Li'l Problem

Aside from a couple of consecutive nights last week Olive has been continuing to be a star sleeper at night - but that's the key word: night. For several days now, she's been rising between 4:45 and 5:45 to belt out some pretty horrendous-sounding howls which I attribute to the dryness of our bedroom. It's cold as ice in there anyway, and we turn the thermostat way down low at night because I like it to be on the chilly side when I sleep, but lately I've been waking up positively parched. I'm a mouth-closed sleeper, so I can only imagine the intensity of my thirst if my mouth were open. Yikes. Anyway, it's safe to assume that Goonie has been suffering the same bouts of arid-mouth as I have. She'll usually sleep for ten hours straight, so I'm trying to keep this from sounding like a complaint. Girl-goon has come a long way in the last month, let me tell you. It's just that neither Rob nor I are ready to be roused at that early an hour, so this morning I put the call out for a humidifier on the Highland Park listserve, a resource that has not failed me yet (see also: free desk, free book case, free meat grinder, free curtains, free shelf, $5 trunk, the lending of staple guns, and our apartments, among other things I'm probably forgetting). In all likelihood we'll be inhaling some sweet, sweet water vapor by the day's end.

I'm about to head out to clean the bathroom and kitchen of this Judy lady I found through - what else - the listserve. Not thrilled. I'm grossed out, to be honest, but hopefully this will be the thing that finally spurs me into diving into the professional artist career I've always wanted. My mother, always such an encouraging advocate of what I can do with my hands, gave me a much-needed pep talk yesterday, so I've gotten the ball rolling. I'm having a website professionally designed by my old friend, fellow MICA grad, and mind-blowing artist/web designer, Lisa, so I'll finally be legit. Nobody wants to open files anymore - files are for amateurs; they want a link. I'm going to seek out an agent to represent me and find me the good jobs rather than the rinky-dink things I've been scrounging up on craigslist for pocket change so we can, in turn, by a few more bags of linguine. Here's hoping.