alert the authorities
Although it will be sad to see the end of summer, it will also be nice to put long pants and long sleeves back on my child. She has both terrible reactions to mosquito bites and a terrible habit of scratching them until they bleed and scab. She is also covered with scrapes and bruises and cuts from various wrestling, bouncy-castle, and riding-her-scooter-down-a-makeshift-ramp injuries. It looks like I have been scratching her and gouging her and burning her with cigarettes, when really my worst crime in her eyes is limits on computer-game time and not (yet) letting her shave her head.
I know I am going to get emails asking why I won’t let her shave her head, so here’s the short list:
(a) While I’m cool with the choose-your-own-clothes thing, I think she’s too young for decisions about hair. Yeah, it grows back, but slowly.
(b) Probably I am not quite as progressive as I thought, and part of me is not yet ready for such a dramatic flouting of conventional gender signs.
(c) She looks so darn cute with the bangs.
(d) Not sure the kid realizes that her ears stick out quite a bit. I mean, if she doesn’t care, I don’t care, but at an older age one is more able to consider all possible head-shaving sequelae.
YES, I AM READY FOR SOME FOOTBALL THANK YOU
The Bears have so many good names on the roster this year. There is Pisa Tinoisamoa, which sounds like someone is asking you if you would like a piece of tinoisamoa (whatever that is), so I always have to say, “yes please” or “just a small one.” There is Woodny Turenne, who has great hair and is named WOODNY. There is Al Afalava, whose name, when said by football announcers, sends me into this weird echolalic state where I need to repeat various combinations of the syllables al/af/la/va/fa until LT puts his hand over my mouth to shut me up. And let’s not forget Devin Aromashodu! Do you like the aroma of this shodu?
Johnny Knox wins the “just plain cool” name award, with Julius Peppers as a very close second, and then there is Will Ta’ufo’ou, who somehow gets TWO apostrophes AND gets to have “UFO” right there in his name. It is going to be a good season. Well no it’s not, because we are talking about the Chicago Bears here, but at least I will have fun watching.
IF YOU MEET THE BUDDHA ON THE ROAD, SHOW HIM THIS
Have you seen the video where a chimpanzee mouth-rapes a frog? (Possibly not safe for work, depending on how your work feels about frog mouth-raping.)
You can watch it yourself, of course, but I kind of need to process this by typing it. I feel like I more survived this video than watched it. I need a cup of hot tea and an emergency blanket and a team of counselors to debrief me. A zoo chimp finds a frog in its enclosure, pries its mouth open, inserts its chimply dick, and then just goes to town on that animal, in every position imaginable. It’s horrific and kind of funny. Then it goes on too long and the terrible fate of the frog enters your mind again, so you slowly stop laughing. Then you start laughing again, because what are you doing right now? You are watching a chimp mouth-rape a frog on the internet. Then, if you’re me, you feel kind of sleepy. Eventually the horror and the entertainment fuse like a beautiful swirling flower mandala and your mind is expanded. Ten years in a Buddhist monastery or videotaped interspecies sodomy? I know what I chose but it’s really up to you.
—mimi smartypants looks terrible in orange.