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

transcendentalist prog rock

I don’t have any Super-Bowl thoughts except that I want players to get their helmets stuck together more often. It’s really funny and nice. I know Super-Bowl is not hyphenated but I think it should be, because it’s funnier that way, and it’s also kind of weird that “Bowl” is used for any NFL game. My college played (terrible, Division Z or something like that) football in a bowl, but it was actually a bowl, meaning a concave depression in the earth, built (or rather, scooped) for some unknown reason in the 1960s. I think I went there once or twice in the daytime and illicitly, under cover of night, many times.

In other sports news, I got a little frothy at the hockey rink the other day when, after a win for N’s team, I overheard the other coach talking about all our “lucky” shots, which (a) RUDE and (b) if true…so? Relevant how? He clearly thought he had the better team but SCOREBOARD SAYS OTHERWISE, BRO. ELVIS BROSTELLO. BROSEMARY’S BABY. BROTARY PUBLIC. And LT got a bit frothy himself when N clearly was in on a goal and yet her name was not called for the assist, and I was like who cares, it’s not like we’re keeping track of her stats or anything. We’re not making hockey cards to sell on eBay. He has a strong sense of justice though.

I thought maybe I had mentioned Granddad, the Shedd’s sadly deceased lungfish in my diary before, since I’ve been obsessed with him for a long time. (If you hit that link, beware the Facebook page [linked at the bottom] because people’s kind Granddad words will make you weep. Or maybe that’s just me]) The Mimi Smartypants archives yields 15-year-old fruit (eeeew), BEHOLD, THE SUMMER OF 2002:

Three cheers for the lungfish. It is a quiet creature but it has volatile emotions that it keeps bottled up inside. What does the lungfish dream about when it is curled up in its mucus-lined mudball? It dreams of you. And it dreams of revenge. It thinks the Big Thoughts. It wonders, “What am I? A fish with lungs? A proto-amphibian?” It thinks, “You bitch. You thought you would break me with your whoring around and your dishonesty but no way. I’ve survived for millennia and I will survive you too. This lungfish will have a new girlfriend within a week, and you’ll be crying your slutty little eyes out. And I want my Weezer album back too.” (Lungfish mostly listen to poppy “alternative” stuff like Weezer and The Promise Ring. They are a simple fish with simple pleasures.)

Did you know that the Shedd Aquarium has a lungfish that was captured in the wild and brought to Chicago in 1933? HOLY SHIT. I have tried to call the Shedd Aquarium several times this morning to discuss this further; they took my name and number and said they would give it to an aquarist, but I have my doubts. Elderly lungfish! Let’s go visit him!

I did visit him, many times. And the aquarist did return my call, which I think is something that would be rare these days (a member of the public getting to speak to a lungfish-caretaker directly, instead of being routed to a public information officer or a webpage), and we had a nice chat about Granddad’s “Worm Wednesdays” and his love of leafy greens. Oh it is too sad.

SOME THINGS I LIKE

Sleater-Kinney live album (holy shit holy shit holy shit so good)!

New George Saunders book!

This kind of dumb but kind of entertaining show on the Science Fiction channel (yeah, I know) called “Incorporated.”

Meanwhile, LT is on-and-off enjoying a space-themed show called “The Expanse” and that name just makes me giggle. Space! It’s…an expanse.

I don’t “like” the fact that Kim Jong-nam was assassinated with poison, but I am very scientifically intrigued by the idea of a poison spray to the face, and I wish to know more. For science. Also one headline read that he was “assassinated with poison needles by female agents” and I’m not going to lie, it sounds a little bit sexy. And now I need a short-sleeve blue robe with a marabou collar.

The fact that when I signed in to our website to demonstrate to surgeons that the act of signing in results in a selection of articles based on your profile and interests, 4 of my 5 “suggested” articles were about marijuana.

Leeks (slice them thin and cook them in butter and then just pile them on top of whatever you’re eating). Leeks! Leeeeeeeeeeeeeeeks.

—mimi smartypants, allium enthusiast.