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

already here

STUFF YOU NEVER KNEW YOU NEEDED TO KNOW

I was looking for something in our library catalog and found this 1910 title by Ernest A. Bell, only available for (sweaty, excitable) in-library viewing:

Fighting the Traffic in Young Girls, Or, War on the White Slave Trade: A Complete and Detailed Account of the Shameless Traffic in Young Girls, the Methods by Which the Procurers and Panders Lure Innocent Young Girls Away From Home and Sell Them to Keepers of Dives: the Magnitude of the Organization and Its Workings: How to Combat This Hideous Monster: How to Save your Girl: How to Save your Boy: What You Can Do to Help Wipe Out This Curse of Humanity  A Book Designed to Awaken the Sleeping and Protect the Innocent

Here is a helpful worm chart. 

There is a product designed to measure olfaction called “Sniffin Sticks.” These are the vaguely BDSM-ish instructions for their use, full of references to blindfolds and “verbal commands.”  

OOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM

Last entry, when I was bitching about life being meaningless, and all human activity nothing but death-distractions, happened to mention yoga. That has an ironic tinge to it now, since I did attend yoga class recently. It was “gentle” yoga, aka the only kind of yoga I like, because I’ll go to the gym if I want to sweat (thank you very much)—and class was in the evening, by candlelight, with live music provided by a sitar player named “Tim.” I don’t know why I find that amusing but I do. Not Arjun or Sai or Jyot, but Tim.

An alternate name for the candlelit stretchy quiet sitar class might be “Moms Chilling on the Floor.” There were some dudes but not very many. Besides Tim.

I do not have a fully formed opinion on the sitar, but holy hell do I love the tanpura. That’s the drone-y thing that makes you feel so happy and relaxed about Indian music. I have started to need odd, drone-y, wompa-wompa, slowly modulating music in order to fall asleep at night. There is a lovely “Indian Drone” section at MyNoise.net, and I’m also fond of anything with the words “sleep” or “lucid dreaming” at the very ridiculously named YouTube channel “Brainwave Power Music.” I’m sure this kind of stuff drives some people nuts but I have a very forgiving bed partner.

I had occasion to use all the sleep music I wanted, no forgiveness needed, when I was in San Francisco for a work meeting. My hotel room was small but groovy and I had a great view, and I was across from the WORLD GINSENG CENTER. I did not visit, though. Too ginseng-y. Between the WORLD GINSENG CENTER and numerous multistory dim sum restaurants, it sure as hell seemed like I was in Chinatown, although my hotel insisted it was in the “Financial District.” Unless they were making a weird racist point about how the Chinaman controls world banking, I beg to differ.

Even the flights, which I never like (WTF NO WE WEIGH LIKE 800,000 POUNDS THIS WILL NEVER WORK) were not that bad. Except that the flight out I bought a glass of wine (goes great with Ativan!) and spilled a little bit on my shirt. Then I got a minor nosebleed and got some of the blood on my shirt too. Then I attempted to use hand sanitizer to clean the blood off my hands and something odd had happened to the bottle as a result of being thousands of feet in the air (NO NO DON’T THINK ABOUT IT) and that exploded all over my shirt. So I flew to California spattered with blood and two types of alcohol, just like a James Frey memoir except my experience actually happened. Hey Nan Talese! Fact-check my ass! I’m 100%, man.

I also had a very talky pilot, which was annoying because I kept having to take one earbud out and listen just in case he was saying anything important. It never was anything but chitchat. I amused myself by thinking up scary pilot announcements. “Ladies and gentlemen, this is your pilot speaking. There’s a weird golden orb to our right. I’m going to fly over and check it out.”

—mimi smartypants can’t tell the difference.