“Delivering Hot Buns Until 6 AM? What does that mean? Who wants hot buns? Pork buns? From Chinatown?…Oh wait, do they mean butts? [laughter] How can you deliver a butt?”

“Ha ha look, she’s trying to cover up her breasts! But they are way too big! [leans in for a closer look] She covered up the nipples, though.”

“It’s kind of weird to wear underpants and shoes. Don’t you think? Don’t you think, mommy?”

During all of the above, which seemed to take HOURS, what was I doing? Mostly trying to be really boring, with lots of mmm-hmmms and trying-for-casual changes of subject. I knew that if I made a big hairy deal of not scrutinizing the strip-club ad, Nora would want to know why, and then we’d have to talk about why in the world strip clubs exist, and patriarchy and the male gaze, and sex work in general. I thought that would be a little much for a before-school chat.

FREAKING GOOD

Peanut butter Larabars. There was a recall last year about the peanut thing, but it’s long over and now I’m back to snacking. These seem to keep you full longer than most energy-bar things. They can even stand in for lunch on my busiest workdays, with a beverage and a side order of extreme annoyance.

FREAKING, NOT SO GOOD

During an uncharacteristic come-undone after a hard day at school, Nora tearfully and screamfully claimed that I never listen to her. NEVER. I NEVER LISTEN. At least I think that’s what she said, who knows? I never listen. Does that kid even talk?

I don’t know why I find this so funny-sad, but I do. It was her first use of teenage absolutes that I can remember. Not just “you’re not listening to me” but “you NEVER listen.” Never! I never listen! Not ever! Given the context of that “discussion,” however, it seems that “you never listen to me” really meant “you don’t always do what I want.” Guilty as charged, sweetie pie.

GROWING UP GEEK

Nora recently read her first fantasy book that had invented words for bits of the invented world. Do you know what I mean?

The young shepherd Xanax was herding the groggins down to the river Ambien. The groggins were lowing excitedly in their eagerness to get to the fresh cool water. “Hurry up and drink,” Xanax said, “I’ve still got to milk the lot of you.”

I totally made that up, but you get the idea. From context you know that groggins are some sort of herd animal on Planet Thorazine or whatever. Nora found this very intriguing, even though she had trouble expressing it and ended up having to show me the book. And even though science fiction is not my thing, I felt proud because it seems like a milestone in her literary education.

God, I’m such a book nerd. Here’s the little reading freak, with a cat on her butt. Hot (cat-warmed) buns until 6 am!

—mimi smartypants is like a broken clock.

It is ever so tedious when bloggers record their dreams for their yawning readers, who are thinking please get back to the tequila/blowjobs/vegan recipes/political commentary (depending on which blog you are reading, of course.) (Is there one that combines all of the above? Please send the URL.) But I cannot shake this series of recurring dreams about my high school boyfriend, who I have not spoken to in years and years. I mean, we’re not even Facebook “friends.” And yet he shows up every night, particularly if there has been wine or Benadryl. Last night he showed up with his best friend, and claimed my dad suggested we get back together.

Me: My dad? My dad has not given you a moment’s thought in two decades. He barely noticed you when we were actually going out.

Dream Ex-Boyfriend: Well that’s what he said. So you should take his advice. To quote Conrad Milton, “Never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.”

Me: Who the fuck is Conrad Milton? Do you mean John Milton? And by the way, the bell-tolling thing is John Donne.

DExB: How about it, baby? You and me.

Me: For crying out loud! Get out of my house!

DIET FOR A SNACKY PLANET

The joke about things like baked chips or low-fat cookies is that people end up eating lots more than they should, to make up for the missing flavor. I bought some baked chips recently and found that the opposite is true for me. The chips were not that great so I had a few and then decided they were not worth my time. I could not be bothered to bring hand to mouth just for substandard snackitude. So, regular chips, hopefully in moderation, for me or no chips at all, I suppose.

Speaking of decadence and snacks, these chocolate-covered almonds are absolutely amazing (although the reviewer did not exactly agree). Before storing them with our other “treats,” I let Nora know that these were NOT FOR CHILDREN. Since the kid often chooses a stupid piece of sugarless Bubble Yum for her after-dinner sweet, I probably don’t have to worry.

I have been thinking about food lately anyway, because I got in a discussion with someone about why I am a sort-of vegetarian (“sort of” because I occasionally eat fish), and I gave them my usual spiel about how I “just don’t really like meat” and how it’s “less of an ideology thing than a taste thing.” Which is sort of true. I was the kid who refused to eat her steak, who stopped eating her fried chicken the minute a bone was visible (ewwwwww!), and who could maybe handle bacon if it was very crispy and she didn’t think too much about it.

But it’s also sort of a lie. I will never be the sort of PETA jerk who hands you pamphlets and asks if you enjoyed your “suffering burger,” but there is a part of me that thinks that killing an animal because we find it tasty is sad and wrong. Then I think about how I am totally copping out with the “don’t like meat” explanation, even with its partial truth, because I don’t want to make people uncomfortable and defensive with the “don’t like killing” explanation. Also because I don’t want people calling me on my hypocrisy: occasional fish consumption, leather shoes, my love of fancy cheese (apparently I don’t want cows killed, just confined and pregnant and miserable).

I guess really it is not anyone’s business how high up on the food chain I eat. So quit asking the question, people! Because my answer could fill a book and I will get all stammery and defensive and include a lot of disclaimers about how I don’t really care what you personally eat, but on a macro level I guess I sort of do care, and and and and and and. Then you will resolve never to speak to me about anything remotely complicated ever again.

AS LONG AS WE ARE BEING SERIOUS

Hey, do you want to hear more of my conflicted, unpleasant feelings surrounding difficult topics? Of course you don’t! But I will type it anyway!

One of my Facebook acquaintances had a birthday, and for some reason he decided to mark the occasion by writing something on his “wall”* about our college friend who killed himself, years ago. I did not really get the connection, but maybe he was feeling all Requiem Mass, in-the-midst-of-life-we-are-in-death, etc, about getting older. Or something. (I have not said much publicly about this friend’s death, except briefly here.)

*You will see that I am incapable of describing Facebook features and interactions without the use of irony quotes.

Anyway, of course he got plenty of responses for this, and lots more of my fellow alumni and friends joined in to share their own reminiscences and anecdotes, and I found myself surprisingly angry and unwilling to join in. It is not that I don’t have my own memories of this friend. I have lots. I have funny stories, drug-fueled escapades, late-night talks. I have a folder of awesome post-graduation email where he and I got shockingly honest about sharing some of the more twisted bits of ourselves. But I can’t sit around and be all like “yeah he was a great dude” when I am still so pissed about the way he left.

I wonder when I will be able to think of him fondly. It sounds like a nice goal to have and the socially-accepted way to think of the dead.

It has been almost six years. I’m still mad.

WATCH WHAT HAPPENS

When is the next plane to Los Angeles? I have drunk a whole lot of green tea and now I am off to pitch my new reality show. Rapper The Game, reality-show loser The Situation, Irish grandpa The Edge, and failed Canadian Football League player The Rock all have to live in a house together. Caught on tape! I will call the show “Definite Article.”

—mimi smartypants was escorted off the premises.

We are back from Mexico and what is this thing with straps? A “brassiere”? Is that French? And this stuff you call “snow.” I do not understand.

Nora in particular had a great time getting damp in three hot tubs, two pools, and one ocean. She became really proficient with this dumb ten-dollar snorkel set from Target. It had a safety orange tip so you could see her relentlessly circumnavigating the pool, burning off thousands of calories that she did not eat. She looked like one of those wind-up bathtub toys. She also visited some Mayan ruins, counted 56 iguanas, hurled a coconut into the sea,* and bought a shark-tooth necklace and a Mexican wrestler mask/cape combo that should be making a photographic appearance on this page one of these days.

*When Nora found a loose coconut on the ground she immediately asked, “Can I hurl it into the sea?” Yes you may. Despite the lateness of the hour we took a special trip down to the beach for the hurling of the coconut.

Every day since returning from vacation we have had a ten-minute wrestling session (with Nora costumed, of course) before dinner and you know, it has made all the evening routines much smoother and more pleasant. Maybe I can write a cheesy parenting book and make some money. Trouble with transitions, tantrums, meltdowns? Take ten minutes to fake-bodyslam your kid and let him/her push you over, with or without props, but definitely with grunting and big hammy overacting. This is apparently the secret of a happy seven-year-old.

AUTO RESCU[E] COULD USE SOME RESCUING

However, the adventure did not end upon returning to the USA! Tuesday was business as usual, slathering lotion on our salt/sun/chlorine-dried skin and hurrying to the city bus, but Wednesday I was able to work from home and so had planned to drive Nora to school. Which of course means a more leisurely morning—she read a whole Littles book with breakfast* before we ambled over to the garage and the car that had not been touched in about 10 days. Hmm, the trunk is open, I noted. How odd.

*Speaking of odd, why are there TWO series of kid books about tiny humanoids who live in the walls of houses? Were the Littles and the Borrowers both necessary? Weird.

There is a light in the trunk, did you know that? And that light being on continuously is apparently enough to drain the battery. Dead car. Nearly tardy child, her academic future surely bound for ruination. Dentist appointment later in the day that I now had no way of getting to, which secretly is not that much of a boo-hoo but still, my teeth needed cleaning.

Nora and I locked up the garage and sprinted down the block, where we were lucky enough to hail a cab. I got to fulfill my lifelong dream of telling a cabdriver that his tip would depend on his speed. So he drove like a man who firmly believed in an afterlife, and Nora miraculously was not even late. I took the bus back home and called the “roadside assistance” from my cell phone on the way.

The “assistance” that showed up was kind of sad-ass and possibly in need of assistance itself. It was just a guy in a rusted-out Jeep, who threw on a fluorescent jacket labeled “AUTO RESCU” and used a battery pack to jump my car. I was not sure if the “e” in “rescue” had flaked off, was missing due to ignorance, or had been purposely omitted (leave the E off for…Economic Distress? Ennui? Elephantiasis?)

Anyway, this was “Frank,” who was here to “rescu” my car. He did something arcane with the battery pack and it started, and he told me to leave it running for fifteen minutes or so in the closed garage. Note: he specifically said “the closed garage.” I thought it was rather irresponsible of him not to mention that only the running car, and not my person, should hang out in the closed garage. But maybe he assumed I could figure that out.

I followed Frank back to his crappy car to sign the paperwork, and he seemed to be talking to someone I couldn’t see in the back seat—he said, “You okay in there? You want a blanket?” Then he said, “My girlfriend’s trying to sleep in the back seat.”

Me: Oh.

Frank: Yeah, she’s pregnant. You know, you’re supposed to be nice to pregnant ladies! But she’s gotta go with me driving all over town jumping cars.

Me [experiencing complicated emotions at this point; it does sound like a rough circumstance but it is your job and I had no part in impregnating your girlfriend]: Hmmmm.

Frank: Yeah, at least it’s not too cold today, you know? We’re kind of in between apartments right now, but we’re going to go see something this afternoon.

Me [wondering if I somehow walked into a short story by Raymond Carver]: Sounds good. Well, good luck!

Frank: You too.

Disquieting personal situations aside, I think that “roadside assistance” just paid for itself.  And never, except perhaps when the neighborhood crackhead called me a retard, have I been so glad to live in an urban area. All that cab and bus business would not have worked out in the suburbs, unless I had good close neighbors who could have given us a ride.

Let’s all hold a good thought for Frank, his housing situation, and his (I assume?) future child!

—mimi smartypants jump-started your heart.

Today for my whole commute, both ways, I felt like congratulating people.

Guy who sprinted up the steps and got on the train just before the doors closed: way to go! High five, dude! Come on, don’t leave me hanging!

Woman checking email: kick ass! You figured out all the features of your Blackberry there, huh? Good for you!

At times this got a little difficult: hey old lady, I got to give you props, you really smell like cat pee. Way to…bond with your pets! That takes dedication!

I am like the opposite of a vigilante. I’m The Encourager!  You go, Chicago! You keep doing your ordinary stuff!

THE GIVING OF THANKS

Nora has been enthusiastically working on the thank-you notes from her birthday, and she needs a lot less help than last year. Basically I just consult my notebook and remind her which present went with which guest, and she gets out her cat-themed stationery and gets working. I read them over before stuffing and addressing the envelopes, and she even seems to have the format down cold. Salutation. Thank you for the X. Something complimentary about X. Closing, signature. In her hands, however, possibly because of the overuse of exclamation points and underlining, the standard thank-you becomes something that feels a bit sinister.

Dear Peter,

Thank you for the magic kit. I am going to use it!

Love, Nora.

I wish I had been clever enough to adopt this ominous tone way back when I was writing wedding gift thank-you notes.

Dear Aunt Mary,

Thank you for the toaster. I am going to use it! Oh am I ever! I am going to make the shit out of some toast! You don’t even know! It’s going to be out of control! Wait and see! Thanks again!

Love, Mimi.

I am looking at the “thanks for the magic kit” note right now, and she has also drawn herself (in a magician’s hat), her friend, her friend’s mom and dad in bed together (yikes! but they’re just stick figures), a toothbrush (why?), and a “zombi [sic] pac-man eating a brain.” I know this because everything is labeled. Once again, I deeply regret that my wedding thank-yous featured so few zombie pac-men eating brains.

THE APPLE STORE CAN SUCK IT

My iPod has broken itself in a peculiar and unsettling way—it will only play music out of one side of the headphones. Did I figure out that it was the iPod and not the headphones before I went and bought new headphones? No I did not. Google seems to think that I need a new headphone jack and I agree, for I cannot deal with music on just one side of my head. Plus the jack-wiggling (wow, that sounds dirty) and contortions I go through to get double-sided music for even a few minutes are just infuriating.

Apple store estimated about $200, but local cell-phone-repair store with good reviews all over the internet said $75. I think they win! I kind of hope they can get it done before I leave on vacation,* as there is a definite possibility that I may need to use piped-in rock-and-roll to drown out my family at some point during the airplane ride.

*Mexico! Condo on the beach! Other adults (my parents) to supervise the child occasionally! Even more adults (sister and brother-in-law) with whom to do irresponsible things involving tequila! Must stock up on serapes, sombreros, and those crossover chest belts that are full of bullets. Because that and a bathing suit are pretty much all I need.

There will be a hot tub on our condo balcony, which delights Nora to no end.

Nora: Sometimes hotels say, “No kids in the hot tub.” But in Mexico, the hot tub will belong to US! So there are no rules!

LT: Actually, there’s no rules at all in Mexico.

Nora: None?

LT: None. It’s the only country with no laws whatsoever.

Nora: [pause as she thinks deeply about this]

Me [to LT]: Okay, tell her the truth. That’s not nice. Or wise.

—mimi smartypants, locked up abroad.

Jesus fishstick christ, is thirty goddamn blogging minutes too much to ask? Apparently yes. I blame work for kicking my ass so badly that once I get home all my thirty-minutes-es need to be taken up by crap television (Real Housewives, anyone?), kava kava tea (the soporific bomb), and early bedtime. Who decided that performance reviews should be scheduled the same week that everything goes to press?

SHRIMP, PLATE, PLATE OF SHRIMP

1. I was shortcutting through Nordstrom yesterday and a guy handed me a sample strip of perfume. Normally I swerve away from any sort of proffered pamphlet, fragrance, or free sample but I was feeling reckless so I took one. Three steps later I waved it toward my nose and actually burst out laughing at how bad it smelled. It was something Ed-Hardy-branded, if that makes any difference to you, although there was another name in there too. I am afraid to Google because what if Google has invented smell-browsing and that horrific odor comes wafting out of my hard drive? WHAT IF?

2. Speaking of “what if,” it is a favorite rhetorical device of my seven-year-old that is driving me slightly bonkers. What if we had a million pancakes? What if the pancakes came alive and took over the world? What if this car had a tortoise inside the engine, would it cook and die or would it be happy in the warmth? What if the tortoise pooped in the engine? Would the car still run? (Insert giggles at the mention of you-know-what.) What if? I don’t know, Nora! And here’s a clue, I don’t really care, although I would never say that to your face!

Maybe I can adopt this speech act and use it to my advantage in boring work meetings. That’s it for my presentation, does anyone have any questions? Yes sir, I do. What if the overhead projector EXPLODED in a million pieces? What if I just started randomly screaming right now? What if your doughnut was poisoned? What if the conference room floor was made of HOT LAVA but our laptops could turn into surfboards and we all surfed around on the HOT LAVA singing Devo songs? WHAT IF!

MODERN AND NOT-SO-MODERN CONVENIENCES OF WHICH I AM VERY FOND

1. The GPS thingy for the car. We have a “Tom-Tom” (why is it called that?) and it has completely revolutionized my attitude toward driving and the car. I am terrified of getting lost and that only intensified after my ten-year break from driving. When I started again I would clutch my MapQuest printouts in one sweaty hand, and freak out after the inevitable missed turn. Now I am so cavalier you can call me John Suckling. Give me the address, I punch it up, and do what the nice computer lady tells me. And if I screw up, she just keeps on figuring it out. Awesome.

2. Word processing. I learned to type in grade school, on my mom’s electric typewriter, so even though I am not that old I do have a little experience with white-out and ribbons and typing xxxxxx over mistakes. Thank fuck that’s over. MS Word, you can be a pain in the crack but I will still love you forever.

3. Vision correction. What would they have done with nearly-blind me in the pre-spectacles days? I doubt I could even see well enough to do farm or household chores. If family refused to take care of me, I would probably have been dumped in a corner with no pants on and just been whored out to passers-by. Speaking of whoring…

4. Hormonal birth control.* Viva la pill! Sometimes I think I am the only woman on the internet who loves this method, but I guess satisfied customers don’t tend to post about their birth control.

*Because of the pill, poor Nora recently figured out that her parents have sex, although not in any Freudian “primal scene” sense. She knows I take a pill because I don’t want to “grow a baby.” The other day she got kind of puzzled and said, “If you don’t want any more babies, then you don’t need to mate with daddy…so why do you need the pill?” (How much do I love it that she used the term “mate”? My little Jane Goodall.) I corrected her and said that her father and I do indeed “mate.” She asked me why and I awkwardly explained that it’s, uh, fun. But it’s for grown-ups and nothing you need to really worry about right now. Yeeps. I am great at biology (Nora is pretty familiar with menstruation, anatomical terms, etc), but when it comes to explaining the more sexual aspects of sex I can get a bit flustered.

5. TiVo! I’d rather have no television at all than do without TiVo. I don’t know how you “television in real time” people cope, I really don’t.

LUCKY SEVEN

Nora had an off-the-hook birthday weekend, with family giving her presents, kids leaping about at an indoor-gym place, and teachers passing out brownies in her honor. Her big cool present was a Nintendo DS. Her favorite games just happen to be the three she owns—Personal Trainer: Math (NERD ALERT!), some sort of dinosaur-fighting thing, and Mario Kart. Despite not having touched a single game controller since the days of Atari, I somehow know a lot about Mario Kart. And because little kids tend to not understand “changing the subject,” a lot of our conversations go like this:

Me: [something entirely unrelated to Mario Kart]

Nora: [something something Luigi Peach Shell Cup]

Me: Hold up, is this about freaking Mario Kart?

Nora: Yes.

On her birthday itself we went to her favorite sushi restaurant, the one with the “spooky bathroom.” I don’t think it’s all that spooky, but Nora does, and insists that I go with her. While she was peeing we were having a mild argument about the spookiness of the bathroom, and right on cue there was an odd noise from the plumbing or the furnace or god-knows-what.

Nora: What was that?

Me [teasingly]: Who knows. Probably a demon.

Nora [serious wide-eyed look as she pulls up her pants]: Please don’t tell me what that is right now.

MORE FREAKING PEOPLE OUT BY ACCIDENT

At the gym I had just gotten all my stuff in a locker when I realized the lock was broken. “Shit,” I mildly opined, and started to haul everything out to dump it in a new locker. The old lady next to me audibly gasped and said, “Oh!” While looking at me like I had just impaled eight baby ducklings on a sword like at those Brazilian steakhouses. Really? I get that reaction for “shit”? I felt sort of bad that I had shocked an old person so badly but think of all the things I could have said! Just think!

—mimi smartypants cleans up her act.

LATE WITH THE RESOLUTIONS

1. I will only buy clothing I like. That may seem like a no-brainer, but periodically I panic about not looking “professional” (whatever that means). Then I go shopping and buy whatever fits my body and my very vague conception of how I should look, even though I do not love the item or feel particularly awesome when I wear it. This means that it languishes in the closet, a hanging reminder of my stupid waste of money, and I still have nothing to wear to work. Oh I hate clothing, I truly do. I wish it were the future and we all wore standardized, unisex jumpsuits in soft luxurious fabrics. Or that a Russian businessman with a shadowy past would buy me a whole shipping container full of black cashmere turtlenecks and knee-length, A-line skirts, for then I would be set for life and never have to go shopping again. I can handle the tights/shoes/brassieres/jewelry, you can leave those out of the shipping container. Thanks, Mysterious Benefactor!

2. I will snack more. I know, that is the opposite of most New Year’s resolutions. But I tend to let myself get too hungry, which means that right before mealtime I start cramming whatever damn-fool thing I can find into my mouth. And not in the sense of “oh tee hee, I snack on the veggies while I prepare dinner for my family.” In the sense of “I shall eat a giant glob of cream cheese directly off this butter knife.” I think if I planned sensible snacks* this would have a better chance of not happening.

*Every time I hear the word “sensible” combined with a food-word, I think of those old Slimfast commercials with Elizabeth Ashley. Shake for breakfast, shake for lunch, and a SENSIBLE DINNER! My college friends and I were obsessed with those ads and used to go around rasping “SENSIBLE DINNER!” at each other. The 1990s were a weird time, kids.

3. I will find some chores or tasks for my child to do. Nora does a lot of self-care things and daily-routine things all by herself (thank you, Montessori). At almost seven, of course she washes her own hair, does her own homework (although someone usually sits with her so she doesn’t get lonely), hangs up her jacket (with reminders), takes her plate to the dishwasher, and gets her own snacks (from a preapproved selection). But we only have one kid, our house is not that huge, a nice lady comes to seriously clean it every other week, and Nora doesn’t tend to make giant messes when she plays. Consequently there is no housework we ask her to do, and I’m starting to think there should be. It’s crazy, because I will almost be inventing tasks just to give to her, but these skills have got to be developed sometime. Suggestions from autonomy-minded parents with school-age kids would be welcome.

TRANSIT POLICE

While of course I will continue my war against train wankers and petty thieves, I find myself branching out a bit lately when it comes to the public shaming of my fellow commuters. Last week I was coming home after a shitty day and the guy in front of me was vigorously picking his nose. Okay, fine. Everyone does it sometimes, most of us wait until we’re alone in the house, but whatever. I kept trying to read but the grossness was too compelling and the next time I glanced up, he was wiping his nostril-treasure on the bus window. MORE THAN ONCE. This grown man, with no visible mental defect or developmental delay, was picking stuff out of his nose and depositing it onto the bus, this bus right here, THE BUS THAT DOES NOT BELONG TO YOU, SIR BUTTMUNCH. I honestly could not stand it for one more minute, I felt like I was going to start screaming and cause a Bus Ruckus of my own, so I leaned forward and sort of punched him in the back of the shoulder. When he turned around, I pointed to the window, made the stern mom-face, and shook my head “no.” To his very minor credit he did not try to argue with me or deny his transgression (that would have been difficult with his BOOGERS STREAKING THE WINDOW), he just turned back around and we left it at that.

2. Later that same week I was on the train listening to two white guys have an odd quiet argument. At first I thought they were bickering lovers, that’s how bitchy and straining-not-to-be-overheard it all was, but gradually I realized that they were total strangers fighting about how the one guy had bumped the other guy’s arm while sitting down and NOT APOLOGIZED. Like, are you kidding me? You could tell they had been at it for a while, because the arm thing was only brought up occasionally and the rest was about “common courtesy” and “respect” and I thought my eyes were going to roll right out of my head. After two full subway stops of this shit I said, in a conversational tone and without taking my eyes off my book, “Personally I think you are both acting like douchebags.” Amazingly, that succeeded in embarrassing them where their own ridiculous behavior had failed, and they were quiet for the rest of my ride.

LIVING ROOM LAVA

This weekend featured a somewhat surprising amount of excellent pretend play from Nora. It was great because I was a bit hungover on Sunday and got to just lie on the couch and hear her say all kinds of crazy things. She made a huge obstacle course around the living room for herself because the floor was made of lava, and then because that wasn’t challenge enough she made a dozen alligators out of pink construction paper to scatter about. They were special pink alligators that can live in lava you see. And she also fashioned a cardboard Alligator Taser Gun, which stuns them temporarily so that you can, I don’t know, look at the lava in peace or something. Maybe it was just fun to pretend to shoot something. The alligators had removable eyebrows (double-stick tape), and the eyebrows went on when they were stunned. That’s how you knew.

HAPPY MLK ROTTEN EGG DAY

On Friday, when she got home from school, Nora had forgotten her lunchbox.

Me: No biggie, I can pack you a bag lunch and you’ll get it on Tuesday.

Nora: Well, except…

Me: Except what?

Nora: Except there’s bad news about the lunchbox.

Me: Like what?

Nora: There’s a hard-boiled egg in there that I didn’t eat.

Me: Oh great.

Nora [with hopeful expression]: Do you think it might EXPLODE?

We shall see, shan’t we? The hour of reckoning draws nigh!

—mimi smartypants suits up for Level 3 biohazard.

Another “alas” is that I really should have put snowpants on Nora. What was I thinking? I suppose I was thinking that we could trudge to the bus stop like normal cold-weather citizens without hopping, shuffling, and wallowing in the snow while frequently yelling “AWESOME!” Clearly that was stupid and delusional. Karma-style, the fact that she is not in snowpants will mean that the kids will have outdoor recess today,* which will equal a wet afternoon for Nora, who luckily will not care since almost nothing causes her discomfort. I am currently searching for a militia group with a summer-camp opening, because she is very good at hardship, extreme environments, physical labor, and group exercise. There is also a fondness for weapons (the more arcane, the better—the crossbow is a current favorite) and chanting. Any suggestions?

*Cannot figure out the school’s winter rubric for deciding on indoor or outdoor recess. It seems to be pure caprice, or perhaps a Magic 8-Ball with the die weighted toward “outdoor.” I don’t really care, but it would be nice to dress the child appropriately for the weather. And not make her lug around snowpants if she’s just going to be playing Legos in the classroom or running around screaming in the gym.

Here is a note that Nora left next to my bed a few days ago.

I love you googolplex and you are the most buetiful [sic] woman in the world!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Of course she can spell “googolplex” but not “beautiful.” Of course.

LINK IT LIKE YOU MEAN IT

Yes! Thank you!

Katie Roiphe, go take a hike. No one cares what you think about literature.

“Wouldn’t fuck her with Hitler’s dick” is going straight into my catchphrase rotation for January. Although, since I don’t usually comment on people’s unfuckability, I think I’ll change the verb as needed. Bad movie? Wouldn’t watch that with Hitler’s dick! Ugly sweater? Wouldn’t wear it with Hitler’s dick! The fact that it makes no sense will just be icing on the Hitler-dick cake.

(By the way, I am sorry this whole entry is so unsafe for work and for Mormons and for people offended by pop-culture references to Hitler. I am not sure what is wrong with me today. I have been drinking this goofy detox tea and maybe the weirdness and pottymouth is all the toxins leaving my system. What a great excuse for bad behavior! I wonder how long I can use it.)

I HAVE A SCONE

Speaking of tea (although not of the liver-cleansing sort), I and all the female members of my immediate family (sister, mother, daughter) will soon be having it at a fancy hotel, just like in years past. Not at the Drake though, because the Drake sucks now. Just about the only reason to go there for tea is if you have a fetish for stale sandwiches or to gawk at the outlandish Christmas decorations. And Christmas is over! Long live Martin Luther King Jr Day! No school, all the adults also have it off, and thus a new annual afternoon-tea tradition was born. Because that MLK guy, he had a dream. And his dream was that three white ladies and one Asian child should be able to have tea and cakes in a five-star hotel on his birthday. Seriously, look it up, it’s in the speech somewhere.

—mimi smartypants is a diamond in the roughage.

Well, that certainly was a lot of holidays. We had Christmas (cookies and Webkinz* and science toys), my birthday (pasta and wine), New Year’s Eve (girls eventually asleep in footie pajamas, their parents drunk on good beer, an unfortunate-but-brief tour of terrible pornography on cable). Soon it will be LT’s birthday and time for more celebrating. Later in the month it will be Nora’s (SEVENTH!) birthday. By February I will be so done with things like wine and cake and French cheese. I will be begging for a lettuce leaf and a glass of room-temperature water.

*There is no reason that you should know about this unless you are parent to the target audience, but Webkinz are stuffed animals that come with their own online avatar. Of a sort. There are quasi-educational games** to play that earn your fake animal fake money with which it can buy fake items for its fake room. Nora adores the games but she is the richest person in Webkinz Land because of a serious lack of interest in the fake-shopping component. I think it’s stupid, but harmless, and that if she chooses to spend her limited screen time in front of the computer instead of a superhero cartoon I shall not, as they say, “sweat it.”

**Actually, I have to be honest and admit that I am just as hooked on this Scrabble analogue as she is. Not only is it fun to make words, but the music is strangely Dave Brubeck-ish and I like how upset the beavers get when you don’t do well. One of them clutches his little beaver head and rocks from side to side. It’s awesome.

Oh, and speaking of celebrations, here is a sign that Nora inexplicably made and taped to my living room wall. Time to party, I suppose.

THE ETERNALLY TEDIOUS TOPIC

Disclaimer: I like Kristin. She is friendly and warm and cheerfully hauled my West-Coast-impaired ass from San Francisco to the middle of wine-country-nowhere for that blogger meetup party back in the fall. She’s on some kind of fitness quest and that’s cool. I could give a shit where people find their bliss, as long as it’s not in puppy-stomping or yelling about Jesus on public transportation.

She wrote this post on an exercise-focused blog, and apparently it’s a response to some other post about obesity and genetics and body types. My standard response to those kinds of discussions is yawny rather than drama-rrific, because after twenty years of reading everything there is to read about gender and body image I am not able to argue about it anymore. Either you get it or you don’t, and it makes me sort of sad that the larger issues get lost when they are glossed over with a coating of “health” and “obesity crisis.”

However, because I am pathologically unable to ignore this kind of thing, I did end up reading it, and in all the comments, not one person remarked on the thing that Kristin said about losing weight that really saddened me:

I do love that I don’t feel the need to turn off all the lights before I get into bed with Corey. And yes, it’s an immense relief to not have to contort myself into various hunched self-conscious positions in order to make myself less conspicuous at the swimming pool.

Listen hard, now: you never did have to turn out those lights or hunch into those positions. No one has to. Not at one hundred or three hundred pounds.

In fact, I order everybody to fuck with the lights on and carry a sign at the swimming pool that says YEAH I’M IN A BATHING SUIT. Maybe that second part is unnecessary. I’ll leave it for you to decide.

Like I said, Kristin’s a good egg. Because of that, I hope she takes this next criticism in the gentle teasing spirit in which it is meant: girl, you simply have to stop blogging about “tasting vomit” or “almost puking” or “wanting to puke” when talking about strenuous exercise. You are not making it sound very appealing.

CONSERVATION IS GROSS

My office is replacing all the toilets with water-saving ones, and when I got this memo I shrugged and forgot all about it. Yay planet Earth, yay feel-good corporate gestures, yay fewer gallons of water washing away our excretions. Whatever. Then I actually saw one of the new toilets. It looks like a regular toilet, but there is a little metal sign near the flusher that instructs you to press the handle up for “liquid waste” and down for “solid waste.” Oh god. I was not prepared for so much discussion of “waste.” I know it is just between me and the toilet, but do we have to talk about it so much? Every time I read the sign I get embarrassed all over again. In a tiny bit of good news, the handle seems to work fine in both directions.

WINTER OLYMPICS

Nora and I went ice skating last week. Her first time ever and my first time since the teenage years. It was sort of alarming how well she did—a few spills but she got the hang of it very quickly. “Very quickly” is also how she skated, I was not sure why we had to skate so FAST. I was planning some leisurely turns around the rink to the strains of radio-friendly hip-hop, but somehow she was always zooming way ahead of me and I was struggling to keep up. Time to get her fitted for one of those speed-skating full-body condoms.

—mimi smartypants is an ice-devouring sex tornado.

The other day I was doing something at the sink while Nora showered the post-karate sweat off of her tiny muscular body, and she yelled “Hey! Have you ever done push-ups in the shower?”

No. No I have not.

“You should! It’s AWESOME!”

I peeked around the curtain and sure enough, military-style push-ups in the steaming hot spray. Nora will do calisthenics anytime, anywhere. She also loves hot tubs, saunas, plunging into cold water, sleeping naked on my mom’s heated bed with the settings all the way up to “broil,” deep massages, getting slathered with lotion, and serious loofah exfoliation. Is she part Spartan?

FUNNY

This is the funniest anal examination story I have ever read. Yes I know, that’s a pretty low bar. But still.

NOT FUNNY

After sex, LT stereotypically asleep and me wide awake, feeling a weird ache in my left leg (not sex-related, as far as I could remember) and obsessing about blood clots. In fact, I spent close to an hour fretting and worrying about blood clots. Ooooh, even just typing the words makes my leg start to ache. Which is probably a clue that all this blood clot anxiety is purely psychological. Dying suddenly is one of my greatest fears now, as opposed to when I was childless and actually goth-daydreamed about different ways I could romantically meet my demise.

When it was finally morning I went to work, all tired from not dying of a blood clot, and had one of those weird days where you feel invisible. People bumped into me and barely excused themselves.  I made a suggestion in a work email and five rounds later someone made the same suggestion, with much hoopla and praise. Yeah I know it’s a great idea, that’s why I said it. FIRST. If life were an episode of Twilight Zone, it would turn out that I really did die of a blood clot and my purgatory was a daily public-transit commute to a mid-level management position at a publishing company. Hey, it’s Rod Serling blowing secondhand smoke in my face! Ahhhh!

NO ONE WANTS THIS

I don’t remember much about this dream, but there was a box on a shelf with this label

FOOD THAT WILL

GIVE ORGASMS TO

THE HOWLER MONKEY

With those line breaks and everything. Was it for sale? Was it just on a shelf in a zoo storage area? I do not know.

YULE “LOG”

‘Tis the season for Christmas-related scrotal jokes! I have been having fun with “Santa’s sack.” His sack is bigger than yours! I also enjoy affecting a Borat-style accent and pretending that I am at an office party and do not understand the meaning of “grab bag.” Grab bag? Is this some kind of scrotum-seizing ritual? Okay, I will grab your bag! As they say in America!

—mimi smartypants brings you some figgy pudding.

I ran a whole bunch of miles this week. This is all very good for my cholesterol and weight maintenance and future cancer risk. It may be less good for my mental health (despite scientific evidence to the contrary), because I am starting to feel a little addictive and obsessive about it. I think about when I can run next, I want to read about running, I want to post Facebook updates about my latest run, I have been lurking on running forums, I have been boring my friends with the running talk. Is this why most professional athletes are rather dull people? Do I need to return to my beer-swilling, slug-like ways in order to have anything interesting to say?  Is there some sort of cocaine-like substance being secreted from the fabric of my sport bra? Seriously, what is going on with me?

It’s the data. I’m addicted to data, which is one reason I run on the treadmill instead of outside. Data addiction has been expressing itself lately in less-healthy ways than just exercise, however. For instance, I can see Nora’s grades online. This is a useful feature of the Chicago Public Schools in a lot of ways. Most of the teachers put the assignments online, so I can sort of see what’s been going on in class. Attendance is tracked too, so in theory if you had a high schooler who was skeeving off every day to go smoke grass at the lakefront, you’d know about it.

However, because I am ABLE to look at her grades online, I end up doing it EVERY DAY. Which is ludicrous and gives the whole Grades Enchilada a lot more mental weight than it should rightfully have. Of course the averages change very slightly every day, since even the occasional in-class worksheet is “graded” at this school, so I end up thinking things like WHAT’S THIS B IN MATH? THE KID KNOWS BORROWING AND CARRYING ALREADY! And then of course I back off and calm down (and it should go without saying that I never say anything of the sort to Nora herself). And I remember that this is FIRST GRADE and that grades are not a reflection of what she knows anyway, and so on et cetera et cetera. But honestly, I blame the data. If the option of seeing the online grades were not available I would notice her grades about four times a year (each report-card day). But it is available, so I look.

Wrapped up with the data problem is the simple fact that I sometimes get lonely for my kid during the day. So I check her grades online for the same pathetic reason that I have her schedule taped up next to my computer: to feel a little more connected to her school life. Next week, however, there will be more school connection than I’ll know what to do with, as I’m taking off to both volunteer at lunch AND hear her sing the dreidel song at the “Winter Pageant.” Her class is doing a Kwanzaa song too, which just seems to be about following your dreams and you can achieve blah blah. (Although at least it’s better than this one last year.) This annoys me. If we must acknowledge Kwanzaa, at least make it awesome and 1970s “Afrocentric,” with drums and power salutes.

MORE iPOD CRITIQUE FROM THE BACK SEAT

Song: “Reena” by Sonic Youth.

Nora: Ugh this song is boring. Oh man it’s so stupid. Oh BORING. What band is this?

Me: They’re called Sonic Youth.

Nora: It’s terrible.

Me: Well, it’s not their best work, that’s for sure.

Nora: I like the name “Sonic Youth.” That’s a good name. The song should be better.

Song: “Serge” by Folk Implosion

Nora: Is this a guitar? And drums?

Me: Yeah, I think so.

Nora: It doesn’t really sound like a guitar.

Me: There’s a lot of other stuff…some recorded samples…plus effect pedals too.

Nora: It sounds like a video game.

Song: “Soon” by My Bloody Valentine

Nora: The best part is where it goes bonk bonk bonk.

Me: [deciding to just let that one lie there]

Song: “Shout It Out Loud” by KISS

Nora: Oh this is good. Good music, mom.

Me [curious]: Why do you like this?

Nora: I don’t know. It’s just like more rrraaaarrrrr, you know?

Me: Yeah.

PARTY CRITIQUE

The worst music I’ve personally heard lately was at my husband’s work party. What that DJ was thinking, playing Miley Cyrus at a too-loud-to-talk volume during cocktail hour, is beyond me. Miley Cyrus! This is an office party, no one here is twelve years old! Also, thanks a lot for giving me the “Single Ladies” earworm for a full week. Catchiest fucking song in existence, could be used by the CIA to control people’s minds.

The party was on a boat, which was kind of superfluous in a Chicago winter. Every once in a while I would look out the window and remark on the novelty of the moving skyline, but really it could have been any generic party room. The true novelty, of course, was not knowing anybody other than LT. I considered going way overboard on the wine and sharing lunatic hollow-earth stories with everyone I met—can’t fire someone for having a crazy spouse!—but instead I behaved myself. BORING! ALMOST AS BORING AS A 2006 SONIC YOUTH TRACK! Now I need a really proper drinking session, perhaps for my birthday. And speaking of birthdays, one of the strangers at the party guessed that I was 30 years old (it came up when she was shocked that LT and I had been married for almost 15 years). This pleased me. I did not want it to please me because I EMBRACE MY CURRENT AGE! I AM BEYOND ALL THAT CRAP! But it still pleased me, which means I have some work to do. Drinking heavily and deconstructing society’s fascist conception of femininity will be the first step! WHO’S WITH ME?

—mimi smartypants tips her bartenders.