mimi smartypants
Seriously, though: what's with the penguins?

dweeb county, usa

16 March 2011

UNHEALTHY

When you attend a fancy fundraising event, and there is very little food in general, almost zero veg-friendly food, AND an open bar, you may find yourself in a bit of a jam the next day. I woke up early, despite the time change, because a small furry animal seemed to have used my mouth first as its toilet and then as its mausoleum (description stolen from Kingsley Amis, one of the best chroniclers of drunkenness who ever lived). Then followed a harrowing hour in the bathroom, and my eventual restoration to humanhood by way of Wheat Thins and Diet Coke. Another thing that helped was, curiously, a drive to Trader Joe’s. Normally Trader Joe’s on a weekend would be the deepest pit in hell, but there were surprisingly few shoppers, and driving around with the windows down and Black Sabbath’s “Sweet Leaf” at a very high volume helped me a lot.

It pains me a bit to say it, but it also helped that Nora was spending the weekend at Grandma’s. I mean, the kid is a lot less parenting-intensive these days, but the way I felt that morning would have meant less “Let us go have active, educational experiences together, young Jedi!” and more “Fine, go spend three hours on Club Penguin, see if I care.”

UNHEALTHY WORLD

My brain does a serious push-pull when it comes to larger questions of how to be in the world. Specifically, stuff. There are things I want. I want a remodeled kitchen, with an extremely kick-ass stove. I want to put a skylight in our stairway. I want to make over the upstairs bathroom with an extremely expensive shower. I want lots of new shoes, an upgraded iPhone, new pots and pans, an Xbox with Kinect (embarrassing, but true), a few sessions of personal training. I want a long interesting vacation to a foreign country.

Then I start to freak out about the cost. And not just the cost as in our personal budget, but about whether remodeling the bathroom or buying an Xbox is more or less the same as kicking a poor person in the face. There are people in the world who will watch their children die of hunger, and I am thinking about dropping fifty bucks on an All-Clad saucepan? Really?

And sure, I could send fifty bucks to a hunger relief agency, and I do that periodically, although the charity budget has to be split several ways because everything matters!

It does not change the fact that I still want the saucepan.

UNHEALTHY ATTITUDE

Nora and I have registered for a 5K, and no I will not mention which one. I do not even want LT to be there. I just want to run my first ever race all secret and without real-life support, except of course for the crazy small fry. I’m not worried about finishing, but I know I’ll be slow as hell and it will just be embarrassing. LT points out that he will think very highly of whatever time I end up with, because it’s not like he runs at all, but still. For some reason I don’t like cheering sections. I like to keep things with uncertain outcomes to myself, until their outcome is certain. See for instance the surprise announcements of my book contract, done-deal adoption, job promotions, etc.

I have already warned Nora that, for safety reasons, she needs to stay with her turtle-paced mom and not go get her personal best, which bummed her out slightly. If she were a little older, I would think about getting her a cell phone and then we could just find each other at the end of the course. See, there I go kicking poor people in the face again.

—mimi smartypants is the master of reality.