absolutely zippo
A week:
- Murphy Bad Kitty knocked over the Xmas tree. Everything was mostly fine, only one broken ornament and not a favorite one. But so BAD!
- Someone on the street exhaled cigarette smoke more or less directly in my face.
- As a pedestrian, was nearly run over twice, once by a Gonnella bread truck, which at least would have been a locally owned way to die.
- Garage door would not close and the reason was that a wad of flattened disposable diaper, from some other set of garbage cans in the alley, had frozen onto the bottom of said door and was triggering the safety thing. I had to use a broom handle to pry it off and then I used the broom to hockey-slapshot it off into the alley from whence it came.
- And THEN I felt bad about not adequately dealing with (someone else’s!) refuse so I went back into the garage for a shovel to scoop up the frozen diaper and put it in the trash.
- In small personal-growth news, I took the Facebook app off my phone so now if I want to go look at stupid-ass Facebook I have to sit in front of a computer, and who wants to do that. The only part of stupid-ass Facebook I may miss is the theatrics of my neighborhood group, such as being told that I am a bad person who hates animals because I said I would call the appropriate authorities about a large aggressive loose dog rather than trying to catch it myself. Sorry but I think that maybe “no half-feral dogs” is the bare-minimum bar for a pleasant neighborhood. Crazy, right? I’m so crazy.
- Went to an all-ages show with my kid for an indie-folk/bedroom-pop type of guy. It was a very young, very Tumblr, crowd and the amount of screaming WE LOVE YOU and YOU ARE A PERFECT SWEET BABY CINNAMON ROLL and hugs and love and selfies w/peace sign fingers was kind of…gross.
- Not gross, that’s the wrong word. I’m glad all these teens have their glowstick-unicorn-rainbow-kneesock-positivity support of each other, and it’s cool that there even is a musical niche for an ambiguously-presenting skinny British ginger in a Cosby sweater who plays guitar and ukulele and kazoo with just himself and a loop pedal. It’s just…so, so far from my formative musical aesthetic that I guess I can’t relate. At that age I wanted my performers remote and scary and inscrutable, basically. I wanted hiccup David Byrne and Peter Murphy emerging skeletal from a fog of cigarette smoke and Courtney Love showing you her underpants for no clearly definable reason and Corin Tucker being so much cooler than you.
- I actually enjoyed this guy’s music and lyrics but his whole “oh wow this is amazing” and “hug your friends!” deal is just not what I expect in a musical experience. However, with all these sorts of musicians starting out on the internet I think it is EXACTLY what these kids expect. You’re my pal, let’s hang out, here’s a little song I wrote, oh gosh you guys are so nice to clap hee hee. The difference does not make this scene good or bad. It just makes me old.
- (Based on our discussion in the Uber home, Aaron mostly agrees with me re: liking the music but side-eyeing the scene kids. So I am not being a jerk about this.) (Well, not entirely.)
- Learned a lesson that if the gas company is like “hey, we’ve been guesstimating your heating bill for a long time now, let’s set up a time to actually read the meter” you should ignore that shit. IGNORE. Because if you are a good taxpaying homeowner citizen and allow them to read the meter, your next heating bill will be a million goddamned dollars. DON’T TOUCH THAT THERMOSTAT, yells Grandpa Mimi. PUT ON A SWEATER IF YOU’RE COLD.
—mimi smartypants will celebrate with a cool glass of turnip juice.