So the owners of the best florist in town, Nuttelman's, go to our church, and they're lovely. And they just proved how lovely they are by sending an adorable, happy, yellow/purple/white arrangement in a yellow smiley-face latte cup. The card stated that they are “praying for sleep.” Yup, me too. 🙂 Thanks, Mary and Chip!

Baby's waking up every two hours, sometimes more, crying like the world is coming to an end. We are going to the pediatrician again today at 4:00. I will be requesting a large bottle of… something.

Three nights of no sleep has me feeling like a student driver on the highway of life. Last night I was so tired that I turned off “Lost” right after the big Kate-Jack kiss and went to bed.

(At least now I don't feel like such a codger for publicly decrying Facebook. Mark Zuckerberg is an enormous tool.)

Doug at Back Home has posted a couple of playlists for Valentine's Day. One is for “Sarah McLachlin” lovin'. The other's for “Hot Monkey Lovin.”

My “SMcL” playlist has one song: Dave Grohl's “Everlong,” the acoustic version he did for the Howard Stern Show.

My “HML” playlist has one song: Foo Fighters' “Everlong.” Oh, and “Breathe” by SmartBomb. And NiN “Closer.” And, if we're being *totally* honest, “Business Time” by Flight of the Conchords.

(mmmmm… Oh Monnnnnstrooooo…)

Come on, let's all learn inappropriate things about each other. What's on your hot-button list?

P.S. If you visit the “Hot Monkey Love” link in the next 14 hours, you will get a yummy surprise!

It's called “Dogs.” I started it a year and a half ago (my, how time flies). It's about three men and three dogs, and brutality, and in the end, everyone gets what they deserve. Quite cathartically satisfying, indeed. I still need to type it up but we read through the whole thing last night and it's done.

Meryl told me there's a new “five-minute play” spectrum, and I believe “Dogs” fits that category. Of course, it's a five-minute play that requires both a dance coach and a fight coach, because I'm not one to do things halfway.

“Lindsay Lohan's Birkin” can be staged in a black box with no props, so on a double-bill with “Dogs,” I figure the budget would even out. And then I could finish my “Count of Three” Anna Nicole Smith play (which has been 95% complete for two years) and have a Motormouth one-act play festival!

And yes, they're all plays about celebrities. Can you guess the main character of “Dogs”?

Tonight I was able to write three words I haven't written in nearly a year: End of Play.

Meryl at playwright's lab said it's “Just the right combination of perverted and disgusting.” She said if I get it staged, I can put that quote on the placard.

Yay, me!

Random aside: I like this kooky band called “The Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players.” I first saw them on “Jack's Big Music Show.” The band is made up of a mom, dad, and their kid. They are wacky and charming. In any case, I am on their mailing list and everything. Then, imagine my surprise when Brian and I are watching “Flight of the Conchords” on HBO last night (season 2, episode 4, “Murray Takes it to the Next Level”) and one of the characters is wearing a yellow T-shirt that says “Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players”!

Best of all, I just got an email from the TFSP email list and so I wrote back to the reply-to address, asking if they knew their shirt was on the show, and they did NOT know, so I got to be the bearer of great news!

And, I'm kind of basking, because the person who wrote me back is the mom of the group.

Super cool or supremely dorky, you make the call. I'll just be over here, basking.

So when I teach Writing for the Media I always tell my students that they're to be objective, to not let their feelings about a subject color the story they're writing. And then I read a story about how A-Rod admits that he has indeed used performance-enhancing drugs during his career, and I read the following quote in Ronald Blum's AP story about the baseball player:

“I've never felt overmatched on the baseball field,” [A-Rod] said then. “I felt that if I did my, my work as I've done since I was, you know, a rookie back in Seattle, I didn't have a problem competing at any level.”

And man, never before have I read such a quote. By letting it stand as-is, in its entirety, Blum very deftly tells us how he feels about A-Rod: A-Rod is a prize idiot. Blum is my media hero of the day.

Because (and I actually wrote a blog post about this the first time he invited me), if people *really* want to get in touch with me, they can Google my firstname maiden-name, firstname maiden-name married-name, or firstname maiden-inital married-name, all of which offer two links from the very first page of Google results. I've had the same email address for 13 years, and am pretty ubiquitously known as Motormouth.

So, on the internet, I'm already plenty easy to get ahold of, and if people are willing to take that extra step, great. If they comment on my blog or send me an email, I'm happy to get back in touch.

Facebook, while fun (so I've heard), ultimately commoditizes people: how many “friends” you have = how worthy you are. Ultimately, it's a human-collection agency. That leaves me cold. And with two kids, five jobs, and a husband, I just don't have the time to spend on those who merely wish to add me as a notch on their friend list. (Plus, I already post pictures to my blog, so people know where to find them.)

That said, if Jim, Geoff, Rod, Nina, Darren, or Stefania (who is Stefania???) want to get back in touch, I'd be delighted to hear from them. I think of them often and the good times we had, and fervently hope that they've all ended up somewhere happy and well and creatively fulfilled!

In other news, this week I faxed my application to Guinness World Records for “Longest Running Blog.”

Are you coming to the East Coast for any Phish shows?

xoxoxoxox,

Motormouth (underslept and the tiniest bit hung over from Monstro''s bowling birthday party last night)

Happy thirty-something birthday to my adorable husband Monstro, father of my beautiful kids, and the DM of all of us.

So one of my students asked me the other day whether I know if I might be the world's longest-running blogger. And, you know, what? I'm not sure…

…But I bet the Guinness World Records judges could help me find out! So, I have obtained a login for the “Guinness World Records” Web site, and entered my info, and now I'm waiting three days to find out if the “longest-running blog” title could actually be mine.

Here's my submission:

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Claim Title: Longest-running blog

Country: United States

City/Town/Village: ,MA

Date of attempt:

Record Details: I have had a “blog” since early 1995 — four years before the word “blog” was even coined — which I believe that this makes me the longest-running blogger. My blog archive is mostly available at http://www.motormouth.com/blogs/blogs.html , and I've kept my blog for the past five years at http://www.worldsoldestblog.com. I believe you could back this up through the Alexa service. I'm doing this because I've never found a blog that was more enduring than mine, and it would be really cool to be recognized as an online trailblazer, especially as I'm just a normal person and not a “techie” by any means.

***

So, we'll see. Believe me when I say I'll keep you posted.