mimi smartypants
Seriously, though: what's with the penguins?

back with the hazmat for the next round

MORE CIRCUMSTANCE LESS POMP

There is a new POTUS and everyone feels better, but it’s like the “better” when you’re no longer actively throwing up but still shaky and weird and not ready to do much. I also wish our main elected leader was not one thousand years old but whatever, he has a sturdy and healthy backup lady so that’s good. I have been impressed with how Kamala Harris seems to really wear those Chuck Taylors quite often, not just for photo ops to look (comparatively) young, because even in the ‘80s the lack of arch support would leave me nearly crippled after walking my paper route.* So I can’t really imagine being 56 and wearing them for a punishing campaign day. BRAVA. 

* Did anyone else have a “job” delivering these old-timey things called “newspapers”? I think it was my idea to do this in middle school. I probably had some romanticized idea of it from some book, because 95% of everything I did or wanted to do as a child was from a book. The whole thing was so, so exploitative that I think even my mom, who was big on responsibility and supporting my crazy ideas, wanted me to quit. You had to put the advertising flyers in yourself, you had to collect payment door-to-door for the people who didn’t pay by mailing in their checks (unsafe! sometimes my mom would tail me in the car, and when she couldn’t I was told to NEVER go inside), you had to follow people’s crazy directions for where they wanted the paper (on the stoop! in the mailbox! balanced on the doorknob! [this was a real demand]), and the paper distributor made the delivery people “buy” the rubber bands and plastic rain sheaths out of their meager paychecks. Such bullshit! My paper route made me a Communist. 

Personally I think the number one thing making this new administration nice (so far) is that 45 can’t tweet how much it sucks. He can’t tweet about anything! Of course I never followed him but it all seeped in anyway, the lies and the outrage about the lies and it was all so dumb and I’m glad that part is over. 

BMOC

Aaron was admitted everywhere he applied and needs to actually choose a college soon-ish. It is nice to be wanted. All these yes-colleges send lots and lots of email–both to potential students and parents—which I understand, because now it’s their turn to be in “pick me!” mode. On some of these emails from Purdue* I noticed that the Director of Admissions is named “Mitch” and wait, isn’t the president of Purdue also named Mitch? Too Much Mitch! Disqualified! (Could that guy look any more like the president of a university? We had a clone of him at my tiny school during my tenure. Our guy was also a Chaucer specialist—I don’t trust those—but he taught one class on Chaucer a year and it was actually pretty good.)

*Purdue does not seem to be my kid’s top choice at the moment. I don’t think that is because of the Mitch Problem, though. That is my own personal issue. 

I worry at a macro level about all this college stuff, of course. Ideally this would be the Year Of Slow Separation—looser leashes, later curfews, maybe getting a job or otherwise spending a lot of time away from home—but here we are, enmeshed as ever. It is a lovely enmeshement, I love my son, and I will be truly bereft when he goes away to college and we no longer spend evenings together snarking on stupid CW shows. But I want this to happen, it is the natural order of things, so I guess what I’m saying is give us the vaccine already, thank you. 

LUNCH AT THE DINER

I cannot remember the crime with any clarity, but on one of my murderwalks (a 5K around the neighborhood with a true-crime podcast) there was a murderer husband (of course) who got rid of his wife because (?) he had a stripper “girlfriend” on the side. He was also hugely in debt because of this. The cops went through his finances and found that he had visited the strip club 39 times in 3 months and I can’t even imagine! That is so much strip club! He was able to hide it somewhat because the strip club had a system where you bought “credits” from them—with a 10% surcharge—to buy drinks and tip the strippers, and then of course they turned around and took another 10% from the strippers to actually get their tips. It was a side note and obviously not the point of the podcast but it made me so mad. Strippers and newspaper delivery people, unite! 

MOOD RING

Are the mood swings because I’m old or because pandemic?

—mimi smartypants is the most widely consumed beverage in the world (after water).