hairy potter
ATROCIOUS
Yesterday was the stupidest day. I got sucked into a ridiculous power struggle with my child, with tears and shouting. She is SIX, I am THIRTY-SEVEN, who should be more mature? So that sucked because I like her and I don’t want us to be angry potatoes, and it meta-sucked because I felt badly about being such a crap mom. The bad feelings were not lessened when later a very tired and emotionally-wrung-out Nora started moaning right before bed how she likes “mommy days” better than days with her sitter. No shit because I’m awesome.
I know she likes her sitter, but it was still hard to hear after all that drama. Plus I miss the nut when I’m at work—not in any desperate or guilty or clichéd mommy-war way, just in an “aww she is so nice and I wish we were at the playground now” sort of way. It all combined for a mopey evening.
Also, during dinner clean-up I somehow managed to dash a bowl against the counter. It broke in half, which would have been a big “whatever” except then I sort of stumbled into the explosion and jabbed a pointy shard of crockery right into my left wrist. Then I dropped both halves of the bowl and it finished shattering on the floor. Dinner clean-up got a whole lot more complicated, plus I was bleeding and had to wear a band-aid horizontally on my wrist like an attention-seeking high-school goth. One who doesn’t know that it’s “down the road” and not “across the street.”
THREE PUPPETS TO WHOM I FEEL EMOTIONALLY CONNECTED
1. Grover from Sesame Street
THREE GOOD SONGS BY YO LA TENGO
1. Cherry Chapstick
2. From A Motel 6
3. Moby Octopad
THREE THINGS I MAY WANT TO BUY TICKETS FOR, DESPITE BEING A NOTORIOUS CHEAPSKATE
1. Dinosaur Jr
2. Decent seats for a Bears game
3. Jesus Lizard
THREE WEIRD BUT INOFFENSIVE PEOPLE ON MY BUS ROUTE
1. The woman who makes the sign of the cross at anyone who coughs or sneezes.
2. Guy who paces around at the bus stop literally wringing his hands and looking like he’s about to scream with anxiety.
3. Woman who has shaved off both her eyebrows and drawn them back on, only she’s made a series of little dots and not connected the line.
Speaking of eyebrows.
OVERHEARD (AND IMMEDIATELY TRANSCRIBED) ON THE RED LINE
Tall, bearded, African American man to his friend. They have briefcases and golf shirts and look like they’re coming from an office.
“So what do you think. What do you think about a full-on, no-bullshit poundcake. You know, where you can taste the vanilla and the butter but it’s not overpowering, it just melds together in your mouth. Do you think that is something that would be sought after?”
I felt honored to be sitting behind the city’s premier cake marketer.
—mimi smartypants would like a slice of no-bullshit poundcake.