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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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HERE, HAVE SOME LINKS Free brochure about cherry juice. Lots of rhubarb info at, well, rhubarbinfo.com. Hooray! More wacky medical theories! The WWII war crime no one seems to acknowledge. MAGIC SLATE When I have not updated for a while, updating this page seems like a big deal. Which is totally ridiculous, since nothing about this page is a big deal. That, in fact, is the entire point. I have just felt excessively neutral (Ha ha! Do my oxymorons turn you on? Yes, they do. Admit it.) about everything lately. That feeling has historically been the precursor to some sort of Big Blank Depression so everyone clap your hands! If you believe in Mimi! Because we would not want that to happen! I think I am feeling weird about the emotional issues that go with my Life Situation. Most days I feel pretty good about everything, and I think LT and I are perhaps at a really fun and enjoyable place right now, but seriously, this is a weird age. (I meant "age" as in accumulated years of life, the current year minus my birth year, but I guess this is a weird age in the other sense too. This is a weird epoch.) It is almost as if I can feel my friends turning inward, separating themselves, trying to stake some sort of claim to the Rest Of Their Lives. It is not just the basic time-suckage things like having children or being busy with careers or stuff, it is more primitive than that. I suppose it is inevitable that we will never again be as naked, as open, to friendship as we once were, and I recently tried (somewhat tipsily) to explain this thought to a friend and she kind of dismissed me, saying, "Well, naturally as we get older we will have different friendships, because we'll all start putting our families first," and at that particular beer-saturated moment I decided to let the whole matter drop, but it made me mad and sad all at the same time, to be so misunderstood. Because my point was not about "first." I don't want there to be any first. In a certain Maslow-pyramid-type way, yes: I would surely rescue LT or my (hypothetical) child from the jaws of a wolverine before I would rescue you, for example (no offense). But in general what I am really hoping is for life to not be a zero-sum game. For it to be instead a web of connections that gets deeper with time. For everyone not to seal themselves up into these little family units or pairs and to privilege that as separate and superior to everything else. Listen to me sounding like a hippie. I am as guilty as everyone else of being self-involved and unreachable. I have a busy Outer Narrative Life and a rich and bizarre Inner Mental Life, and I will admit that it sometimes takes real effort for me to stay connected with the people I care about. But I do try, damn it, and I don't accept the descent of the Drifting Alienated Orb Of Adulthood, per some whitebread Updike/Cheever/Rick Moody formula, to be inevitable. I read some interesting theory once (where?) that friendship was mostly based on shared sleep deprivation. You feel closer to someone when you have stayed up all night together, or staggered toward last call, or worked the late shift. That is probably bullshit, but it certainly is a romantic teenage notion that we can all think about for the next half-hour or so. MY SALAD BUDDY Scene: lunchtime, Nordstrom caf�. I am third in line. The first woman orders The Salad, only she adds "no croutons---I'm watching my carbs." Yes, she actually says "I'm watching my carbs," as if (1) she is starring in some comedy about Los Angeles, and (2) the Salad Guy gives a hoot what she is watching. The woman after her also orders The Salad, but she doesn't want any goat cheese (WHY DO YOU SCORN THE GOATINESS?), and she wants the sun-dried tomatoes on the side for some reason, and she wants some certain kind of dressing that the Salad Guy has to go hunt around for. Then it is my turn. I like The Salad the way Mr. Rogers likes me: Just The Way It Is. Thus I simply order The Salad to go, and the Salad Guy asks, "Everything on it?" and I nod my head yes, and quietly he says, "Atta girl." I have decided on a campaign of appearing more befuddled at work. Yes, I know this seems counterintuitive. Most people try to give the appearance of knowing what they are doing. But that strategy has worked a little too well for me, in my office, so that now instead of trying to figure out anything out for themselves it is many people's first impulse to put ear to telephone receiver or mouse to e-mail editor and ask me. Even about things that are completely, totally, Not My Department. So in the hopes of fostering some coworker independence, I am going to experimentally walk around with my mouth hanging open, looking dazed, and make a lot of "uhhhhhhhh" noises when anyone asks me a question. It is time for Tough Love. At the very least maybe I will get a leave of absence for having become temporarily stupid. I wish people got attacks of feeble-mindedness the way they get colds, so that periodically you could call in stupid. Then you could spend a day or two at home watching television or picking up really pretty rocks. Speaking of illness, at work I am editing some new research about how the common cold virus does not spread very well through mouth-to-mouth contact, but proliferates rapidly through skin-to-skin. So if you kiss but don't touch, sort of like a reverse prostitute, you should be okay. It sounds like a fun thing to try, anyway. Everyone is Googling me lately. Me, specifically. Is there some sort of Mimi Smartypants media blitz of which I am not aware? Yesterday�s stats also yielded "mimi smartypants + lingerie" (ooh la la) and "mimi smartypants + JFK." I did mention the dead prez in the context of some random dream I had, years ago, but if someone wants to write me into a conspiracy theory be my guest! Or I can cover myself in Astroturf and be "the grassy knoll" next Halloween.* (*I do know someone who once splashed blood all over a fake pink Chanel suit and went as post-assassination Jackie Kennedy one Halloween. Pretty tasteless but isn't that what Halloween is all about? My personal favorite theme costume was the year my old high school writing teacher had a Lost Generation party: we had a man with a mustache play Gertrude Stein, naturally, and he brought his own Alice; our Hemingway brought a fake bear rug to pose with in classic Bwana fashion; and my friend and I showed up perfectly in character as Scott and Zelda. I swigged champagne from the bottle and sat in other men's laps while he got sloppy drunk, cried in the corner for a while, and passed out early.) By far the best Google search of the week, however, was "ontological + Kansans." When in Kansas, do as the Kansans do! Question the nature of being! ---mimi smartypants kicks out the jams. back/forward |
