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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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I have coffee. And a chocolate doughnut. One would think that I could hold off on the bad-for-you foods for one freaking day, considering that the holidays are coming up and there will be much pie. But no, I could not. There was wine last night, and then there was beer, and then I took a cab home and had a weird conversation with the driver about mathematical ways to predict the weather, and then I bopped around the house and got the skinny from LT on his very trying day, which included spending three hundred dollars to get an ultrasonic look at our cat's enlarged heart, two hundred dollars to fix our car's broken motor mount (whatever that is), and being sole caretaker for a girl who is taking longer and longer to settle herself down in the evenings. That last thing is not so much of a problem, as Nora is content to lie in her crib and talk to herself, but still! Nora! Go to sleep! So this morning I awoke with a fuzzy head and tongue, and the vague sense of guilt I get whenever I miss a Nora bedtime, and I went to work. And I ate the aforementioned chocolate doughnut and I am drinking the aforementioned coffee, but that is no longer what I seem to be typing about and I really only mention it for purposes of narrative closure. In fact, this whole entry, considering that it is the first one in what seems like a rather long time, will probably be rather weak on narrative closure. If you don't use those telling-a-story, beginning-middle-and-end muscles every day, they atrophy. And then you will be like me! You will be a floppy stick insect having a seizure and flailing around in the middle of Microsoft Word, not knowing what to type next! You will be all staccato and disjointed! You will be speeding away on a sugar/caffeine high and your boss will come into your office to ask What are we going to do about these deadlines that are rapidly approaching, and about the fact that there is too much work and not enough people to do the work. And you will say Gosh I do not know! I guess magical fairies will have to do the work! Because look at me! I am high as a kite and it should be obvious to all that I am completely incompetent right now! So because I am beginning-middle-and-end-challenged, please just pretend there is a time stamp after every other paragraph or so. Like a weblog. Sometimes I envy those people (the ones with weblogs), because they totally get away with going "blah blah blah," running away, and then coming back in a few hours with an unrelated "blah blah." Whereas in diary format I feel compelled to Tell You A Story. There is a pretentious graduate thesis in that statement somewhere, should anyone want it. IN THE MANNER OF DOOCE.COM Feeling guilty: For enjoying America's Next Top Model so much. I just cannot get enough of really dumb girls trying to talk. I can't get enough of the bizarre Tyra Banks iconography, how the show's producers like to have her appear out of nowhere like she is some deity from another realm. I love the practically whispered, mantra-esque, "Congratulations. You're still in the running to become America's Next Top Model," and I am considering ending all my employees' performance reviews like that. I love the dehydrated cyborg who calls herself Janice Dickinson (Who?). And I finally conjured up the cojones to tell LT that no, the TiVo is not recording this show on its own because of some glitch or error, and that I, the shallow freak, am in fact doing it ON PURPOSE, and that he had better keep his grubby mitts off the "delete" and "thumbs down" button because, in fact: thumbs up. Also feeling guilty: For calling my daughter "McFly," when she was looking for a certain toy and it was right behind her, and I was sitting there saying, "Behind you. Behind you. Turn...no. Behind you," while she spun in disoriented toddler-esque circles. Finally I got frustrated and blurted, "Hello! McFly! BEHIND YOU," and there is no way she got the reference but it was still not very nice, and I felt bad. WEIRD My diary-turned-actual-published-book thing is about to be published in Portuguese. It would be fun to get to go on a Brazilian book tour (Note: Not Going To Happen), because I can't stop picturing Brazilian HarperCollins reps in white bikinis and high heels, welcoming me, in my baggy black hoodie and knee-length skirt, to their country. I bet you could get a hell of a, well, Brazilian in Brazil, and I wonder if Brazil is sad that their country is now nearly synonymous with a extreme pubic hairstyle. MY GIRL'S GOT TASTE I spent Thanksgiving at the home of my in-laws, who live in the middle of nowhere and always want to do damn-fool things like "go for a walk in the woods." In the snow, in the dark, where the wolverines could eat you, and on Thanksgiving when one should be safely indoors drinking too much wine. This walk-in-the-woods idea was floated to me on the phone, so of course I conveniently dressed the baby up cute in suede Mary Janes and also conveniently forgot to bring boots or snowpants for her, whoops, oh well, please pass the wine. Walk in the woods. What the hell for? My stepmother-in-law has more holiday decorations and geegaws than anyone living or dead. She is the sort who sends REALLY SPECIFIC CARDS (For My Darling Stepson And His Somewhat Acerbic Wife And Their Adopted Asian Daughter On Arbor Day) and her house, which ordinarily has that countrified, stenciled-geese, old-butter-churn look about it anyway, gets even crazier around the holidays and sometimes when I am over there I wonder if I have wandered into Cracker Barrel by mistake. And boy, what a mistake that would be. So we are over there for Thanksgiving, and there is a stuffed reindeer sitting in a little rocking chair on one of her many, many end tables. Step-MIL says, "Nora! Come look at this!" and hits a switch somewhere, and the reindeer starts rocking back and forth in the chair and the tinny electronic strains of "Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer" start to play. Yes. I know. Stay with me. Nora shrieks (and Nora rarely shrieks), runs as far away as possible, and stands on the other side of the room pointing her little finger and repeating, in a voice full of just-barely-at-bay toddler tears, "Off." "Off. Off. Off." says Nora, and her grandmother scrambles to comply. That's not good enough for Nora, who is still working on not crying, and from across the room the tiny imperious finger points again at the reindeer abomination and she says, very firmly, "Away." My stepmother-in-law put the thing away in a closet, and OH MY GOD NORA YOU TOTALLY RULE. THANK YOU SO MUCH. ---mimi smartypants yo ho ho and a bottle of rum. back/forward |
