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the latest
waddle: good morning, wordpress - 10:36 a.m. , 2009-07-03 elaborate murder attempt - 2:56 p.m. , 2009-07-01 building a tractor in the basement - 10:42 a.m. , 2009-06-19 ask no questions tell just a few lies - 3:17 p.m. , 2009-06-09 my long lasting flavor really lasts long - 1:10 p.m. , 2009-06-04
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Maybe I'm just dumb or not British, but I don't even know who this guy is, much less why you would want him tattooed on your leg. The effects of Monday night's too much beer showed up on Tuesday not in classic hangover fashion, which at least would afford me some measure of dignity (think William Powell looking natty and holding an ice pack to his forehead), but in autistic-dork, tranquilizer-withdrawal, hypersensitive-to-stimuli ways. That morning I put on mascara and then suddenly could not bear the feeling of gunk on my eyelashes so I grabbed the makeup remover and swiped it all off, leaving big black smudges that I noticed too late, at work, and that made me look like I had a much wilder night than I actually did. Then I pretty much stared at my fingernails all the way to work, and then I did not eat my lunch, though I did take the lettuce off the sandwich and tear it into tiny bits. Lettuce confetti! For the lettuce parade! We could welcome back the lettucenauts from their successful mission by raining bits of their own flesh down upon them...wait, that's a terrible idea. Another hangover symptom was me being all awkward and inarticulate. I was introduced to someone who was missing his right hand (no prosthesis or anything, just stump). Before I noticed this I was already getting up from my chair with my own right hand extended (to shake), and then I saw that he was extending his left hand, since his right hand was, you know, not there. At this same moment the words in my head were HEY! NO HAND! but thankfully I did not say that, I just quickfast switched up the handshake while stammering some inane stream of run-on niceties like "ulp, hi, ah, nice to meet you, oh, no problem." No problem? Where did that come from? NO HAND? NO PROBLEM. It reminded me of a time when LT and I were on a plane, cheerfully discussing our favorite action-movie tropes, and I announced, "Nothing funnier than a guy on fire" (referring to my love of that particular stunt), and then turned to see a dude with a badly burned face sitting right behind us. TIME OUT FOR A SONG ABOUT THE MEAT INDUSTRY (cue the Depeche Mode synthesizers) I don't want to start any food-safety rumors (I am working on a series of Depeche Mode songs about unclean meat, for the upcoming Vegan Depeche Mode album.) Unfortunately this song conflicts with the previously-conceived "Blasphemous Hummus," but I have more lyrics for this one so let's throw our Vegan Depeche Mode weight behind it. Okay? Okay. MAY FLEAS INFEST THE RECTUMS OF THOSE WHO INVENT SPYWARE This Lycos Sidesearch crap is a BITCH to uninstall, and I had to futz with registry keys all morning long, periodically yelling FUCKING! LYCOS! SIDE! FUCKING! SEARCH! When I say "yelling" I mean "work-style yelling," of course, the kind that is done quietly and through clenchy teeth. Speaking of clenchy teeth, I got another chance for amateur anthropological research yesterday, when I took a half-day from work to take Nora to her Wiggleworms class and allow LT to keep an appointment. He's usually the Wiggleworms chaperone and god knows what the other participants think of him. Excitment to see a primary-caretaker dad? Bullshit assumptions about his employability? Contempt toward his selfish career-minded wife? One would hope that these retrograde stereotypes no longer exist but you can count the number of weekday dads at these things on one hand. Actually, on one finger. LT. I am always simultaneously nervous and excited to be around other mommies---part of me nourishes the fantasy that I will somehow miraculously and with no effort meet someone like me to be friends with, someone who likes to get loopy on wine and talk French feminism and be honest about how we are not constantly 100% thrilled to the point of orgasm by toddler caretaking and interaction. This fantasy of perfect female friendship is very similar to sex fantasies. In sex fantasies there is no struggling out of one's pants/socks/shoes, no coffee-breath, no birth control discussions, no sudden revelation of unpleasant genital piercings. In friendship fantasies there is no awkward phase, no moments where we each sit there and add/subtract points based on seemingly-innocuous statements. (Things That Could Cause A Subtraction: She just mentioned an article she read in Oprah's magazine? She said something about going to church? She showed up for your second get-together in Birkenstocks? She put one of those baby-head-garters on her kid, so everyone would know it's a girl?) Nope, in this fantasy we just sort of smile at each other and trade baby-information basics, her kid is slightly older than mine (so when I am mindfucking some behavioral/developmental issue she explains why everything is okay, soothes my fears, and pours me some more wine), and what do you know she lives like three doors down, and she is all kinds of interesting with funny drug-taking stories from her past and great taste in literature, and we go to the park on the weekends and the kids get along great and then we put them to bed and LT brings us more wine. Needless to say, Wiggleworms, while it is cute and sweet and very enjoyable for Nora, is not going to be the place that fantasy comes true. A bunch of white women singing Old MacDonald on a Wednesday morning while their toddlers beat on bongos is not the ideal setting for soul-baring conversation, and really, I'm all right with that. I had a good time watching Nora have a good time, and especially watching the mothers. Because it is the Old Town School of Folk Music, there was a certain hippy-dippy contingent in overalls, but because it is Lincoln Square (fast becoming the new Lincoln Park), there was a smaller but more terrifying contingent of finalists in the Competitive Mothering Olympics. One overly-made-up woman in particular seemed very invested in having her angel do everything perfectly, and had a real edge to her voice when she'd say, "Kelly! Kelly! Sit down! It's time to sing The Goodbye Song!" Like clapping on cue to children's music is the key to getting into Harvard. Whatever. Although I did not do it consciously I realized that I had dressed myself to be just-this-side-of-punk-rock for this class---my brain must be trying to make some sort of pathetic I'M STILL COOL DAMN IT point to the parenting world at large. My favorite part of the Wiggleworms class was a worm (duh) puppet that was introduced as "a friend of ours." Ever since then my brain has been running wild with the Mafia reference and I have been imagining that the next class will include a sing-along to the Sopranos theme song, or that the teacher will name each toddler all color-coded Reservoir Dogs gangsters ("Okay Nora, you can be 'Ms. Pink' and Sammy here will be 'Mr. Blonde'...") BEST THING SAID IN BED LAST NIGHT Me: (referencing the Young MC song "Bust A Move") I am off to Seattle next week (with the whole family, for fun), and then to Vancouver next weekend (just me, on business), so expect updates to be sparse since I will be learning the joy of traveling with a fifteen-month-old. However, after a non-stop flight from Hong Kong with her, nothing much scares me. Two adults, one baby, and one poopy diaper in an airplane bathroom = the World's Most Unsexy Mile-High Club.
---mimi smartypants, please report to the front desk. back/forward |
