Beer with everything

after i finally got this video posted I realized that's it kind of sucks because you can't see Leo's face very well...and all he's doing is bouncing the ball off the wall. He is ball obsessed. Like a boy. Not very gay of him so I guess I have to give up that dream.

I’m realizing now how bad Leo was feeling last week because he’s feeling soooo good now. We have been painting the town!!!! Riding the trams…hanging in the mall…almost falling into the fountain at the mall…buying sunglasses at H&M…hitting every single story time that the city offers and eating pizza and smoothies until we bloat. And the sun still isn’t shining in Portland. This town tries to make up for it’s horrible weather with good food and beer everywhere. You literally can get beer and wine everywhere. There’s this great indoor playground we discovered where you can get grilled cheese for the kids and beer for the adults. And I’ve looked around in the afternoons and seen a bunch of moms sucking down a pint. The indoor playground is great except that there is this room that Leo loves—the ball room. It’s a room covered with these tiny spongy balls and every time I walk into the room kids start hurling the balls at me. Hard. In the face and neck area. I swear they don’t seem to throw the balls at any of the other adults. But as soon as I walk in they sense that I’ll put up with it. Or that I’ll make funny faces when I’m in pain. It's just like my mom has been telling me for years "the only reason we pick on you, Lauren is because you react so well." I put up with it for a while until Leo started crying because I was surrounded by about four 7 year olds whopping the shit out of me with the balls.

Leo has been sooo sweet and huggy and kissy and funny...except when he doesn’t get exactly what he wants—or there is a TRANSITION of any sort he collapses to the ground and rolls over on his stomach and cries. I googled it and it’s normal for his age. I don’t care if none of the other 18 month olds in the family did it or do it. IT’S NORMAL DAMNIT. That’s what I’m telling myself. I think it’s because he can’t talk and say what he wants. Which would be hell—I’d throw a tantrum too.

The shows are going well…I have a lot of elderly people in the audience and today after a matinee I had a ‘talk back” and the woman running the talk back asked the audience to describe their experience in one word and they screamed back ‘EXHAUSTED”. I told them that it was my goal for the show…to exhaust them. To suck the life out of them and leave them with only a few days to live. My evil plan….