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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


2005-11-11 ... 12:55 p.m.

I am still coughing, and I am so tired of it. I have passed through the take-care-of-yourself phase, with herbal tea and early bedtimes; the amusement/fascination phase, with a sense of scientific intrigue at the strange secretions my body produces, and the fact that I can feel relatively okay and yet still cough like a chain-smoking coal miner at the slightest exertion; and the stoic phase, where I grimly go about my business while my faith in the immune system crumbles. Now I am just plain pissed off. People hear my wheezy hack and say, "Hey Mimi, how are you feeling?" and I say "SHUT UP." I have been to the doctor, who was not my regular doctor but some turtlenecked Ali-G-looking imposter that I was stuck with due to my desire not to wait three weeks for an appointment, and I don't want to sound like some know-it-all first-year medical student but his differential was for shit. Even though his conclusion of postinfectious cough was probably on the money, I am still annoyed. I don't even know what I want from the medical profession----useless antibiotics? Powerful bronchodilators? Morphine syrup? (Yes please.) I am just angry and want to feel better, and a secret violent part of me thinks that going all jihad on my primary care clinic would fix things. Or maybe I will simply go up to the roof of a downtown parking garage and set fire to Dorland's Illustrated Medical Dictionary. Take that, "postinfectious cough"! And all you other medical terms, too!

Today's reading material: The patient information leaflet for my Advair thingy. (If you can see the animated Windows Media part, did you almost spit out your beverage at the part where the line-drawing folks are doing the frug under an Advair sun? Me too.) Also, The Life and Extraordinary Adventures of Private Ivan Chonkin, which is cracking me up so far. Who knew Soviet novels were so hilarious?

Today's word: "Kolkhoz." See above. It is fun to say and would also be a great name for a bar. A collective-farming-themed bar!

Today's lunch: Microwave popcorn, a Honeycrisp apple, and most of a giant box of Nerds. I have decided to let dietary fiber and carnauba wax fight to the death inside my colon.

Today's anger: Besides my stupid cough, I watched the Frontline last night about abortion, and concluded that the only thing more annoying than right-to-life rhetoric is right-to-life rhetoric in a Southern accent, particularly if the speaker keeps referring to pregnant women as "mamas." Now, these mamas come to our clinic, and these mamas think they might want an abortion, but then the mama sees her baby on the ultrasound and she just falls in love and OH MY GOD SHUT UP. The only enjoyable part was a throwaway shot of one of the fake-clinic "crisis pregnancy center" workers on the phone, and in front of her she had this complete set of tiny plastic fetuses. That was just so cool. I would love to have a whole bunch of tiny plastic fetuses.

LT: What would you do with a bunch of tiny plastic fetuses?
Me: I'm not sure, but I'd think of something. Maybe I would drop them into coffee and surprise people. "Oh man! Looks like someone aborted into your Starbucks!"
LT: There is performance art in here somewhere, I just know it.
Me: Decaf grande products-of-conception mocha!

NOW YOU KNOW!

When Nora moved to the toddler bed, thus acquiring the ability to move about stealthily in the night if she so desired, I of course did a safety sweep of her room. I made sure outlets were covered, bookcases were tethered, cocaine stash and chainsaws were locked up, the usual. At the beginning of the transition I worried about waking up to find her in bed with us, or worse, wandering about the house, but that really hasn't happened. When she gets out of bed at all, she usually just gets a stack of books and sits there reading them until she gets bored or falls back to sleep. Hooray, I thought smugly. Hooray hooray hooray we are superior parents. NEVER THINK THIS.

Yesterday, after I went to work (at the crack of motherfucking dawn), Nora woke up and called for LT, who sensibly told her it was way too early and that she should read in bed for a while longer, so he would have a chance in hell of showering and maybe eating some breakfast without giving every other bite to Nora "Let's Share!" Smartypants. He did those things, and then did some computer work to the sounds of pages turning and Nora "reading" to herself. Then it got quiet. And he thought this meant that she had fallen back asleep, which would not be all that unusual. A little while later, he went in and found that Nora had scaled her (very low) dresser, rooted through several closed IKEA storage boxes until she found this product, returned herself safely to the ground, and then spent god knows how long experimenting with said product in her hair.

There are no pictures, but just try to imagine an entire solid moisturizer stick mashed into stick-straight toddler hair. Imagine that the toddler in question has also spent some time spreading the moisturizer stick around, making fascinating postmodern hair-shapes. Apparently it was a sight to behold, and LT washed Nora's hair no fewer than seven times that morning---thrice with ordinary shampoo, and then four more times with Dawn dishwashing liquid ("gets grease out of your way!") And her hair was still, when I saw her next, rather LANK. And SUPPLE. To put it charitably.

Obviously, it could have been worse, and I am mentally patting myself on the back for removing that cocaine and those chainsaws, even if I was not smart enough to remove all toiletries. But Nora, stay in bed. And if you do get up, don't get creative.

---mimi smartypants feels like a koala bear crapped a rainbow in her brain.


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