waterproof flange
NARROW WORLD OF SPORTS
As a student of rhetoric and literature (hi! It's Pretentious Opening Sentence Day!), I can sometimes become overly hung up on the football announcing rather than the specifics of the game itself. Monday Night Football no longer features the stroke-victim outbursts of John Madden, but I needn't have worried—Tony Kornheiser seems to be picking up the WTF Did He Just Say slack just fine. Besides yelling something about the “vagina of Saskatchewan,” which must have been a mishearing on my part (right?), there were several points in the Colts-Bengals game where he said, “Look at what's coming out of Peyton Manning!” or “I can't believe what just came out of Peyton Manning!” Or some variation on the theme of something, by which he must have meant “a good performance,” coming out of Peyton Manning. The vagueness of what might have been emerging from Peyton Manning was really unpleasant to think about, however. Tapeworms! Creamed corn! Superheated steam! Boysenberry jelly! Or maybe a game show, where contestants have to guess what viscous fluid or creamy filling is flowing out of Peyton Manning, although what would the prizes be? Maybe the prize would be the chance to go home and not be on the game show any more. Or the chance to eliminate the Colts from the NFL entirely, because I really hate them, not least because they have cheerleaders and play in a dome. Plus I don't like Peyton Manning in general, with his little flappy sleeves. Grow some biceps or get a smaller shirt, man, you look ridiculous.
BEGINNING OF A BEAUTIFUL FRIENDSHIP
Many days I am not in the mood for Charlie and his profanity-laced mutterings,* but today I am in a good mood and when he approached me at the bus stop with a shouted, “Hi there, you stupid bitch!” I instantly responded with a cheerful, “Hi yourself, ugly shitlicking bastard!”
Most of Charlie's in-public utterances of this sort are likely met with stony ignore-the-crazy-person silence or possibly beatings, so he was overjoyed when I spoke his language, and we traded a few more insults before I turned on my iPod and boarded the bus. The yeshiva kids at the bus stop absolutely did not know what to think. I feel slightly bad, because there is probably a dedicated relative or group-home counselor who has been working very hard to get Charlie to stop dropping the F-bomb at all and sundry, and here is total-stranger me encouraging him at the bus stop. Oh well.
(*I apologize yet again for my use of “retarded” in that post, so you don't need to email me a second time, okay? Let's just let the sins of 2004 stay in 2004.)
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN WE ARE POOPING IN SPACE
Nora is interested in astronauts and recently asked the inevitable question. She could not be happier about the answer. POOP IN A BAG! she yells, falling over with laughter. This is how you win over a room full of four-year-olds: just tell them that astronauts poop in a bag. Funniest thing ever. And I sort of have to agree, especially when POOP IN A BAG! is shouted from the other room, followed by hysterical giggling. It is even a pretty good insult: “Aaaaah, go poop in a bag.” Go poop in a bag, for all I care! Hey! Peyton Manning! Poop in a bag, why dontcha?
When Nora is not enjoying the potty humor, she is being very charming and fun. We are approximately one month from her fourth birthday and I pretty much give this age the thumbs-up. However, when she is not being charming and fun she is being a rageful hellbeast. We seem to be all done with toddler-style tantrums and have moved right into some sort of premature teenagehood, where Nora occasionally screams, “I AM VERY VERY ANGRY!” complete with tiny veins sticking out on tiny neck. Sometimes there is door-slamming. Sometimes there is “swearing.” I may need to get Nora’s hearing checked because when she is super-pissed she will say, “DAMAGE!” Or sometimes even, “GOD DAMAGE!” Ooooh, blasphemous.
Whatever. She is allowed to be angry, and she does pretty well with just going in her room and getting over it, which takes all of five minutes with the preschool attention span. If I need her to get over it right now (public place, guests in the house, etc), we have had some luck with a modified headstand to “dump the angry out,” and then we pretend that there is a big gooey pile of angry on the floor, and I usually pretend to step in it and get it all over my shoe, ick gross, and if the situation is really desperate I am not above taking a big comedy pratfall in the slippery angry goop, because nothing is funnier than adult incompetence. Except maybe poop in a bag.
And just to confuse things further, this morning Nora was in her room talking to herself while I typed up a portion of this blah blah, and at one point she was clearly giving orders to stuffed animals, one of which was “when I say yo you say woop woop.” Is the girl practicing to rock the party? Until the break-a break-a dawn? Pop that top, make you drop, hanging on the flippity-flop, Nora going to make you say yeee-ah.
THOMAS EDISON IS WEEPING IN HIS GRAVE
My favorite pre-holiday holiday is coming up, the day that we get together with my sister-in-law to pound beers, eat takeout Chinese, and decorate the hell out of some sugar cookies, the kind made with the ghetto dough-in-a-tube. But for this I need wax paper, and I cannot find wax paper ANYWHERE. Target only had parchment paper (what the hell! I am not a Founding Father!) and something called “Reynolds Wrap Release.” Foil! With release! “Happy endings” tinfoil! That is just icky. I want wax paper. The paper of wax. Not schmancy parchment or ejaculated-on aluminum foil. Wax paper is the reason for the season so WHERE IS IT.
VERY SAD
Your search – “Dostoevsky's forehead” – did not match any documents.
—mimi smartypants buckminstered your fuller.