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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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You know what you need? You need a sticker of a frog wearing a "Keepin' It Real" T-shirt. Yes you do. MIMI SMARTYPANTS' UNPOPULAR OPINION NUMBER 87 I hate these movies and there's no way I'm seeing the new one. Yes, the photography is neat, and oooh, yes, how interesting, it goes along with the music so nice. But honestly, aren't they just really long screensavers? With some obvious, unsubtle, dogmatic point woven in? A cardinal rule of mine is that if anyone ever says, of any cultural experience, "It's better if you�re high," then it is not all that good to begin with. And all the Whateversaqtsi movies are definitely in the "better if you're high" category. I think I will save the nine bucks and turn on the visualizations in Windows Media Player, or else just put on Philip Glass and watch my Lava Lamp. Unpopular Opinions, over and out. THE UNPOPULAR OPINIONS JUST KEEP SHOOTING OUT MY FINGERS LIKE MOTHERFUCKING LASER BOLTS Here's one for you: 120 crayons is too many. Am I the only one who thinks so? That is a hell of a lot of crayons. You are no Chagall, kid. You don't really need that many crayons. If you ask me (I realize that you did not), Crayola is kind of scrambling around for colors once they get past forty-eight, what with the red-orange and the orange-red. And we can certainly live without raw sienna, even if it is fun to say. My coloring days were around the time of the box of seventy-two, and I always preferred the smaller boxes for two reasons: 1. I had this problem where I would feel sorry for the crayons that were not used very often, and I wanted every crayon to get a turn, which led to a sort of formalistic artistic process where color choices were dominated by whatever crayon seemed the loneliest. [SWITCHING TO SECOND-PERSON ADDRESS FOR REASONS THAT ARE NOT ENTIRELY CLEAR] 2. Ideally, you will have a set-up where you can easily pull all of the crayons out of the box and alphabetize them by color name. (I think I could alphabetize before I could tie my shoes.) Then you can use them in alphabetical order, or even if you are having a non-anxious day and don't need to do that, at least they will be in some kind of order and not just lying there all jumbled up. (What's really funny about my alphabetizing mania is that my books and CDs, the most obvious targets, are not alphabetized and indeed are not in any particular order. I can tolerate randomness. Just not when it comes to crayon usage.) Crayon recall. Mmmm. Delicious, lead-based crayons. TWO UNEXPECTED PLEASURES OF AUTUMN EVENINGS (AND MORE WANKERRIFFIC SECOND-PERSON ADDRESS: FORGIVE ME IOWA WRITER'S WORKSHOP FOR I HAVE SINNED) ALTERNATE TITLE: IF THERE WERE AN AWARD FOR RUN-ON SENTENCES I'D BE UP AT THE PODIUM CLUTCHING MY STATUETTE AND CRYING RIGHT NOW [ISN'T IT INTERESTING HOW I AM MORE INTO HEADINGS THAN CONTENT TODAY] [NO IT ISN'T] 1. During the first daylight-savings fall back commute home, on the El, dark at 5:30 in the evening, scooting past everyone's lighted windows, and these two contradictory (and yet not contradictory) emotions: a. The feeling of chugging past all these fleeting glimpses of butter-yellow domesticity, the couches, the murmuring televisions, the kitchen tables, the pots on the stove, the laughing babies in their playpens, the lamps the vases-of-flowers the bookcases, and you wish that instead of sitting there with freezing cold hands, sandwiched in between The Smelliest Man Alive and The Woman Who Won't Stop Yakking On Her Cell Phone, you were turning the key in the lock of one of these warm apartments and smelling the simmering of something tomato-based, and someone would hand you a baby with its clean little head and footed pajamas, and your life would be sort of like fainting into a featherbed, no terrible drill-bit thoughts ahead of you, each day separate and entire. b. Alternatively and just as pleasurable: from your privileged position at the train window, the Ultimate Outsider, you can find these scenes of cozy domestic bliss stifling and repugnant, and you can feel a bit otherworldly and cruel and yes, let's admit it, unjustly superior, with your hard-edged cynical thoughts and your shopping bag full of Difficult Books. You are the giant crow shrieking doom and holding knowledge under your bird-claws like a telephone wire, because this is you, out here in the cold, your destination still quite a ways away, and these deluded saps with their babies and their casseroles will never know it. And you can catch a glimpse of yourself in the reflected mirror, your eyes huge and lemur-like and a bit smeared by clumsy eyeliner, and your hair escaping from its messy bun like the Lady of Shalott (half-sick of shadows), and you can wonder if that's what you really look like or just what you look like when it gets dark too early. c. Then you will finally arrive home and maybe there will be something simmering on the stove, and someone or some cat is glad to see you, and even if not it is still immensely satisfying to let yourself in and be alone in a place and think "I am here now," no longer in transit but arrived. Not to mention the fact that you have gotten away from the Smelliest Man Alive, unless you have invited him home, in which case I can't help you. 2. (unexpected pleasure of autumn evenings #2, in case you have forgotten what we were talking about by now) Singing along to They Might Be Giants albums. Either alone or in the front room while your husband grinds his teeth over the pain of writing a multi-threaded application way in the back of house. The cat will think you are nuts but who cares about the cat's opinion. Sing loud. ---mimi smartypants orders the Greek salad. back/forward |
