some rare delight in Manchester town
Where the hell have I been? I guess I’ve been sort of depressed. Not really crushingly depressed, no cause for alarm or intervention or medication, but more of a case of the The Glum, otherwise known as The Overwhelming Eh. I don’t really like feeling this way, not least because it causes me to ask myself unhelpful meta-questions like: Is Overwhelming Eh really all that uncommon a state? Is it peculiarly American of me to feel like I deserve excitement and positive energy? Don’t most people plod along and just try to survive? Then I think that maybe depressing thoughts are depressing because I’m, well, depressed, and that I probably shouldn’t use my disordered thinking to resign myself to a disordered state. Ahhhhhh it’s all been very down-the-rabbit-hole around here.
The Glum has been accompanied, as usual, by a reluctance to type, and not typing leads to more Glum because typing makes me happy. The only cure is to write a really crummy entry (like this one!) and then the next time will be easier. The only way out is through, or something like that.
Speaking of New Age, herbal-teabag-worthy platitudes, my yoga teacher said something totally weird during last session’s savasana: she said “You are not your thoughts.” Wait, what? I do not know if I believe or even approve of that, as it seems to postulate that “I” am something ultra-special and non-material, while my brain is just this busy monkey organ that comes up with all kinds of stuff on its own. I know of course that “I” don’t need to buy in to or act upon every goofy or self-destructive thought I have (see depression discussion above), but that doesn’t necessarily mean that “I” didn’t invent those thoughts. I don’t love the idea of a separate self just silently watching like the creepy twins at the end of The Shining‘s hallway. I’d rather be my thoughts! Anyway, it was the wrong thing to say to a freak like me during savasana, as I immediately stopped relaxing and started thinking.
I just Googled the “you are not your thoughts” phrase and it seems like it might be a Buddhist thing, which is totally typical as Buddhists are always running around telling you what stuff is not. Or maybe that is just my longstanding beef with Buddhists.* I won’t say any more about said beef because I don’t want to start any fights, although any fight that got started would certainly be won by me, with the Buddhist all calm and saying “that is not a switchblade” while I prove him wrong, wrong, wrong. I’ve got your nothingness right here, all pointed and stabby!
*Beef With Buddhists! A new concept restaurant!
BLOOP
Listen to the ocean. Especially the Bloop.
IT WAS ALL JUST A BUNCH OF STUFF THAT HAPPENED
1. I was waiting to cross the street and turning left in front of me was a schoolbus full of prepubescent yeshiva boys, returning from some kind of day camp/holding pen. Devon Avenue was insane as usual, so I had a good long time to witness the ridiculousness of this bus as it laboriously made its turn into traffic. It was practically rocking from side to side as in a prison riot, and I do not know how the driver could function with all the screaming and wrestling and spitting. Some of the boys were hanging out the window yelling at me: “Hi! What’s your name? What’s your name?” When I didn’t answer this started to turn into, “Hi! You have nice boobies! What’s your name?” Complete with much giggling and ducking back inside and high-fives all around, of course. And then many “ooooohs” and big round eyes and surprisingly, a lessening of the frivolity when I produced the middle finger and a pleasant “Fuck off!” Seriously, they were shocked, and I was shocked that they were shocked, because if you’re going to dish it out…right? I guess they do not practice their sexual-harassment skillz on their sisters or peers, and thus are diving right into the deep end when they try it out on adult women (particularly mouthy ones like me).
2. Am I an etiquette hard-ass? After Nora’s last birthday I had her write thank-you notes to each kid. Nothing fancy—just “Dear Kid, Thank you for the geegaw, Love Nora”—but they were handwritten and specific. After almost every birthday party she attends, though, we get either fill-in-the-blank thank-you cards or xeroxed expressions of general gratitude. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t feel slighted by such notes. I’m just feeling weird and old-skool for making Nora write her own. (Which she was happy to do, by the way. The kid loves a project.) Any judgmental parent types want to email me with opinions?
3. Moving because of climate is a foreign idea to me. It is not necessarily a bad idea, of course there are people who need mountain air or who can’t stand the cold, and I certainly would not want to live in a place like Arizona, but that has more to do with cultural and geographical distaste than the temperature itself. But if I were making a list of possible dream places to live, the weather would be the fifth or sixth considered factor, not the first. I think perhaps I just have Stockholm syndrome from living in the Midwest, with its punishing Calvinist winters and equally moralistic (you will BURN in HELLFIRE!) summers.
4. I went to the doctor for a checkup and she did not tell me I was fat! Do you hide your underthings at the doctor’s office? I noticed that when I made a pile of my clothing on the doctor’s chair, I carefully inserted bra and underpants into the middle of the pile. Which is funny, because the doctor is about to handle MY NAKED BODY, but god forbid she see my bra.
BETTER THINGS
I am getting frustrated with this entry so we’ll move No-Delete Thursday up a day (I am allowed to change the rules like that) before I succumb to The Glum (it rhymes!) and delete this whole mess. In better news, Nora started first grade! They seemed to talk about behavior a lot on the first day, which made my heart sink a little, but then Nora told me that the kids voted on whether to let the teacher make the rules or come up with their own rules (overwhelming majority in favor of the latter, not a surprise in a class full of kids like Nora), and they broke into small groups and wrote up some class rules, and then voted on which ones should remain, and it all sounded kind of awesome. Maybe the teacher is strict, as was the playground scuttlebutt, but she seems to take kids seriously, which I think Nora will appreciate.
Just for fun, I signed Nora up for Goodreads at the beginning of September to see if my perception that she reads about a book a day is correct. Yeah, pretty much. We’re reading Half Magic together, and Harry Potter #2 is going slowly because she will only read it in the daytime (there are some scary bits don’t you know). I’ll keep this up for September at least, but I don’t know about after that. Also, Nora is giving the stars but she’s a bit young for social media so maybe you shouldn’t “friend” her on Goodreads. However, feel free to gank her book list for your own kid.
Speaking of (evil) books, the first-grader is working on a more textual version of Book Beast™. It has some illustrations, but it is mostly writing with some wicked-awesome invented spelling. It is still a work in progress, but I will transcribe what she has so far, because it makes me laugh. Spelling has not been corrected.
One morning Book Beast was walking down the road. Then he spotted a house. He destroyed it. He broke the windos. He kicked the door. And got a splinter. He took the shingels off. He took the house apart. He took the house with him and when he got home he rebilt it.
Then SmartGirl arrived to take him down. But Book Beast got away. He went to the bookstore to hide. He hid himself. Then SmartGirl came. But SmartGirl did not find him. SmartGirl looked everywhere but she could not find him.
[Ed. Note: This next page has a drawing of a huge shelf of books. It also is my very favorite part.] Can you see him? Is he hiding? Yes. He is. Shall we find him? Yes we shall! So where is he? Is he gone? No he is not. Or IS HE??????
Then SmartGirl came again. Book Beast can control all books. He said books come alive! The books did come alive. Book Beast said atakk! The books did atakk. They tried to destroy all the houses on Earth. So Earth would have no people. So books could rule!!!!!!!
OH MY GOD. Are you not in love with the sudden bizarre “Where’s Waldo” addressing-the-reader thing that she did there? Maybe it’s just me. But I feel less and less Eh the more I read of Book Beast™ On A Quest, by Nora Smartypants. Only 80 pages to go! She made the physical book first and said, “Now all I have to do is write the story and fill up the pages!” It would be funny if real authors had to do that. Okay, here is a 335-page blank book, go write me a novel.
—mimi smartypants will never write you a novel.