the race to get your feelings validated
On the walk to my Pilates lesson yesterday, I was catcalled from a car driving on Lawrence. This is a rare experience for me now at my “advanced age,” but I suppose it was a combination of me deciding to wear leggings and exist. We won’t get into Why This Behavior From Men, that will always remain a mystery, but I do wish to discuss the exact nature of the catcalling, which was “MAMI WHOOOO! YOU GOT PLENTY OF ASS FOR ME!”
This is a complex one, because it is kind of a diss, right? Not “wow what an ass” but more like “attention: your ass is inadequate in the eyes of mainstream society but I, a unique and discerning individual, find it quite serviceable.”
I saw Mogwai at Metro (and Ohio ‘90s band Brainac as an opener, remember them? I only very dimly did, musically, although I do remember the sadness of Tim Taylor’s accident). Mogwai was very, very loud. It was probably not the loudest show I have ever seen—that honor would go to Godspeed You! Black Emperor, at a venue that was too small for them, at a volume that made me scared. Not scared like “oh no, this might be damaging my hearing” but like…physiologically scared? Like my inner organs were scared, a slow-motion panic attack of the liver and kidneys.
Anyway, Mogwai was loud, but very good, and Metro smelled very much of weed vapor, and (possibly because of the aforementioned), the crowd was a little strange. I mean, it was about what I expected demographically (fellow Olds with glasses and vintage jackets), but at one point a random man asked me for tweezers. No, bro, I did not bring tweezers to the Mogwai show and would I really lend them to you if I had? The woman to my left was wearing her crossbody purse opposite to mine and she got my attention and then pressed her purse to my purse and said (in my ear, during a loud part), “OUR PURSES JUST KISSED!!!” Pretty sure she was just an odd bird but I did check my pockets and outer purse compartments immediately after that in case it was a weirdo pickpocketing move.
WE PAUSE FOR AN ANECDOTE ABOUT MY TEENAGE SELF
Generally I would describe my pre-adult self as an extreme rule-follower, but my infrequent transgressions were fairly large. Not “send her to the psychiatrist” or “troubled teen” level, but I got detention more than one would expect for someone who was studious/mature/a pleasure to have in class. I got caught smoking a cigarette at badminton practice (no real consequences other than laps and a coach lecture for that one). I argued with teachers; not all of them took it well or had the skills to get my obnoxious ass to shut up. I would sometimes stage odd little 1-minute protests or surrealist performance-art moments, during “valuable class time.” (I had a few friends who would participate, but more often it was a weird one-woman show.) I remember one of these involved ripping a dollar bill in half and I was sent to the principal for, honest to god, Title 18, Section 333 of the United States Code (you may not mutilate, cut, deface, disfigure, or perforate bank bills, drafts, notes, or other evidence of debt issued by national banking associations, Federal Reserve banks, or the Federal Reserve System). (Well, the teacher just wrote “destroying government property” on the “why are you going to the principal” form. And the principal was like WTF, and he had access to LEXIS-NEXUS [the olden days], so together we looked up what actual law I broke, and then he just said “okay, go back to class.”)
UNIMPORTANT
In general I want the English spellings of things but I do insist on retaining the “o” in “amoeba.”
If I were POTUS I would be ten thousand times as competent as the current situation (mostly because I would hire brainiacs (maybe I’d actually hire Brainiac! To rock the fuck out of the government!) and would do what they said. But I also might be hated for all the stupid bullshit I just wouldn’t do. I wouldn’t invite the winners of the SuperBowl to the White House, who cares. I wouldn’t take a meeting with the Pope; the Pope is not relevant, sorry. I wouldn’t pardon the turkey. The whole thing doesn’t even make sense, what “crime” has the turkey committed? (You can tell that I really object to the word “pardon” more than anything else.)
There is a grocery store on Kedzie with a sign saying they sell “CHICKEN & MEAT.” The special status of chicken (not a meat, not a vegetable, a secret third thing).
My podcast app lets you listen at “1.2 speed,” which is not sped up enough to give me anxiety or cause interstitial music to sound super weird, but is fast enough to trim stupid silences and keep things moving. There is one podcast I will not name where the female narrator still talks so slowly for me and I cannot help thinking dear god, how slow does she “really” talk?
This! I love Frank O’Hara.
—mimi smartypants at wavy midnight and you slip into insane.