another heartbeat in the room
CRUEL, CRUEL SUMMER (WITH FOOD AND DRINK)
The universe must have heard my whining in the last entry because suddenly everything’s coming up Mimi. Well, not work. If work were fun and fulfilling it would be called something else. But some things I was under-the-surface fretting about have resolved themselves, I got kind of serious about exercise and hydration and the right kind of socializing, and Chicago weather seems to be getting back to normal, meaning swinging between ABSOLUTELY LOVELY and WAY TOO HOT. I will take it over the every-other-hour tropical rainstorms of a few weeks ago.
I had brunch three weekends in a row, which was literally a New Year’s resolution. One brunch was at this Lincoln Park place that was VERY Lincoln Park. I could imagine Tinsley Mortimer and her amazing mom* eating there every Sunday. The food was good but I felt terrible for the waitstaff because the best-selling rosé was named “Sex” and how many times a day does some botox’d matron or shrieking sentient manicure “hilariously” order more Sex. God. I would slit my throat.
*If you watch RHONY, and you give me some alcohol, I will (with very little prompting) start talking like Dale Mercer because I find her rude comments, spoken in a very posh Virginia accent, to be the best thing ever. In fact it may be hard to get me to stop talking like that.
One of my other brunches was pre-Pride parade, with Aaron and my sister-in-law. We walked down to a reasonably shady place to stand and noted the incredible amount of balloons involved this year. Some investigative reporter needs to EXPOSE the Big Gay Balloon Monopoly! There did not used to be this many balloons at Pride; I am not kidding.
I got in a minor argument with a lady who kept telling me to move over (nowhere to move to, we’re in a crowd situation in case you had not noticed) and that she was “stepping on my foot.” I replied pleasantly that no, she was fine standing where she was and was not at all stepping on my foot, and she started yelling about how she should know if she’s stepping on my foot or not. But conversely, I should know if my foot is being stepped on, yes? Oh the unknowable perceptions of the Other!
If it had gone on much longer I was going to offer her a THC edible to chill the fuck out but she abruptly left, to go not-step on someone else’s foot I guess. We got back to my sister-in-law’s place just before the rain and finished the day with rosé on the deck. (Not Sex.)
SOMETIMES I THINK THE CAT VET WANTS A VACATION HOME
We take our cats to a fancy cats-only vet practice. The upside of this is that the vets are, you know, full of cat knowledge. The downside is that they often come up with More Things You Should Do For Your Cats. Lola’s last batch o’ bloodwork showed that she might not be absorbing all the nutrients she needs from food, so the vet recommended we give her B12 injections. I probably will do this, as it is cheap and can be done at home, but damn. Is Lola a Edie-Sedgwick-style superstar in Warhol’s Factory? Or JFK reincarnated? Paging Dr Feelgood!
NOT A SPOILER
But Toy Story 4 is definitely implying a MFF throuple with Woody/Bo Peep/the Polly Pocket-esque Giggle McDimples—yes? (I will let you work on the Polly Pocket/polyamarous joke yourself.)
ALSO NOT A SPOILER
The New York Review of Books reissued “classics” is kind of a mishmash; some of the “forgotten” novels could happily have remained forgotten, but every once in a while there is a book where I wonder why I didn’t read it before, or why I was not assigned it in a literature class. Turtle Diary by Russell Hoban is in the latter category. Very short, very dry, very depressing in a wry British way (but not ultimately despairing). It kind of reminded me both of (the original) The Office and a less-horny Nicholson Baker. Representative amusing bit, when William G, one of the protagonists, is at the aquarium:
The sign said: “The Green Turtle, Chelonia mydas, is the source of turtle soup…” I am the source of William G. soup if it comes to that. Everyone is the source of his or her kind of soup. In a town as big as London that’s a lot of soup walking about.
He also refers to another aquarium resident as a “poor little civil-servant-looking leopard shark.” Anyway I am sure this book is not everyone’s cup of mopey-smirky tea but you can see why I like it.
FIX YOURSELF
Two personal-grooming recommendations:
- The original Baby Foot foot peel. It is not cheap but it is the one that works and it was a delightful experience for me. At first there are several days of “this is not working.” Then there are several days of wanting to call in sick so you can stay home and peel your feet. DELIGHTFUL.
- As someone who does not love foundation but who also does not like my face with nothing on it, I am now all about this tinted face oil. (That is a Bon Appetit link but I don’t know why. Don’t eat the tinted face oil.) It is perfect for my dumb dehydrated face skin and feels like nothing at all! (Stupid Sexy Flanders!) I used the shade finder on Sephora’s website based on a foundation I already had and it worked well.
Happy Friday! Make something today. A sandwich, a sentence. A baby! A photo. A joke. A paper bag puppet! Make anything. I think it will help.
—mimi smartypants uses her fangs to inject digestive fluid directly into the prey; liquifying the insides but leaving the exoskeleton more or less intact.