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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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LICK MY IVORY TOWER AND I'LL MAKE YOU BEG FOR TENURE smartypantsmimi: I wonder if people who have written academically and theoretically about sex have trouble having sex. We should take a poll. THE FRIDAY NONSENSE 1. I said some strange things out loud to myself this morning. Lately I have been having some OCD-style trouble with having a cadence in my head that must be chanted as I walk. (Mentally, for the most part. I am not yet a full-time street mutterer.) Although I think I did whisper today's cadence (FRANCOPHONE FRANCOPHONE, CALL YOU ON MY FRANCOPHONE) out loud just once, to see if it would work with my footfalls. And then I said "don't hit me" to a car that was all making a left turn and not paying any attention to pedestrians like me. I also called a guy a "crumbum" for throwing his Starbucks cup* in the street. Where did I get "crumbum"? I'm turning into a Minnesota grandmother. *I know. Were this detail in a short story (the yuppie asshole who casually litters the street with his corporate-coffee detritus), your workshop leader would write something like "WAY TOO OBVIOUS" at the top of your paper. 2. Work has been forcing me to be more of a manager than ever lately, with salary math to figure and open positions to fill. The other day I interviewed a very bubbly ex-sorority-president who managed to mention three times that she was twenty-three years old. I started to wonder if I was falling down some sort of Illuminati rabbit hole: 23! 23! 23! Although I normally enjoy incongruity, a bubbly 23-year-old ex-sorority president with all kinds of Illuminati conspiracies is the wrong, creepy kind of incongruity, like meeting a Black Panther who collects Betty Boop memorabilia. So I should probably stick with the more parsimonious explanation, which is that she was just a bubbly ex-sorority-president who mistakenly believes that being twenty-three makes her special. I scored a point, though---when she was bubbling through another story where "I'm twenty-three" showed up I simply interjected, "sure seems that way." Aha. Mimi rides again. 3. Nora knows and can repeat the noises of some of the major-arcana farm animals. This seems to be a normal thing to teach toddlers, but why? She is so far from an agrarian environment. What does the cow goes moo or the pig goes oink have to do with her daily life? Shouldn't she be learning cell phone goes bleep, error message goes bonk, vibrator goes bzzzzz, bong goes hgughughughugh? Anyway, for Nora cow goes mmmmmmm (she is curiously resistant to making the ooooo sound, so cows in her world are tasty/indecisive) and chicken goes bawk bawk bawk. Last night I was feeding her some chicken-and-rice baby food (more on this in a minute) and asked, "Do you want some more chicken?" To which Nora immediately replied, "Bawk bawk bawk!" with a big smile. Oh dear. Please don't have your vegetarian epiphany right this minute. Yes, even though I won't eat chicken myself, Nora gets the chicken baby food once in a while. I think it started before we discovered her tofu fetish, and I was kind of freaking about baby protein requirements. Like so many other things about motherhood, I am finding that many strong feelings I once had (such as MEAT WILL NEVER CROSS MY BABY'S LIPS) are being replaced with a sort of real-world pragmatism, and other things that used to be solidly on my Whatever list (like that whole fresh-air thing or the day-care debate) are now causing strong feelings all on their own. I don't think I'm the only one, either---it has been interesting (and, in some cases, mildly disturbing) to watch my few spawning friends foam at the mouth about certain things they never would have given a shit about before they had children. More than one friend of mine has even made slightly scary, vaguely neoconservative statements relating to issues surrounding education and child welfare, and I am keeping an eye on these folks the way a dermatologist keeps an eye on a suspicious mole: Okay for now, but if that gets any bigger, you and I are going to have to have a talk. Friends don't let friends get all neoconservative, babies or no babies. Be ever vigilant. Can anyone convince me to buy the soap? I would like to try the soap, but I have issues with being a spendthrift (as I certainly would be if I spent $38 on soap) or a pathetic joiner (as I certainly would be if I spent $38 on soap that has generated an internet-diarist buzz). (If I ever say anything like that again, with or without cop-out ironic italics, you have my permission to spank me.) ---mimi smartypants feels pretty and witty and, well, actually kind of gay. back/forward |
