You are currently browsing the monthly archive for February 2012.
Apparently, in addition to compassion fatigue I also have title fatigue. (Was the “also” redundant? Yes. But it sounded better to me. Just like saying Tuesday thrice sounds better than just twice.)
I feel certain that I’m going to forget that my daughter has piano lessons today, just as I forgot that she had them yesterday, which is why I had them rescheduled for today, but will I remember that? It doesn’t seem possible, all things considered.
(And all things considered, why would I say my daughter has “piano lessons” today? She has a piano lesson today. She accumulates multiple piano lessons over time, but technically has only one today. But I always refer to piano lessons in the plural. Like I did just now. I can’t stop myself!)
I’ve had a few things on my mind. I don’t know if you’ve noticed this or not, but I’m easily overwhelmed. Like most people, I have a hundred things I ought to be doing at any one time, but I’m only willing to think about one or two and prefer to ignore all the others. When circumstances converge so as to force me to not only think about but actually do something about more than a couple things, I start to feel put upon. Hence, my current discomfort. And forgetfulness. I’m simply incapable of remembering most things, let alone everything.
The other day I panicked because I thought I had forgotten to order my dad’s birthday present, but then I remembered that I hadn’t forgotten, and I was relieved. So relieved that I proceeded to forget everything else. (Once I start relaxing, it is really hard for me to stop.)
SO. I know some of you would like to know why Princess Zurg was suspended on Friday. The short answer is “PMS? Insanity?” but the longer answer is this: She had a confrontation with her Language Arts teacher (the latest in a long line of confrontations with this particular teacher, whom she despises for reasons I don’t really understand) that culminated in her threatening the teacher’s life and subsequently she was taken to the Behavior Learning Center classroom to cool down and had another confrontation with a different teacher there, which culminated in her hitting the teacher on the arm. For those of you who aren’t familiar with these new-fangled school policies, that’s a no-no. I mean, all of it’s a no-no. She did very few things on Friday that are actually permitted under ordinary circumstances. So, yes, she absolutely deserved to be suspended for the remainder of that day, and she has had in-school suspension yesterday and today. I think she’s supposed to go back to her regular classes tomorrow, but I think she may be in for a change in Language Arts teachers. We’ll see. I really don’t have time to think about it right now.
Fortunately, I was able to get her in to see her shrink yesterday, and he has added another medication to our pharmacological support arsenal. It’s Abilify, which I think is probably the awesomest name for a psychotropic drug ever. I mean, it’s so stupid and nakedly condescending that you can’t help but love it. I believed I’ve blogged on it before, back when my own shrink was considering it for me (but alas, I was never actually Abilified). It’s supposed to have a calming effect and keep her from getting stuck on her runaway train of negativity. I’m sure I can come up with a better metaphor than “runaway train of negativity.” How about she’s got this Ferrari of negativity and someone’s cut the brake lines? That’s a little more apt. Anyway. She started that last night. One of the side effects is drowsiness (which is why it’s taken at night). She woke up this morning feeling nauseated. I was scared because I really, really don’t want this pill to make her nauseated. I don’t want it to make her anything but Abilified. Also, I really, really wanted her to go to school today. Because I want everyone to go to school everyday. It’s my dream, and I mean to live it.
She felt better after eating breakfast, so she went to school, and so far I have not had a phone call from the school reporting puking. So we’re cool. I guess.
Tonight is pack meeting for cub scouts. We’re going to eat cake. So that’s good.
Tomorrow night Princess Zurg and Sugar Daddy are going to the temple and the rest of us are going to Elvis’s basketball party. It’s the end of the season. So that’s good.
On Thursday I leave for California because it’s my dad’s 65th birthday on Saturday and my step-mother is throwing him a party. I am looking forward to the trip, but I haven’t really planned for it yet because I’ve been overwhelmed with thoughts of teacher-hitting and -possibly-murdering and suspensions and Abilification and scouts and cake and basketball and what to make for dinner and there’s also been a lot of laundry. Also, it is Dr. Seuss’s birthday on Friday and so the kindergarten is having Pajama Day.
HEAVY, PUT-UPON SIGH. Pajama Day.
So Girlfriend doesn’t actually own any pajamas. She did have some Thomas the Tank Engine pajamas, but they disappeared into thin air several weeks ago, and I have not been able to locate them. We even looked for them extra-hard once we found out that there was going to be a Pajama Day (HEAVY, PUT-UPON SIGH), but to no avail. I know what you’re thinking: So what has Girlfriend been sleeping in, if not pajamas? Answer: Not the buff. She just wears clothes to bed. Comfortable clothes, but not to be confused with pajamas, and therefore not a believable outfit for Pajama Day. So I went to the Target to look for pajamas, but being that it’s February, all the pajamas in stock are shorts, not long pants, because in Retail World, summertime starts in January. In the Pacific Northwest I shall not be sending my children outside the house in shorts until mid-July. Which is about when they’ll start selling heavy winter coats again, so I should make a note to pick one of those up then. Anyway, I got off the subject. I also went to Old Navy, which doesn’t sell pajamas, and I even went to Ross Dress for Less, which doesn’t sell children’s pajamas except for babies. So that was disheartening.
Today I had to go to Macy’s to buy fancy soap for my face, and while I was there I looked for pajamas. No love. So then I went to Kohl’s, where I eventually found something suitable. Ideally, I would have gotten her new Thomas pajamas, since they would match her Thomas slippers and her Thomas blanket, but there weren’t any Thomas pajamas to be found, so instead I got her Scooby-Doo. Of course, I had to go to the boys’ section because all they sell in the girls’ section is Pepto Bismol-hued princess stuff and stuff that says “Mommy’s Little Cupcake Sweet as Can Be” and crap like that. I mean, she is my little cupcake, sweet as can be, but jeez, she’s already going to school in her intimate apparel; let the girl keep some of her dignity.
While I was at the Kohl’s I remembered that I forgot to bring the belt that PZ gave to SD for Christmas and I’ve been meaning to return because it didn’t fit then, and since he’s lost 20+ pounds, it certainly doesn’t fit now. I just don’t shop at Kohl’s very often. It was doubtful that I could have returned it anyway, however, since I’ve lost the receipt and do they have a 60-day return policy or a 90-day, I can’t remember. Whatever. I think the best I could have hoped for was an exchange (which was all I wanted), but they appear not to carry that brand anymore anyway, so whatever. I bought him a new belt. Much smaller than the old belt. It was on clearance, so it sort of makes up for me wasting money on a belt he’ll never wear and I’ll never return. Kind of. Maybe I’ll just keep the old belt for those days when he feels bloated. Ha ha. If I see him start to put the weight back on, I can say, “Do I have to get out your fat belt, honey?” You know, just to be supportive of his new lifestyle.
Here are the things I have to do before I leave town:
1. Figure out what the weather is supposed to be in California. I mean, as I recall, February in Southern California is pretty warm, but it’s been a long time since I’ve actually experienced a SoCal February. I don’t know. It’s impossible to predict the weather in Oregon; you just have to be prepared for anything. But California tends to be pretty predictable.
2. Touch up my roots. I have this patch of grey by my right temple that looks like a bald spot from a distance. I don’t like that.
3. Remember how many ounces of liquid I’m allowed to carry on the plane. Now that I’m all high-maintenance with the fancy Macy’s soap and the conditioner that I have to buy off the interwebs, it makes travel a little more complicated. But I don’t want to check a bag.
4. Remember that PZ has piano lessons today. A piano lesson, that is. Just one. Approximately 50 minutes from now.
I was hoping for a couple hours of peace and quiet this afternoon, but instead I had to pick up Princess Zurg from school because she’s been suspended, and I’ve been listening to her moan about her horrible life while I eat the rest of these Pringles and don’t let her have any.
I have compassion fatigue.
Madhousewife: Argh, I hate when this happens.
Sugar Daddy: When what happens?
Mad: The steam fogged up my glasses.
SD: Well, if you weren’t such a nerd, you wouldn’t have to wear glasses.
Mad: That’s true.
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I went grocery shopping today, and because I didn’t feel like making myself lunch when I got home, I picked up a sub sandwich from the grocery store deli. It was not a good sandwich. It was so not-good that I only ate about half of it, and that was mostly out of moral obligation. I could have made a better sandwich myself. I know what you’re thinking: Isn’t it always better when you make the sandwich yourself? But no. Generally I prefer sandwiches made by others. Just not this one.
And to make up for how not-good that sandwich was, I ate half a can of Pringles.
I bought the Pringles a couple weeks ago because they were on sale. I’ve been hiding them in the garage because they’re for me and not anyone else. I might have deigned to share them with my husband at some point, but he’s been on a diet since January, so I don’t have to worry about sharing any food with him these days. He’s lost 20 pounds, incidentally. He looks great. But he’s kind of a bummer to eat with.
Fortunately, I don’t require companionship for my meals.
Tonight it’s just me and the kids for dinner. I’m dithering between hot dogs and fish sticks. I’m in more of a fish stick frame of mind myself, but Girlfriend explicitly requested hot dogs the other day and, well, I’m pretty sure I’m the only one who really likes fish sticks. And I do. I like them very much. I think I might be the only person I know who likes them at all, let alone very much. My children tolerate them. Elvis eats them with ketchup. *shudder* I could seriously eat a whole box by myself. I don’t, of course. I hardly ever have them, because they’re terrible for you. But they were also on sale, so what was I supposed to do?
The hot dogs were on sale, too, but they’re the all-beef kind, so they were still expensive. Is it just me, or have all-beef hot dogs gotten really, really expensive? Is there a scarcity of bovine odds & ends these days? I don’t want to think about it.
I’m back on the fish sticks again. I was just thinking that it’s Lent now, yesterday being Ash Wednesday. Ash Wednesday always does creep up on me. And there’s no reason why it shouldn’t, since Mormons don’t observe Lent, so why should we care when Ash Wednesday is? I just like to know these things, that’s all. I’ve always had a lot of Catholic friends. I just seem to gravitate toward Catholics, for some reason. I went to a Baptist college and immediately fell in with the Catholic sub-populace. (There was no Mormon sub-populace. Well, there was, but it was me.) The cafeteria served fish every Friday during Lent. Not fish sticks, but actual fish. I don’t think I have ever known a Catholic who liked fish, and certainly not one who liked fish sticks. But they served fish in the cafeteria during Lent anyway.
My mother didn’t serve a lot of fish when we were growing up, aside from the occasional fish stick. Fish can be tricky to prepare. Also, expensive. Unless you’re talking about tuna from a can, which my mother served plenty of. She made tuna casserole sometimes, but more often she made this tuna-and-gravy-over-biscuits thing, which–I know, you just threw up a little in your mouth, didn’t you? But I don’t remember it being disgusting. Not that I’m aching to be transported back in time so I can consume that meal once again; I’m sort of afraid to. But I recall it being quite edible (unlike some sandwiches I’ve had).
I don’t really count tuna-from-a-can in the fish category. I mean, clearly it’s fish, but it’s also clearly from a can, so that has to mean something.
I’m going to move away from food and talk briefly about books. Not good books, just books. I just finished a romance novel. Not even a serial-killer romance novel, which you know is my new favorite genre, but just a straight-up romance novel. I may as well name names, as long as I’m confessing things. It was The Sweetest Thing by Barbara Freethy. I got it for cheap on the Kindle. It’s a cheap book to begin with, but I got it on the extra-cheap on account of it being February. (I also got a Kurt Vonnegut book for cheap on account of it being February, so I’m not sure there’s a romance/Valentine’s Day angle here–but I haven’t read the Vonnegut book yet, so who knows?) I am not usually so impulsive with books that I have to buy, even when they’re cheap, but every so often I get in a mood. It sounded cute, so I got it and I read it.
Okay, so it was cute for the first few chapters. You know me; I’m not picky. The set up is that there’s this guy, Alex Carrigan (yeah, I know, “Carrigan”–are there any romance novel heroes that don’t have rich white boy soap opera names?), who’s a successful entrepreneur (because unsuccessful entrepreneurs are called “deadbeats”) who has never known true love. Ha ha. No, really, he hasn’t. He has abandonment issues. His grandfather, who has recently come to live with him, insists that it’s because their family is cursed because fifty years ago he (the grandfather) and his true love broke some ancient Native American pottery and some spirits were released and she got freaked out and left him. No Carrigan has known true love since! Don’t snicker. The spirits are real. We know they’re real because Faith, the friendly neighborhood baker, touched the broken pot and she felt the spirits, too. She knows she will not be able to rest until she helps Grandpa Carrigan find his true love. Alex can’t believe she’s indulging the old man’s delusions. He also can’t believe he’s falling for this sentimental loony bird just because she has red hair and green eyes and beautiful, beautiful breasts. (I know, I couldn’t believe it, either.)
Did I mention that Alex has a long-lost daughter who shows up on his doorstep after her mother dies? The mother had told Alex that he wasn’t the father of her baby, but she told the daughter that he was. Apparently there was no need for paternity testing back in the day. Whatever. That’s also part of the story. I know you don’t believe me that it started out cute, but it really did. Or maybe I just wanted to believe that because it was February and love was in the air along with cheap Kindle books. If tree falls in the forest, etc., etc. Or, you know, insert appropriate aphorism here. Anyway. It started out cute. Then as the story went on it started to seem less cute and more sort of dumb. Then it became less sort-of dumb and more completely dumb. And then I was almost finished and thinking, “How dumb is it, really, when I’m reading the whole thing? And not just because I paid for it but because I want to know what happens, even though I should know already that Grandpa will be reunited with his true love and Alex and Faith will get married and Jessie will really be his daughter even if there is no paternity test?” Also, “What kind of name is ‘Barbara Freethy’? Could you really write anything but romance novels with a name like ‘Barbara Freethy’? Is that even her real name? But who would make up a name like that?” You’d be amazed at all the different things I can think while reading. I’m a great multi-tasker. Sometimes.
Anyway. I finished it. I don’t feel good about myself, but I’m blogging about it. I’m owning it. It’s like when I ate half a box of fish sticks by myself the other week. (I don’t have them often, but these were in the freezer already, from the last time I bought them when they were on sale.) That was not a good idea. I could have told myself from the outset that it was not a good idea. But it was what I wanted at the time. And now it’s done. If I could go back in time and change the past, it’s not the first place I’d go, you know? That’s my way of saying that I guess I might have liked that book in spite of myself and its dumbness.
And now I’m going to let my daughter play PBS Kids while I have some yogurt because that is another thing women like. Romance and yogurt. It’s February, suckahs!
Sugar Daddy: Hey, do you want to go to lunch today?
Madhousewife: Sure. But right now I have to see if Mister Bubby has a clean shirt that doesn’t say, “Get porked at Billy’s.”
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Mad: Here’s your lunch, MB.
Mister Bubby (turning so the lunch can be put in his backpack): Mom, I’m not one of those kids who goes, “I’m going to school, tra la la la la!” I’m one of those kids who carries everything in their backpack.
Mad: Okay.
MB: I don’t go around swinging my lunchbox and singing that song like an idiot. Or a fraud.
Mad: A fraud?
MB: Yeah. Those fakers.
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Elvis: Do I have the days?
Mad: Huh? The days?
Elvis: On my underwear.
Mad: Oh. Uh…
Elvis: I don’t have the days.
Mad: No.
Elvis: I never had days in a long time.
Mad: No.
Elvis: Girls have days.
Mad: Yes.
Elvis (sadly): I can’t have the days.
Mad: No. I’m sorry.
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Princess Zurg: The first Arthur book was about Arthur learning to accept his nose. But then society wouldn’t accept his nose, and so he got a nose job.
Mad: Yeah, what’s that about?
PZ: And look at him now!
Mad: It’s Michael Jackson-esque.
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Mister Bubby: Mom, that was a Gran Turismo turn.
Mad: Was it?
MB: Yes. It was a turn worthy of Gran Turismo.
Mad: Oh. Thanks.
MB: You have to slow down sometimes, Mom.
It’s getting harder and harder to blog these days. Why? It’s not because my life is boring. My life has always been boring. So what can it be? Have I become boring? Quelle horreur.
So. What’s new? With me, I mean. (I’m talking to myself, hoping I can elicit a response. It isn’t crazy if you do it for artistic reasons.) Today I unfriended someone on the Facebook. I had never unfriended anyone before today. I had to Google how to do it because it wasn’t immediately intuitive to me. I’m sure I could have accidentally figured it out eventually. But I just couldn’t wait! Not that I did it rashly or anything. It’s been a long time coming. You know, I have a couple friends on the FB who are kind of crazies. My rule is that if most of what I see from you in my news feed is bitter political rants and/or crazy conspiracy theories, I hide your updates. But I don’t unfriend people. Mainly because I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings.
But here’s the thing: I have a wide variety of friends. They’re all over the map, politically, religiously, conspiratorially, whateverly–but the thing they all have in common is that I like them. What I realized today is that this particular FB friend–whose feed I hid ages ago but who still comments on my posts from time to time–is just a suckhead and I don’t like them anymore. I don’t want them talking to me, and I don’t want them talking to my friends. And I don’t care if I hurt their feelings because they’re a suckhead and assuming they still have feelings, they deserve to have them hurt. Maybe it will help them not to be a suckhead anymore. (I doubt it, but anything’s possible.)
Unfortunately, over the course of contemplating this decision, I sort of broke my no-swearing-in-February resolution. Not that I wrote a nasty message on their wall calling them a #$*(#$ suckhead before I unfriended them, although that might have been emotionally satisfying. No, I just happened to be talking about them to somebody and I used a word that might have been more vulgar than suckhead. But not to worry, I’m back on the wagon now.
“Suckhead” doesn’t count as swearing, right?
I’m feeling a little bit feisty today. Not feisty enough to accomplish anything of merit, but feisty enough to unfriend someone on Facebook and then blog about it like a loser.
Except that feisty women don’t refer to themselves as losers! So scratch that. I mean, scratch the part about being a loser. I want to go back to thinking of myself as feisty.
What else can I do today that’s feisty? I could take a shower. I probably should, since I went clogging this morning. But what would be feistier–showering or not showering? You could make a case for both, I think. Or neither. I’m just trying to come up with something more exciting than laundry, which is also something I need to do. Also, make the bed. And unload the dishwasher. Crap, there’s a lot of un-feisty tasks on my plate, isn’t there?
Does “crap” count as swearing? Because I think I’ve been using it with impunity thusfar.
Have I mentioned lately that I L-O-V-E clogging? It’s more fun than a barrel of monkeys. I think a feisty thing for me to do is go out and spend $100 on some real clogging shoes. Unfortunately, I only have 40 more minutes before I have to pick the kids up from school, and that’s not enough time to go to the other side of Portland and back. Which is where they sell the clogging shoes. The other side of Portland, that is. Not back. Back is where I have to be at 2:40. And where they don’t sell clogging shoes. Because if they did, there’d be time. Maybe I will still feel feisty tomorrow.
Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day. It is a tradition in our household that we take the kids out for pizza on Valentine’s Day. We started this tradition after we had a kid and couldn’t get a babysitter on Valentine’s Day. I’m trying to remember the pizza parlor we went to. It was in Eugene. I think it was Abby’s. They were selling a heart-shaped pizza. So we took almost-two-years-old Princess Zurg out for heart-shaped pizza on Valentine’s Day, back in…2000. I remember, my husband couldn’t find a card that he liked so he ended up giving me a paperback copy of Les Miserables, which he’d found at a used book store. Isn’t that cute? I don’t think I got him anything. It’s kind of my way. Birth the children, let him buy me gifts. You know how it is.
So that’s what we’ve been doing ever since. Going out for pizza with the kids, I mean. I don’t get a used paperback every year. (Unfortunately!) Anyway, tomorrow is Valentine’s Day, but it’s also Cub Scouts. And Boy Scouts. Mister Bubby is a Boy Scout now. So there isn’t really time to go out for pizza tomorrow night. So we’re going out tonight instead because tonight there is time. It seemed kind of lame at first, but then I thought, you know, we’re not slaves to the calendar. We don’t have to play by The Man’s rules. If we want to get pizza on February 13, by golly, that’s what we’ll do.
I know what you’re thinking: Feisty.
Well, I better motor if I’m gonna make that shower. Happy Monday, mes amis. And happy Valentine’s Day to all you non-conformists who want to celebrate life on your schedule. Peace out.
(I can’t believe I just said that. This new-found feistiness may be getting out of hand.)
Madhousewife: Princess Zurg, thank you for putting your book back on the shelf.
Princess Zurg: Without being asked!
Mister Bubby: Unlike me, you mean!
Mad: That’s right, you failed! You’re a failure!
MB: No, Mom, you’re a failure!
Mad: Your face is a failure!
MB: Your butt is a failure!
Mad: No, it’s not.
Sugar Daddy: Your mother’s butt is anything but a failure.
Mad: You see?
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Mad: We have the sheet music for the theme to The Greatest American Hero? Why was I not informed of this?
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Every Friday MB’s teacher sends home the Friday Folder, which contains all the graded classwork for the week, plus announcements and whatever other crap he thinks parents need to know. Each student is supposed to write a comment about the thing they liked best about that week. MB usually writes some smart aleck comment that I can barely read because his handwriting is so bad and he just shoves the paper under my nose so I can sign it (with my nose? no, but you know what I mean) on Monday morning before I’ve put my glasses on. Last Friday he wrote, “I enjoyed reading Hatchet. It’s a good adventure story and just seems to feed book hunger.” I’m glad I’m raising a boy who has no problem with cheesiness for the sake of cheekiness.
Do you have a problem with a blogger who will write a sentence like that last one? I think I might.
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So…what to talk about, my friends? I suppose I could tell you some family news. For the last several weeks Elvis has been involved with this basketball league through Special Olympics. Elvis has some mighty athletic skills but hardly any sense of strategy. I was wondering how a team sport would work out for someone like him. Well, on Saturday he had his first tournament. His played in four games. In the first game, his team scored a total of 14 points, of which Elvis scored 8. He has mad shooting skills, when he can get his hands on the ball, i.e. when he’s engaged enough in the game that he is looking at one of his teammates who might pass the ball to him.
Unfortunately, that first game just about exhausted his attention span. Or I guess it thoroughly exhausted it, because he didn’t score any points in his next three games. It is very unlike Elvis to shoot and miss. Not impossible, clearly, but very uncharacteristic of him. But I think after that first game he was just done. In one game he didn’t even get his hands on the ball once, and I’m not sure he cared. The important thing is that he had fun. Well, I should say the important thing is that he got some real game-playing experience while having fun. Next year, I hope, he will have developed some ball awareness so that he can totally own those other disabled kids.
Did that come off as irreverent or just mean? Either way, I was just kidding. (Sort of.)
Anyway, that was some fun.
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What else can I tell you? I guess not much. I will confess that I had a Carl’s Jr. hamburger for lunch today. The housekeepers actually came right before I put Girlfriend on the kindergarten bus. That was weird, because it was so convenient. I suppose I should have gone and had lunch someplace nice, but I was in the mood for a hamburger. It’s a PMS thing. Anyway. One thing I enjoy about the Carl’s Jr. is that there’s a very friendly and professional young man who works there–and don’t get all OH REALLY??? like it’s some studly burger flipper/bored housewife thing because that’s not it at all. We don’t have a special relationship or anything. He treats me the same way he treats the other customers. He always says “sir” or “ma’am” and makes eye contact and really seems to care whether or not you’re enjoying your sandwich and how many packets of ketchup you would like.
I don’t kid myself that it’s genuine. I have no idea whether or not it’s genuine. I mean, it may well be, but if it weren’t, I think I’d be even more impressed. Because that’s the kind of talent that will take a person far in life. Maybe he’ll be president someday.
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My six-year-old informs me that she would like a crack at this screen-amusement thing, and being that my (new) laptop is still the only working computer in the home, I guess it’s only fair that I give her a turn. Or maybe I just have other things I should be doing. Or maybe I’ve just run out of things to write about. COINCIDENCE?
I can’t think of what to make for dinner. It’s really bugging me. My mother lost interest in cooking dinner when I was a teenager, but by that time she’d been cooking for the family for…well, I guess around the same number of years I have.
When I think about what to make for dinner, I not only think about how it’s going to taste and whether or not the kids are going to eat it but how much time it’s going to take and how difficult it will be to clean up afterward. And with that many factors to consider, I usually end up making food that is unhealthy or that I dislike or both.
Tonight I think we will end up eating sloppy joes. I really don’t want to, but I feel like I have no choice.
It’s Thursday and Thursday is the day when Sugar Daddy doesn’t come home until after the kids have gone to bed. So it’s the day I usually feed the children unadulterated crap. This is how the term “white trash cuisine” entered my son’s vocabulary. They all know that if it’s Thursday, it must be paper plates and garbage food. Sloppy joes are actually a little gourmet for Thursday. If I don’t have a can of Manwich lying around somewhere, I may give up on the whole idea.
Remember that old commercial, “I don’t have a sandwich appetite, I have a MANWICH appetite!”? That’s what I’ve been thinking all day. Only I don’t really have a Manwich appetite. I just think it sounds like a dinner I can manage this evening.
Tangentially-related (but only barely) aside: Do you remember the old commercials where the men would feel emasculated when someone offered them lite beer? Just wondering.
Isn’t it kind of funny that all it takes is one person missing from the dinner table for me to just throw my hands up and say, “That’s it! Never mind!” Well, in fairness that one person is the one with the most discerning palate. Not that my children don’t have discerning palates, but sometimes I am embarrassed to tell SD what I fed the children for dinner. Not that I would admit that I’m embarrassed. Usually I say, “We had fish sticks, wanna make something of it?” but it’s because I’m so insecure.
I will now change the subject entirely.
I used to do book reviews a lot on this blog. That ended, I think, in 2010, when I made a New Year Resolution to read all of the books that had stacked up on my bookshelves and hadn’t been read yet. I don’t believe I read a single one of those books, and there were, like, 30 of them. Okay, I may have read one and started another, but my point stands: I failed miserably at that resolution. And it’s not that I didn’t read many books that year. I read many books. I always read many books. I just stopped talking about the books I was reading because I was so ashamed of the fact that I hadn’t read any of the books I’d pledged to read. As if you gentle readers would care. When have I ever kept any of my New Year’s resolutions (with the exception of last month’s micro-resolution to spend less time on the internet, which was greatly helped by my lack of internet access throughout January)? No, it wasn’t shame over not being able to live up to your expectations (which are realistic) but not being able to live up to my own (which are realistic but rarely low enough). And this shame carried through 2011.
This is where trying to improve yourself gets you. I’m just saying.
Anyway, I’ve decided to start talking about books again. Not in any meaningful way. Just my usual I-read-this-and-what-do-you-know way. In point of fact, I will start right now.
A couple weeks ago shortlist published “The 50 Coolest Books Ever.” Of the books on the list, I’d read A Clockwork Orange, Slaughterhouse Five, The Sun Also Rises, Atlas Shrugged, The Fountainhead, One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest, In Cold Blood, Fight Club, 1984 and The Great Gatsby. So…one-fifth of the “coolest books.” All of these books (that I read) were good books. Would they all have made my top fifty? No. But whatever. I’m going somewhere with this.
It sure didn’t take me long to notice that this short list of Coolest Books was overwhelmingly male-centric. Not particularly surprising, because the type of people who put together lists of their favorite books and assert that they are “the coolest” tend to be male. No offense to them. Out of these fifty books, four are written by women, and two of those four are by the same woman, Ayn Rand, who–no offense to anyone–is about the most male-centric female writer who ever lived. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. I happen to like Ayn Rand. I’m just saying. And one of the four is Erica Jong’s Fear of Flying, which I haven’t read, but…come on. Really? Coolest book ever? I wonder why. And by “I wonder” I mean “I don’t actually wonder.”
So I felt some self-righteous feminist (if that’s not too redundant) justification for ignoring this altogether, in addition to my usual knee-jerk anti-hipster justification. But I was curious to read the one book by a female author that I had never heard of before, which was Donna Tartt’s The Secret History.
For something written by a girl, it is actually pretty cool. It is also primarily about men, which explains its presence on the list. Ha ha. I just can’t let it go, can I? Well, I can, for the purposes of this paragraph. For those of you non-hipsters who haven’t read it, it is about a murder and how it came to be committed. The novel opens with the murder, and you pretty much know who did it because the narrator says as much, so I’m not spoiling anything here (unless you’re my husband–who I really think would enjoy the book if he were willing to read it after I ruined the first page for him). The mystery is why the murder was committed. It’s about these college students who are in this exclusive Greek-studying clique and heavily influenced by their professor, who’s kind of a weirdo, and they more or less become a world unto themselves. And did I mention there’s a violent murder? So of course it’s interesting.
Ironically (or not, I dunno), I did not find the one female character at all compelling. And the denouement was, frankly, kind of a mess. It went on a bit and was just sort of meh. But right up through the climax it fascinated me.
Wouldn’t make my top 50 EVER, but it’s one of the better books I’ve read in recent times.
Around the same time I decided to read The Secret History, I also decided to read Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer (another book on the list) just to see what the big deal was. I know that I once told you all the story of my mother telling me the story of when she read Slaughterhouse Five and she was so disgusted by it that she threw it in the trash, but before she threw it in the trash she wrapped it in a brown paper bag so no one would see that she had been reading such a disgusting book. And years later I read the book myself and thought, “Really? That’s it? Oh-kay, Mom.”
Well! I made it through 47 excruciating pages of Tropic of Cancer and then I said to myself, “I now totally get Mom’s Slaughterhouse Five story.” If this hadn’t been a library book, I would have thrown it in the trash–but before throwing it in the trash I would have wrapped it in a brown paper bag so that no one would know that I had read such a disgusting book. Mes amis, you know the kind of books I sometimes read. I have a bookshelf at Goodreads called “psycho killers.” Remember when I confessed to you that I’d developed a taste for romantic thrillers aka serial-killer romance novels? Do I seem like a person with high standards of any type? Yet I could only abide 47 pages of this revolting, gross, misogynistic literary classic before I threw my hands up and said, “That’s it! Never mind!” And really, it wasn’t just that it was revolting, gross and misogynistic, but it was just so pretentious. When it’s no longer February (and I can swear again), I will write you a Cliffs Notes version (of the first 47 pages) and you will not have to see for yourself how it is.
That book is totally uncool.
So now that I’ve outed myself as a total Philistine who can’t appreciate the genius of Henry Miller, I’m going to go make dinner. This is way more than 500 words, but you should know by now that I never follow through on any clever idea I have, especially one that lasts a whole month, even if it is February.
I have nothing to write about today, but it’s February now, which means my micro-resolution for January–spend less time online–is officially over, and I must now spend more time online. How better to celebrate than to blog about meaningless crap?
I think the official micro-resolution for February was to stop swearing. So. No swearing in this post. Not that there’s usually a lot of swearing in this blog, but for February there will be absolutely no swearing at all (even when I’m offline–which, now that it’s February, won’t be very often–ha).
Let’s see…what shall I talk about? This morning Girlfriend and I were waiting at the bus stop for the kindergarten bus, and her friend’s little brother–probably about three years old–was there. He saw me and immediately asked, “Who are you?”
Me: I’m Girlfriend’s mom.
Girlfriend’s Friend’s Little Brother (with genuine admiration): I like your golden teeth!
Me: Thank you. I like them, too.
GFLB: You must brush your teeth a lot.
And it’s true. I do.
Speaking of my “golden teeth,” I go to the orthodontist again on Tuesday, when I shall get all manner of x-rays and stuff taken so that I can consult with a surgeon about my jaw. No, that ship has not yet sailed. I like even less the idea of surgery, but I may as well let someone try to talk me into it. Someone else, I mean. Whom I pay for the privilege.
Girlfriend has an earache, so I’m taking her to the doctor in a few minutes. I had thought, when I grabbed this last-minute appointment, that Princess Zurg would be able to watch the other kids until Sugar Daddy came home. Then I remembered, too late, that she has the fabled Girls Club this afternoon. Ha ha. So I will have to take Elvis with us. That should be an adventure.
I really don’t have anything to say. Maybe I will make all of my posts under 500 words, in honor of February, the shortest month. Only on Leap Day I will write 501 words.
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