drag you like a kite
ON SCOOPING THE CAT BOX
I will not say there is an art to it, although I want to. You have to work deep but gentle. Get underneath the clump, all the way, cradle it under the scoop. Those who fail to do so (and we won’t name names here) just break the clump into wet awful bits, worse than useless for scooping and disposal. Be authoritative but not aggressive. Know how much pressure to apply. I sound like I’m talking about what Kristi W, the “fastest” girl in 8th grade—she of the Guess jeans, gold hoop earrings, frosted lipstick—called “hand stuff.” The first time you get into someone’s pants and are not quite sure what angle, what pressure, does it for them. Oh, Self! Come on now! You did not just compare the proper way to scoop clumping cat litter to the act of fingerbanging. Oh but I did. No-Delete Thursday rules are in effect.
NEAT NEAT NEAT
Our toaster started refusing to toast so a new one was purchased. LT plugged in the new toaster and oriented it perpendicular, rather than parallel, to the counter. For a time I flipped that arrangement each time I saw it—not with annoyance or exasperation, just as a routine part of wiping down the counters. Toaster slots should be horizontally oriented! It is the one true way! It was a silent “argument” LT did not know he was having, and I was only peripherally aware of it myself, for micro-kitchen-seconds per day. Then one day it was like a veil lifted, and aha! A perpendicular toaster means the toaster controls face the user. LT was correct all along. Peace and serenity, without a single word exchanged.
COCAINE AND SHITTY PILLS
In no particular order:
I tried a Pilates reformer class: it was at this super-bougie Instagram-fancy place with lights and music, probably not at all what Joe Pilates imagined when he was alive, all Teutonic in his leotard among the ballerinas. The place is right by work and I could not resist their introductory deal of essentially three classes for the price of one. I will attend all three but probably won’t be back after that; class was moderately fun and I was moderately sore in the right places the next day but gosh, what an awful lot of apparatus.* Give me some kettlebells and TRX straps and I can accomplish much the same thing as this infernal machine.
*(Apparatuses?) (I looked it up and apparatus is sometimes considered an uncountable noun. Wouldn’t that be the greatest title for a song or a poem? Uncountable Noun. I am giving it to you.)
I have a friend who was proud of me for trying the Pilates class at all because she said she would not have had the guts, and I do understand that; we both have funny relationships with “frivolous” capitalist activities and with performative femininity, and it can indeed feel weird to bop into a place like that in your discount Old Navy workout gear, a good decade (or two!) older than the front-desk girl with hair extensions, $200 leggings, and an enormous engagement ring, and say Hello I Am Here, In Only Moderately Decent Middle-Aged Shape, To Do The Exercise. And Also I Know Nothing.
Here is my advice for that kind of feeling. First, knowing nothing is great! It means you get a free pass on looking dumb because guess what: you know nothing! Problem solved.
Second, and somewhat more difficult to explain: My mother raised me right, and I am always polite to people who are doing me a service. However, if you are feeling awkward, it helps to remember that they are, indeed, doing you a service. You don’t have to be haughty about it, and it’s not like the serviceperson is “less” than you, but she (for example) does manicures. You are the person, with the busy schedule and the disposable income, receiving a manicure. You don’t have to be “the type of person” who gets manicures, you just have to play one on TV and ask manicure-person to do her job. A very small amount of fancy-lady attitude goes a long way to soothing this kind of anxiety.
The same week as the Pilates, I got a flu shot at work and the provider was such a severely old lady that I got a little worried. She dropped the syringe twice! She also seemed mad at my sweater, muttering “there’s so much fabric here,” even though it was a loose V-neck and perfectly exposed my shoulder for the stab with only a little manipulation. In that case, she was a person doing me a service but somehow had the upper hand, probably because of her oldness and nurse-ness and the fact of having a needle.
I also went to the Sleater-Kinney show. Although I missed Janet terribly, and I find some of the new songs kind of dramatic and repetitive in a sophomore-undergraduate-art-rock way, it was a good show. All-ages, but Aaron and I were elderly about it and took advantage of the Riviera’s seated balcony. S-K played FOREVER and I only got teary once, during “One More Hour,” which is funny because it’s usually the more riot-grrrrl anthem-y ones (“Little Mouth,” “Get Up”) that get to me rather than the tender songs.
There is more! But I have gone on too long and it will only get longer because of N-DT. The world is an absolute pile of garbage but you and I are possums at heart so LET US SNACK. And try not to get hit by a car.
—mimi smartypants: mixing Molotov cocktails in the subterrain.