I think 4.5 was the time of Being Entirely Too Physical With One’s Friends, Despite Their Protests Or Tears. Five and a half featured emotional meltdowns and door-slamming, 6.5 was the era of stomping and backtalk. And now, the summer of 7.5, we have a weird hybrid of nitpicking, contradicting, and blaming! The blaming! Did you know it is my fault? It is entirely my fault.

Just this morning I accidentally stepped on her foot as I was trying to leave for work.

Nora: Arrggggh!

Me: Sorry! I didn’t mean to step on you! [kiss; hug; deliberate silence on the topic of how she loves to walk DIRECTLY IN FRONT OF ME]

Nora [incredibly aggrieved]: WHY did you step on my foot?

Me: Well, I didn’t do it on purpose! Does it feel better yet?

Nora: No. [pause for dramatic wincing and toe-clutching] I think I need an ice pack.

Me [sympathy wearing off, a tad]: Go get one, if you think it will help.

Nora: I don’t know where they ARE!

Me: A clue to the ice pack’s location is in its very name!

Nora [starting to lose her mind]: Are they in the FREEZER?

Me: Yes!

Nora: WHY do you ALWAYS put them in the FREEZER! That makes them TOO COLD!

Me [getting the dangerously-cheery Cartman’s-mom voice]: Cold is what makes an ice pack useful! And you are overreacting, and it is getting ridiculous. Sorry you’re upset, hope your toe feels better, I’m going to work, love you bunches, see you tonight.

Nora: You NEVER listen to me.

So true. Never. All I do is injure you, keep the first-aid supplies in a ludicrous location, and then breeze out the door to my full-time job. I certainly didn’t snuggle you, listen to morning monologues about Harry Potter and Zoo Tycoon,  toast your bagel and cut up your strawberries, and watch you show off your muscles on your doorway chin-up bar. You know, AFTER running three miles and BEFORE going to work.

(That last bit sounded self-congratulatory and indulgent and I apologize. I don’t expect any sort of medal, I am just feeling a bit martyred today. Maybe I’ll get lucky and have a fabulously gory and overdramatic death, just like real martyrs!)

—mimi smartypants enjoys a nice vat of boiling oil.

1. The song “Stand By Me.” I had to think long and hard to narrow my song list because I hate lots of songs. I think I especially hate this one, though. It is banal and insipid and every homeless motherfucker in America sings it a capella in the subway. Hate. Other songs I could do without: “Johnny B. Good,” “Lay Lady Lay,” and just about everything Elton John ever did.

2. As long as I’m hating on music, here is something else that has to go: Irish dancing. With the creepy puppet legs. And the music that sounds like a not-leaving-the-house meth binge, twirling on and on without actually achieving anything.

3. Littlest Pet Shop.  Some of the most deformed shit I have ever seen outside of anime.

4. Speaking of anime. Wait, on second thought no, because I find the Poke-verse kind of amusing.

5. Baby shower games.

6. The rodeo, bullfighting, circuses, Sea World.

7. Any sort of tableside food preparation. Make it in the kitchen, bring it out, and quit dicking around.

8. Monopoly. Worst board game EVER.

9. Tanning beds.

10. Angel food cake.

BETTER THINGS

Well, there are many many better things, but here are a few of them.

This old college-radio favorite about incest.  I had completely forgotten about this song.

Puppet feminism.

The alternate title of Wealthy, Whiny, White cracked me up.

This stuff takes less than two minutes to make. And it is healthy and delicious, especially with a tablespoon of balsamic salad dressing. I am going to buy more today! I’m like a vegan zombie! MUST HAVE GRRRAAAIIINS!

One of the most beautiful poems about cows ever (inadvertently) written.

CHILDCARE CONFUSION

Last week our nanny had a family reunion and took vacation. LT’s job is too new for vacation, so I stayed home with Nora on Monday, and brought her to work with me (for a half-day) on Tuesday. If the IT department wonders why I logged in and then played Webkinz on and off for three hours, I will be ready and willing to explain.

Tuesday night the kid departed for Camp Grandma, which is her idea of heaven on earth. Usually when she goes to my parents’ place it is on a weekend, so LT and I call up our childless friends and get serious about cocktails. But midweek? We had to work, of course, so were at a bit of a loss as to how to commemorate the absence of our child. Swear loudly? Eat chips and salsa for dinner? Have sex with the door open? Yes yes and yes, as it turned out.

That weekend we met my parents at a Michigan beach for the handover and a day in the lake. Every time one of us swam with Nora, she would shriek and laugh and ride the waves and, upon reaching the sandbar that marks the end of the swimming area, exclaim, “We survived it!” Well, yeah, I expected to SURVIVE a day at the beach. That kid really lives on the edge.

IT’S ALL (A TERRIBLE) PART OF GROWING UP

So we saw the orthodontist and there is talk of palate expanders. Nora has an “open bite,” crooked everything, a narrow jaw, and too many teeth for her mouth. When you combine bottlefeeding from birth and finger-sucking almost as long (her orphanage report from 3 months of age mentions it), you’re going to get some crazy chompers.

We have another appointment in October to expand the palate, and discuss various types of appliances and so forth. I Googled way too much and now I have a huge list of questions to ask and the orthodontist will think I am a crazy person. I am also experiencing a little bit of panic with regard to OH MY BABY WITH METAL THINGS IN HER SWEET BABY MOUTH, so if anyone has recent and not-too-terrible experiences with palate expansion, I would like to hear them. For reference I only have my decades-old orthodontia experiences, which bordered on the medieval, and I know things have come a long way since then. Orthodontist even suggested that the palate-expander, by allowing permanent teeth to grow in at a better angle, will possibly allow Nora to avoid braces altogether. That sounds like a nutty pipe dream to me, but then again I’m not board-certified.

—mimi smartypants: board-certified in other things.

My favorite wi-fi network, detected by my iPhone as I ride the El to work, is “bag of assholes.” A close second would have to be either “super hockey flying jesus” or “I hate Ibrahim.” Awww, what did Ibrahim do? That one is extra-special to me because whenever I have to “name” any computerish electronic object, like a hard drive or a portable electronic device, I usually name it Ibrahim Elbowskin.

IBRAHIM IS WORSE THAN THIS BRICK

While the bus was stopped at a light the other day, I saw a homeless man drawing on a brick building. He would make an x in the center of a brick with a piece of chalk, and then he would yell at that particular brick for a while before moving on to the next one. I admired the dedication it took to hate on each and every brick of a building.

I’LL TAKE A VENTI SHUT-UP JUICE

Yesterday morning I felt uncharacteristically peppy and pleased with everyone and everything. You know, the dopey epileptic Russian-mystic feeling. You are all my brothers! I kneel down and kiss this sidewalk, for its very molecules of concrete are infused with the essence of Creation! That sort of thing. This feeling tends to get me into trouble, because I live in this densely packed, modern-day metropolis and not a 19th-century wheatfield.

Feeling like this, I swiped my card in the lobby and headed up to work. A guy in the elevator was trying to pry off his takeout coffee lid, and the process was resulting in a lot of odd plastic sounds.

Guy: Could I make any more noise with this lid?

Me: You could record an album of coffee-lid sounds.

Guy: Uh ha ha ha ha ha ha. Probably not.

Me: It could be great. Folk art, you know. Found music. You could be a coffeeshop Wesley Willis, except not insane.

Guy: Ha ha ha ha ha. Huh. Well. I’ll think about it.

Me: Wow, why can I not stop talking? You’d better keep the coffee to yourself, I don’t need any!

Guy: Okay, have a good day. [leaves, probably thinking oh my god, keep her away from me]

SURPRISINGLY FUN

LT’s work had a family outing to a nighttime White Sox game. There was a shuttle bus thing, but we made sure we had the car because we didn’t know if Nora would last a whole baseball game. I wasn’t sure I would last a whole baseball game—I don’t care for baseball and had never been to a game before. Shockingly, we stayed until the bitter end (Sox win! Fireworks!) and had a pretty good time.

1. Weather makes a ton of difference—it was a gorgeous night. Although it is a shame that you can’t see any skyline from Comiskey. (Yes, I know it’s not called that anymore. Sellouts.)
2. BEER!
3. Speaking of beer, a live baseball game follows a definite drinking curve. In basketball, it is constant bread-and-circuses from the tipoff onward (thirty-second timeout; grab the t-shirt cannon!) Football games are a fairly steady, maybe even slightly grim, march toward victory, with a regular amount of cheering and spectacle throughout. At the baseball game, the hoopla seemed to exactly mirror the buzzed-on-Miller-Lite trajectory—calm and pastoral for innings 1 through 5, getting rowdy around inning 7, and by the end there is just all kinds of shit on the Jumbotron and people are dancing in the aisles and oh wait, there’s a game still going on?
4. Nora insisted on keeping track of the runs in a small notebook, even though I assured her that the score and other pertinent statistics would be a matter of permanent, public record.
5. There was free food on the “patio” where Nora ate two chicken legs and a hot dog. Then during the game, cotton candy and Crackerjack. I will not be getting any Parental Nutrition Awards this weekend. And where does it all GO? Forty-two pounds, the girl is!
6. There are amusing signs on the stadium seats that urge you to text a certain phrase to a certain number if you witness someone being an asshole (and presumably security will show up to take care of it). Ratting out assholes via cell phone! It is like a high-tech alternative to punching a guy in the face.

—mimi smartypants is no batter no batter.

If you want a laugh, you should check out Pandora’s “liner notes,” where it explains why it chose to play the song it’s playing. What kind of music do you like, Mimi? Oh you know, stuff with electric rock instrumentation, a subtle use of vocal harmony, repetitive melodic phrasing, and extensive vamping.

THE SAVAGE DECLUTTERER

I am on a throwing-shit-away bender and it feels amazing. I cannot be stopped. Seriously, don’t put your stuff down in my house for too long because I will probably sneak up on it and throw it away. Or donate it to the thrift store. Or put it out in the alley, which seems to be a sort of open-air thrift store for our neighborhood. I cannot really deal with Freecycle because people are way too flaky, and you have to rearrange your life to wait around for flaky people to come and get your stuff (or not, because of the flakiness). But I am all about giant trash bags of stuff dropped off at the thrift store before it is even open.

However, one giant new item did get introduced to the house recently: I bought Nora the fifth Harry Potter in wallet-draining hardcover (THIRTY DOLLARS!) to celebrate having made it through first grade. The bookstore did not have the paperback, and her little anxious face when I suggested we maybe look for it in another store on another day was enough to make me pull out the credit card. Every morning she wakes up, stretches, reads some Harry Potter while still in her underpants, puts on shorts and a t-shirt, eats breakfast, and gets ready for another day of backyard sprinkler/popsicles/goofing around. It is shaping up to be a iconic suburban summer vacation, only in the middle of the city.

NOW THAT’S A PLAN. A SICK, AWFUL PLAN.

Nora: You know those snake mice?

Me: Yeah? [ed. note: She is referring specifically to the “feeder mice” sold for snake food, the ethics of which we have discussed REPEATEDLY and in NAUSEATING DETAIL]

Nora: I bet their intestines would make good catfish bait.

Me: Uh. Maybe. That’s kind of horrible though, raising mice just to slice them open for their guts.

Nora [sensibly]: They are used for snake food anyway.

Me: True. I think that’s also kind of horrible.

Nora: Well, maybe you could ask for some that are dead. Some of the mice must die, you know. Sometimes they might die right at the store, from a disease or something.

Me: How about just continuing to get your catfish bait from the bait store?

Nora: Okay.

GET A ROOM OH WAIT YOU HAVE ONE

I hate it when married people talk to each other on Facebook. I don’t mind too much if they are just joking around or breaking each other’s balls, but the “happy anniversary to my special sweetie” followed by back-and-forth loving affirmations is gross. Don’t you two live in the same damn house? Is this the grown-up equivalent of making out in front of your locker, so everyone can see that you have a boyfriend?

LT and I are not Facebook friends. It started out for philosophical reasons like the above, and now we stick to it because it’s funny to watch Facebook continually suggest us to each other. Our lack of Facebook friendship is straining Facebook’s little algorithmic mind to the breaking point. Facebook cries, “But you must know each other! You have SEVENTY friends in common!” Sorry Facebook, never heard of the man.

A PRODUCT OF MY GODDAMN TIMES

I just realized that this entry mentions no fewer than three web-based applications by name, which marks it as annoyingly era-specific. Sorry, people of the future! Maybe you can use some sort of future-Google* to learn what the hell I’m talking about.

*Four!

SCHNAPPS AND HARMONY

Last night I was kept awake by some sort of raucous Eastern European sing-along. It went on way too late and was accompanied by handclaps and guitar and occasional sounds of breaking glass. Was this World Cup-related? Or just the usual drunken neighborhood Serbs? It is a mystery.

—mimi smartypants can’t stop the music.

• Ween
• Blur
• Rush
• Seam
• KISS
• Cake
• Phish
• Lush
• Yes
• Slint
• All
• Hole
• Bread
• Spoon
• Ratt
• Squeeze

FEWER PENCILS, MANY MORE BOOKS, ZERO TEACHER’S DIRTY LOOKS

School is out! No more first grade. I volunteered for an hour or so at the end-of-year festival event, mostly taking children to the bathroom, including one who WAY overshared about the texture and solidity of his bathroom product, and that he had “got some on [his] finger” but “washed it off.” For fuck’s sake, random child! And no, I won’t hold your hand on the way back to the playground!

I rarely saw my own child during my volunteer hour, as the carnival games included one of those strongman things where you swing the hammer and ring the bell. Nora was very focused on ringing that bell and did this over and over. The best part was watching her take secret practice swings while standing in line.

So no school until September, which gives Nora a lot more time to focus on being a maniac. Exhibit A:

The best part is that it wasn’t. Not a thing wrong with my toilet, despite what Mr. Green Balloonhead is saying.

HEADDESK, FACEPALM, OTHER OVERUSED PHRASES OF EXASPERATION

I saw this on the blog of someone in the process of adopting internationally:  Mom’s Without Boarders.

You know, I don’t really want to live in a fascist grammarian dictatorship where people have to grasp how the English language is used and punctuated before they are allowed to become parents. Except I kind of do. Maybe. Sometimes.

—mimi smartypants welcomes our grammatically correct overlords.

1. The fact that every PowerPoint presentation I have ever seen features seemingly random capitalization on its slides.

2. People being called “haters” for doing really innocuous internet things like DISAGREEING.

3. No rain during the week; rain on the weekends.

SMALL THINGS I DO LIKE

1. When Muslim women with really tight headscarves make their own hands-free headset by wedging cell phone between scarf and head.

2. Achy legs after weightlifting class. I complain and moan and make little oofs when I go down stairs, but it’s actually kind of a good sensation.

3. How LT gets a kick out of getting me a small gift made from the traditional “material” for our wedding anniversary. Just celebrated “crystal.” He went with earrings from Etsy instead of homemade meth.

TRUST IN YOUR IMMUNE SYSTEM, YOU KARMA-RECEIVING HO-BAG

Today I sneezed right after sitting down on the train. I sneezed into my elbow in a Centers for Disease Control–approved fashion, I SWEAR. But that didn’t stop the woman who had been sitting in front of me from getting up, all huffy and stompy, and flinging herself into a different seat across the aisle. She even followed it up with a dirty look, just to be sure I knew that her performance was a direct reaction to my sneeze. Whatever, beeyatch. I hope someone drools on you later.

I sort of got my wish! Two stops later, someone else sat down behind her and sneezed! It must have been a sneezy train. I made eye contact with GermBitch and I could not stop the huge smile that spread across my face. She gave me an even pissier look than the one that was already on her face and I just went back to my book, still smiling. YES!

SOCIAL STEREOTYPING, SOMEWHAT BACKED BY STATISTICS

Nora and I were walking to the bus stop. There is a brick apartment building with a faucet/hose hookup about a foot off the ground. Someone had drawn pants around the faucet, crudely creating the sadly predictable trompe l’oeil penis.

Nora: Hey look, someone drew pants…[the intended effect dawns on her] Oh.

Me: Yeah.

Nora: I bet a boy did that.

Me: You’re probably right.

Nora: Usually it’s boys who draw on walls. Which is NOT NICE.

Me: I don’t know exactly if boys or girls draw on walls more. When I read about people getting caught for it though, it usually is boys.

Nora: Boys do a lot of the crime, actually. Especially the bad crimes like kidnap and killing.

Me [not liking the way this is going, but can’t really say she’s wrong]: Well, you can’t assume people are good or bad based on whether they are male or female. But yeah, when I read about people getting caught for those crimes it does seem like it’s mostly boys.

Nora: That fake faucet penis was stupid.

Me: Yeah.

Nora: I bet a boy did that. Because boys draw on walls, and because boys would be more interested in showing everyone a penis. Even a fake penis.

Me: Can’t argue with you there.

Nora’s sophisticated analysis of gender, crime, and phallic aggression! Sometimes I think she and I should start our own public-access cable talk show.

OR MAYBE A SPORT-FISHING SHOW

Catfish! Caught from, and released to, the Chicago River, behind the Starbucks that is near my home! I stayed home like a normal person, Nora and LT landed this beast together.

And what a landing it was, apparently. I have heard the thrilling tale of its capture about a million times now. It is all very Old Man and The Sea at my house. After the photo session, they got the hook out of its mouth and Nora tossed him back into the river, apparently with a “resounding splash!” That is a quote. I think I pulled something trying not to laugh.

Fishing was a big hit before Mr. Catfish, but it’s even a bigger hit now. Nora has been toting around her Illinois fish guide (with waterproof pages!) and regaling me with all sorts of boring facts about fish. Fish are slightly less boring than rocks, so I guess I should be grateful for the switch in must-have pocket guides.

—mimi smartypants has a magnet in her head.

I saw an older gentleman walking up Michigan Avenue carrying a brown paper file folder labeled with the words FUCK YOU. It was not some punk-rock sticker or anything, it was just Sharpie’d on the file the same way you’d write TAXES 2008 or whatever. What is in there? His FUCK YOU files, I guess.

Remember when I was whining about needing gum surgery?  I finally went and had three of the tissue grafts. By the way, even though it grosses everybody out, I like saying that I had “tissue grafts.” It makes me feel like a cool reanimated creature built in a laboratory. IT LIVES!

I cannot “recommend” this procedure exactly, but I was surprised at the lack of actual in-the-chair pain. The dentist even used numbing gel pre-Novocaine-injection. That said, it was still not cool to feel him sewing the stitches inside my mouth, and it was also slightly not cool to feel the way he had of gently holding my chin with the tips of his fingers as he worked—it gave me the unsettling feeling that we were getting ready to kiss at any moment.

Then it was finally over and I shakily wrote a check for a horrifying large amount, even WITH dental insurance, and got handed a bag full of stuff. Included was a sheet of paper that, among other things, told me to eat only cold/mushy things (darn) and not to exercise for the rest of the day (sarcastic “darn”); a medicinal rinse; and prescriptions for super-strength Motrin, antibiotics, and a mild (schedule IV) narcotic. So off I drove to Target to get that stuff, blaring Fugazi’s* “Margin Walker” and drooling blood out of my numb mouth. It was sort of like mommy-memoir/James Frey slash fiction.

I dropped off the prescriptions, mumbling through stitches and weird bulky gum-tissue and Novocaine mouth, and went to go wander the Target aisles like a zombie until they were ready. I returned at the appointed time but they were still not ready. While I waited, I had the odd feeling of impending pain. Serious, freight-train mouth pain was on the horizon, and although it didn’t hurt quite YET I could feel it gathering. Seriously, it was a very weird sensation and probably not dissimilar to a junkie realizing she’s going to need to fix in the near future. The Target drones were still chatting away back behind their counter, not looking at all like they were filling my prescriptions, so I said EXCUSE ME around my stitches, probably leaking blood down my chin in the process, and asked if my drugs were ready yet. Maybe I looked a touch unsettling because they pretty much couldn’t wait on me fast enough after that.

*I listened to this while very hungover on New Year’s Day and just found it again. Forty minutes of Fugazi yelling at people from the stage. I could have given the direct mp3 link, but I like reading the transcript of the ice-cream-eating motherfuckers in this one.

One of the weird things I bought at Target while in post-dentistry-trauma shock was a Lean Cuisine. A Lean Cuisine! I have never eaten a Lean Cuisine in my life! But I was intrigued in a student-of-economics sort of way, because Lean Cuisines were on sale for less than two dollars, and I was wondering How In The Hell Can This Work. It was like the first-world industrial food economy right there in front of me, in the freezer case. The Lean Cuisine was some kind of butternut-squash ravioli thing, and I brought it to work and ate it once I was allowed to eat heated, solid food again, and it was not “Cuisine” but it was not terrible. They aren’t kidding about the “Lean,” though, I was hungry again in a few hours.

Speaking of food, I still am not really chewing on the surgery side of my mouth, and am staying away from chips and popcorn and other crumbly pointy things, but it is a relief to be done with getting nutrition through “smoothies.” I hate smoothies. I also hate the infantile word “smoothie.” I will give in, just like I did with “blog,” because it gets too cumbersome to say “blended fruit drink” or “shit I write on the internet” all the time, but UGH.

INTERESTING WORDS AND PHRASES NORA HAS USED IN CONVERSATION, PAST 24 HOURS

1. pickaxe
2. wrathful
3. cauldron
4. eternity
5. grout
6. platelets
7. accursed underpants

—mimi smartypants wants her stitches to dissolve faster.

I already mentioned this on Twitter, but I need to use more than 140 characters and record this for posterity. I had come home from work in a terrible mood. For once this wasn’t really work’s fault. I was having some bleak angsty fit where everything not only seemed pointless, but also difficult. Pointless AND difficult, what a lovely combination! This is the sort of thinking that leads to not taking a shower or changing clothes for days. Why eat, I’m just going to get hungry again. Why talk to anyone, they don’t understand anyway. Read this book, and then what? Does it contain the magic words to fix my life? Doubtful.

These feelings go great with a side of guilt-slaw, by the way. (Cabbage, shredded carrots, guilt, vinaigrette.) Obviously there is nothing terrible about my life, and I am being a whiny solipsistic baby by not choosing to do the work.  Another stellar thing I had done on this day was yell at Nora for a not-very-good reason, so serve up another helping of that guilt-slaw on my BBQ Combo Plate Of Suck. Thanks.

I was answering some work email while dinner simmered, and Nora had already been into the office three or four times to interrupt, so when the next “Mom, guess what” came I was a little bit like WHAT. Then she said, “I can put my underpants back on without taking off my shorts.” And she did. And then she removed her underpants without taking off her shorts, and put them back on yet again without taking off her shorts, and I laughed and got over myself by quite a bit. Technique was very similar to under-the-shirt bra removal, if you’re wondering, and I am assuming it helps to have skinny legs, flexible arms, no hips to speak of, and giant jean shorts from the boys’ department.

CONVERSATIONS WITH NORA, IN WHICH I ALWAYS SEEM TO END UP WITH NOTHING TO SAY

1. First-grade social studies lately has been about Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, and Nora is now obsessed with needs vs. wants. This has been useful for Deep Discussion of first-world privilege, homelessness, and how many Webkinz one child can possibly “need.”

Nora: Is a computer a need or a want?

Me: A want.

Nora: Right. Although some people need a computer to do a job.

Me: True.

Nora: Sometimes they need a computer if they have a lot of stuff to look up. Like what kind of fish is safe to eat.

Me: …

2. On the way to school.

Nora: Why are fire hydrants painted red?

Me: They aren’t always. They just need to be a bright color so they stand out.

Nora: Has there ever been a BLUE fire hydrant?

Me: Probably.

Nora: Has there ever been a YELLOW fire hydrant?

Me: Yes. There have even been fire hydrants painted to look like people.*

Nora: SCREAMING people? With their mouths open?

Me: No…

*One of my first memories that involved events outside of my own family was the great civic convulsion of 1976, when many neighborhoods painted their fire hydrants to look like short, squat, Founding Fathers. (Why? I do not know. I think America went a little crazy around the bicentennial.) The short squat fire-hydrant Founding Fathers were not SCREAMING with their mouths open, although that would have been awesome.

I AM A JERK, BUT HE WAS A JERK FIRST

I can’t believe I forgot to mention this, which happened in Atlanta! It was in my notebook but never made it onto the laptop, I guess.

I skipped out on a conference session because it was trying to bore me to death. The planning of my next move seemed like it might require a cocktail, so I went to the hotel bar with my book.

The only other patron was a young guy in sports attire, who seemed a little drunk although it was barely 4 pm. He said hello from down the bar and I gave that tight half-smile that acknowledges the presence of another human while (hopefully) sending signals that interaction is not an option. Signals, however, were not clear enough.

Basketball Jersey Guy: Whatcha readin’?

Me [big smile but no eye contact]: A book!

[Unfortunately he slides several seats closer to me. I cannot control my eyeroll and sigh as he does this.]

BJG: Hey woah, I’m just trying to be friendly. Just thought we could have a conversation.

Me: I don’t want to talk right now, sorry.

BJG: Well jeez. You’re cranky. [slides one seat farther away.]

[Relative silence for about ten minutes. I try to read but I am getting increasingly pissed off as I craft an internal Womyn’s Studies 101 monologue about how so many men think they are entitled to friendly conversation from a total stranger, just because the stranger is female. I start to feel feisty and like exacting some sort of performance-art-influenced personal revenge.]

I finish my drink and get up to leave.

Me: Hey.

[BJG looks up.]

Me: You’ve got something in your hair. Like right here. [gesture to my own head]

BJG: Yeah? [tugs at his bangs]

Me: Yeah. I don’t know, it looks like hair gel. Or maybe semen.

[The look on his face is indescribable.]

BJG: Uh…well…it’s not THAT.

Me [walking away]: Okay. If you’re sure. Later!

—mimi smartypants feels all better now.

1. On the way out I get an aisle seat, which I always do on planes, because I’m convinced that I might have to, I don’t know, make a sudden exit or something. Twenty thousand feet? Hell no, see you later. Anyway, there was a guy in the window and me on the aisle, and I experienced that slightly shameful hope that no one would be in the middle. When that hope was shattered by the arrival of Mr. Middle Seat, I unbuckled and stood up, and he said in heavily accented English, “Maybe you could just move over.” I sort of snort-laughed, because it was truly ludicrous to think that I would give up my purchased-on-purpose aisle seat to sit in the deeply undesirable center. But then I looked at him and he seemed bewildered. Maybe they don’t have sarcastic snort-laughs in his part of the world. Or maybe he really thought I would scoot over.

2. I always like the drawings in the safety card on airplanes, how absolutely none of the people depicted look worried or afraid. That woman’s expression is very oh how interesting an oxygen mask has dropped from the ceiling. The people in the braced-for-crash position are this is actually quite comfortable, to sit like this.

3. While waiting to deplane (what a marvelous word), a toddler boy popped up over the back of his seat and we had a conversation.

Kid: I’m on a plane!

Me: Yes you are.  [Pause.]  I’m on a plane too.

Kid: [looks around] We’re ALL on a plane.

I like people who just give it to you straight. Rock on, truth-teller!

4. I took MARTA downtown from the airport and my seatmate was talking on his cell phone about how he had to go to this place and pay a guy seven hundred dollars, and then he had to go to that place to pay his two-hundred dollar overdue electric bill, and then he was going to another place to give Andre his four hundred dollars, and I thought damn, this guy needs to get a checking account. And then I thought that he also must have an absolute bundle of cash on him right now, and maybe I should rob him. But then he mentioned his probation officer to his phone-friend so I thought that maybe that would be a bad idea, to mug a convicted criminal on my first day in town.

5. When I arrived at the hotel everyone seemed overdressed. Sequins and heavy makeup on the women and the men dressed like cartoon homosexuals, with spandex pants and shirts unbuttoned showing large amounts of waxed chest. I thought Atlanta was pretty darn weird until I discovered there was a ballroom dance competition happening in one of the downstairs meeting rooms.

6. The horrors of real-time television (WHERE IS THE FAST-FORWARD BUTTON) in my hotel room were offset somewhat by all the awesome infomercials I got to see. I think my absolute favorite was for this contraption that cracks eggs for you, and also somehow manages to claim that cracking eggs is nearly impossible for all but the most talented of chefs. Newsflash: eggs are not hard to crack. They’re EGGS. Plus the infomercial actors were hilariously uncoordinated, with the voiceover saying, “And we’ve ALL had this happen!” while the footage shows some moron cracking an egg directly onto his stovetop and then making an OH MAN! face. Actually, I’ve not had that happen. Because I have control of my limbs.

7. Also TV-advertising-related: there has been a real shift in the way fitness is marketed in infomercials. It used to be all passive exercise belts, “so easy you don’t even know you’re exercising” workout tapes, and “flat abs in three minutes a day.” Now it’s mostly workouts with names like INSANITY and testimonials like IT’S HARD, WE’RE NOT GONNA LIE and YOU WILL SWEAT LIKE AN ANIMAL. Can we blame the recession, and newly powerless people deciding to go all hardcore on one of the few things they can control? Can we blame the fear of terrorism, and the hope that we can somehow subdue jihadists with our rippling pectoral muscles? Can we blame Jillian Michaels? (Oh please, can we?)

8. New rule for myself: every time I am alone and notice a security camera, I must perform a crazy capering-skeleton dance for it.  The Atlanta Hyatt was overrun with security cameras, and I did quite a few crazy capering-skeleton dances while waiting for the room elevators. If there were any crimes or disturbances during my stay (ballroom dancers running amok?) and the tapes get reviewed, I hope my art is appreciated.

9. The conference was okay. A bunch of science editors in a bunch of different hotel meeting rooms geeking out about various publishing topics. I learned some stuff, and I also went out drinking with big-deal editors and learned some AMAZING industry gossip.

10. I am glad to have met this awesome person. I wish she lived upstairs from me, so we could trade tea varieties and lie on each other’s living room floors when we felt sad. And I went to a pretty good film with Gray, and had a delicious lunch with Claire, who I think is too sensible to blog so no link will be provided.

11. Hooray for being home. Hooray for hugging my kid, and eating my own food, and the magic of TiVo, and not paying ten freaking dollars a day for internet access. Less hooray for the mountain of laundry generated by travel. No hooray at all, actually. A heartfelt boo and a sincere hiss.

—mimi smartypants is tumbling dry.

Is fighting allowed in hockey or not? There are always fights, and referees always skate around these fights with looks of concern on their faces, as if they are about to break up the fight any minute now. People occasionally get thrown out or penalized for fighting, but not really according to any system I can discern. Wikipedia refers to a “complex system of unwritten rules,” which makes me angry (sports have rules, damn it! written ones!), but it also says stuff about having to take off your gloves, no weapons allowed, etc, that actually are in the rule book.

Let it be known that that Mimi Smartypants is a football fan and does not care for gray areas. I like instant replay and challenge calls and complex (WRITTEN!) rule books that cover every possible happening. Pedantry defeats ambiguity, every time!

MEANINGLESS CONFESSIONS

1. Not a big Mission of Burma fan. You could look at the map of my musical preferences and conclude that I would be, but they somehow have always failed to please me.

2. I have consistently said “no thanks” to requests to chaperone Nora’s field trips, even when they were on days I was working from home and could have arranged it. No, I don’t want to ride a school bus and attempt to corral the first grade, I just don’t. This school has plenty of eager-beaver parents for the trips, and I do step up for the occasional lunch-supervision gig, so there is my justification.

3. I cringe when I hear cutesy abbreviations like “veggies” or any one of the horrible slang terms for “pregnant” (preggers, preggo).

4. Sometimes, for no reason whatsoever, I make things cheaper in conversation than they actually were. If I am showing LT something I bought on sale, I might lower the purchase price by a few bucks. I have no idea why I do this. We make nearly the same amount of money (and we don’t keep score like that anyway, we just have “shared money” and discuss big purchases beforehand). I also tend to philosophically “cheapen” my purchases even when dollar amounts are not discussed. For instance, if someone compliments me on my sweater, I will reply, “Thanks! It’s from Target” (if it was). But I would never say, “Thanks! It’s from Neiman Marcus” (even if it was). Do I need financial/mental therapy?

5. I really like vintage (pre-1950, at least) porn and nude photos, mostly because everyone looks so cheerful. I also cherish 1890s blowjob photos, the ones where the guy is sitting in a chair with his head down and his hand to his forehead. I think this is a posing convention meant to conceal the blowjob receiver’s identity, but I just like it because it looks like he is despairing. Oh jeez not ANOTHER blowjob.

SHOPPING LIST

The last time I was at Target a woman and her daughter, who looked to be about three years old, were shopping near me in the grocery section and the mom said, “Okay, we’re almost done! We just need rum and heavy cream.” The girl started chanting “rum and heavy cream, rum and heavy cream” and I had to admit it was catchy. Also, what a combination of items! It sounds like an old-fashioned remedy for something. “Take an ounce of rum and heavy cream for every hour you’ve been awake.” An old-fashioned remedy for sobriety! And calcium deficiency!

WARNING: INDELICATE TOPIC HERE

I am going to tell a kid-story that is out of character for me, since it involves intestinal gas, which is something I do not mention ever. I will discuss vintage blowjob photos all day long but I am a total prude when it comes to flatulence. It’s weird. I know.

However, I was brushing my hair in the bathroom one morning when Nora showed up all sleepy and naked, eyes half-closed and lovely, and she hugged me and did her toilet-business and said, “I had a deep fart in my bed. It sounded like a lonely boat on a dark ocean. Or like a low tuba.”

There was no boasting, no frat-boy snickering, just wonderment and earnestness and wanting to urgently inform someone else of her (butt-related) experience. It was weirdly touching. I do wish she had been that poetic about something other than farts, but this is parenthood: you take what they give you.

Enough. I am off to the DEEP SOUTH very soon. I am bringing my cute little red netbook, so perhaps I will liveblog the airport or something equally dull. I bet you can’t wait.

—mimi smartypants is sold by weight, not by volume.