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

why hello gecko

A MISHMASH OF MUSH

1. I am very frightened that Amazon thought I would enjoy their recommendation of The Humanure Handbook: A Guide to Composting Human Manure, 3rd [!!!] edition. Dear Amazon: I just planted my first-ever vegetables this year. Slow your roll.

2. When Nora and I stepped out of the house for the walk to school, there was a tremendous commotion up in one of the trees, leaves drifting down everywhere. We looked up to see two squirrels bitchslapping each other. After a few seconds of the slappy-slappy they reared up and grappled, rolling around on various branches, and this continued until one squirrel got the better of the other and it fell about twelve feet out of the tree and hit the ground with a WHUMP. It landed on its front feet and its face, and Nora and I both shrieked a little and jumped back, and then the squirrel picked itself up and ran back up the tree. I don’t know what squirrels fight about. Territory? Sex? Drug deals gone bad?

3. On that same walk, which took place earlier than usual because of our weekly Dunkin’ Donuts treat, Nora noted how quiet the neighborhood was and said, “Most people are still dormant at this hour.” Later, remarking on a mushroom growing on someone’s lawn: “It’s huge! And puffy! That mushroom is OUTRAGEOUS!”

4. She also had packed a whole binder of Pokémon cards to take to school, ostensibly to share with someone over lunch, only to decide at the last minute that they were too precious to take to school. So I got stuck shoving the Pokémon binder in my work bag. There was a boring meeting scheduled for that afternoon, and I briefly considered studying Pokémon cards at the conference table, but ultimately I did not have the balls.

5. So far I have the rage, the rage-turned-inward (resulting in everyone’s favorite, self-loathing), the need for Doritos (with the full knowledge that Doritos will make me feel worse), the crazy dreams (see below), the lethargy, and the cramps. All I want to do is go isolate myself in the hut. Is it too late to change cultures?

6. Dream highlights included an alternate universe where babies were born covered all over in text, and my friend’s baby was born with this terrible font, and we were all very sad. Comic Sans birth defect. Or something. Also, I have been doing a lot of drugs in my dreams, including drugs I have never actually consumed. Smoking huge piles of crystal meth and picking at scabs, injecting dirty-brown heroin in (rather nice) hotel rooms (apparently my brain won’t let me go COMPLETELY low-rent), eating peyote buttons with dead celebrities (Julia Child and James Brown, I am not even kidding).

7. On the other hand, the hormone-related angst has provided a good excuse for lots of streaming Netflix, including the re-watching of old Arrested Development episodes. I have such a strange crush on Will Arnett, but really only when he is being a lovable asshole like Gob Bluth or Stranz Von Waldenburg. If he were ever to play a sincere and likable leading man I don’t know how I would feel.

8. I have tentatively agreed to speak to some college students about blogging, an enterprise in which I do not wholly believe, in February. This may involve taking an Amtrak train down to the campus and staying in some mid-range motel, just like a real “visiting writer”! Part of me cannot believe that I have (more or less) agreed to this. The speaking-in-front-of-people is not terrifying—I don’t mind that in the least—but the possibility of being a big disappointment is very terrifying indeed. College students deserve to have amazing experiences, and lord knows I am not an amazing experience for anyone. My only hope is that maybe they have been surrounded by creative-writing professors and academic workshoppers for so long that my “I bring you tidings of absolutely no bullshit from the REAL WORLD” routine may actually be refreshing. And if they hate me, I can always sneak off and get drunk on Schlitz in a townie bar. Right?

—mimi smartypants needs a quarter for the jukebox.