fish taco meet forehead
OH YE PEOPLE OF GOOD BREEDING
This is not so much an etiquette question as it is an “I Am Socially Awkward” question. Let’s say that someone sent me an invite and included her email and phone number to RSVP. I replied via email, saying that I would be delighted to attend her nude rodeo/birthday party. (Okay, the invitation did not specify the “nude rodeo” part, but can’t we assume?) That was the end of the communication.
I should just trust that the email was received, right? I mean, an RSVP doesn’t exactly require a reply, although since email is so easy maybe a “cool, see you there” might have been nice. Part of me wants to follow up with a phone call, but a larger part sternly tells that part of me that doing so makes me look anxious and weird. Leave it alone, right?
EXCUSE ME, YOU DROPPED YOUR HAIR
This past winter, Nora and I looked at a street wig every day on the way to school. Just a ladies’ wig in the gutter, getting dirtier and slushier with every freeze-thaw cycle. We particularly enjoyed the span of time when the wig was partially frozen in a huge gutter puddle with strands fanning out across the dark ice. Mother/Daughter WigWatch 2009! Right after winter break the wig disappeared, and we were sad.
But last week we found a weave at the bus stop! It got cleaned up much faster than the winter wig, but was still nice to see. Maybe I am just keeping a sharper fake-hair eye ever since WigWatch, but it seems like I am seeing street weaves everywhere lately. There cannot be that many hair-pulling public fistfights so I suspect some of them just slipped out naturally. But how can that be? How can you not notice that a large chunk of your hair has fallen to the ground? Perhaps some of the wigs were deliberately tossed aside? Maybe some itchy-headed woman said oh FUCK this, unpinned and unclipped, and tossed it in the gutter for me to appreciate.
THIS IS WHY I SOMETIMES CALL MY CAT A DOUCHEBAG
Here is what I wondered on the way to the bus the other day: What’s that smell? Turned out it was me! My idiot boy cat, Rocko, had peed all over my relatively new purse sometime during the previous night. The pee had soaked in so I did not notice the discoloration right away, until I realized that something reeked horribly and it was something very close to my body.
Rocko pees somewhere other than the litterbox once every few months, but it has always been in a corner, on bare floor, and looking over his shoulder to be sure I am watching. (He has emotional problems. In a human it might be called a severe attachment disorder. I wish I were kidding.) This peeing-on-my-purse thing was unexpected, and a real treat.
I transferred everything into one of my reusable shopping bags and tossed the purse in the garbage. Nora was impressed at the wantonness. “You’re throwing it AWAY?” Yes I am.
THE BROKEN BITS AT THE BOTTOM OF THE BAG
1. In the grip of some misguided hippie seizure, I purchased “all-natural” toothpaste. How bad could it be? Pretty darn bad. The texture is something like (vaguely) mint-flavored hummus, and whatever chemical it lacks must be the very thing that makes toothpaste come out of the tube properly, for I have to squeeze with all my might to get even the most meager of blobs. I loathe this toothpaste but have decided to use it at work, because a tiny Moment Of Loathing during my workday will really be nothing new. In fact it seems remarkably apt, in a blackly Zen sort of way.
2. There is a dude who spare-changes in front of the downtown Whole Foods. He is in a wheelchair and has either suffered a stroke or has some kind of severe neurological disorder, and is almost impossible to understand. Today I actually had some change in my pocket for once, and as I said hey and put it in his cup he said something quite clearly, and it was not “thanks” or “god bless” or anything you might expect. It was, “I’m just a dork from New York.” Well all right then. I hope my eighty-five cents will help that somehow.
3. Have you seen these ads on El platforms that ask “Can We Pray For You?” Supposedly you text-message your prayer and they…take care of it…somehow. I thought that the whole point of prayer was one person talking to his or her own version of god, directly, but I am an atheist so what do I know. Anyway, I was curious about how exactly this worked so I noted the number and texted the following:
Hi I need a monkey rlly rlly bad can u pls ask jesus to send me a monkey. Howler monkey. thx.
NO REPLY! I am floundering alone in a spiritual abyss! Perhaps the church decided that my text-message prayer was insincere but how can they know my heart? Or maybe a reply is not part of the deal, and the person on the other end just gets down to prayer-business immediately. In which case I shall wait in joyful expectation of my monkey.
4. I am will be heading (back) to Atlanta for work next weekend, so feel free to email me good things to do with my limited time between meetings and career-furthering opportunities. Bonus points if the things are downtown or accessible by that funny little transit system. No offense but y’all got a serious case of sprawl in the ATL, and so much of the good stuff does not seem reachable without a car, which is one reason I do not love the city. Make me love it!
—mimi smartypants is too busy to hate.
1 Comment