

But, do you know where can kiss my butt? Missouri. Yeah, you heard that right. My home state can just go hop off into the Mississippi River for all I care. Bellwether state my ass. I had always hoped that the I-70 influence of Kansas City - Columbia - St. Louis would spread to thhe rest of the state, but I'm afraid that the opposite is occurring, and that the whole damn place is becoming Bransonized.

Eh, screw 'em if they want to stick their head in the sand. Let the nation pass them by and let them be pushed further to the margins. I'll welcome them back if they open their eyes, but in the meantime, I'm going to push hard for the north half of the state to break away and become South Iowa.

I am at a loss, really for what to do with myself now. It was good to get away this past weekend and have conversations with real people, instead of obsessing over the election.

I hope to re-introduce myself into socializing soon, and even - dare I say it? PARENTING.

Oh, and speaking of that, do you wanna see what happened over at the Noxious's house yesterday, when the YG decided that she should take it upon herself to cut her own hair?

Here's before (on Halloween):


And afterwards (I had to take her picture when she was sleeping, because she abjectly refused when she was awake):


She cut BANGS into her own hair.

And, to tell you the truth, if she had just stopped a few inches short of cutting the left-hand side of her hair off, she wouldn't have done too bad a job!

If I am to look on the bright side, it's that perhaps there's a career in it. It's good to know she'll have an option besides stripping.