1. The insufferable backpack from Dora singing, “Backpack, backpack. Backpack, backpack.”
2. Rhys Ivans saying, “You daft prick” from the near-end of Notting Hill. Ivans saying this starts in motion the essential-to-any-romantic-comedy chase scene set to “Gimme Some Lovin’” by the Spencer Davis Group.
3. “I’m Getting Nuttin’ for Christmas.” All of it.

Reasons I Will Hide You On Facebook:
• abuse of the exclamation point
• frequent misspellings
• bragging about the stuff you bought, referenced by brand name
• too much Palin

Have you ridden a train recently? If so, did it go through the Mississippi Delta? Friends, you’re missing out on a real treat. Not only can your stomach be rocked into a state of abject misery, but look out the window, if you will, at the beautiful countryside! Wait, it’s beautiful on one side, anyway, the way the land is flat for miles except for the kudzu-covered trees rising up like monsters, but what’s this on the other side? Oh. Huh. Look at that. It’s flooded and half-burned trailers. Falling down houses. Crumbly businesses with vines grown up over the doors. Old men sitting in chairs in the front yard, watching you go by. The most bowlegged child you have ever seen. If you happen to be listening to Elliott Smith, congrats! You are now filled with a desire to throw yourself in front of the train, which will delight the people on the side of the tracks, as nothing ever happens where they live.

I read this book based on the awesome cover. It was funny! And sad. And made me feel weird. Is that a good thing? I can’t tell.

I was telling a friend the other day that the algorithm for a book getting on my to-read list is this:

positive mention in the New Yorker or NYT
+
positive mention in Entertainment Weekly

This is why I am reading The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman. Marketing! I heard your cries! (Fine: I don’t know the difference between an algorithm and a formula, ok?)

I had a choice between two parking spots. I decided that my car, which is not super huge, wouldn’t fit into the one on the left, so I chose the one on the right. I turned off the engine, gathered my things, and then saw that a supergigantic SUV was attempting to get into the spot I deemed too small for my normal-sized car.

Oh, she’s going to back up in a minute when she realizes she won’t fit, I thought.

She did not. She pulled in and turned off her engine.

I could open my door, but not by much. I had to do an attractive tip-toe sideways dance to get past her supergigantic SUV.

She was on the phone. I stared at her until she looked at me.

“Your car is too big to park there,” I said. “I could barely get out.”

“Oh, sorry,” she said. “I’m only picking up an order.” Because that makes it better, you know.

I walked ahead of her, looking at her reflection in the glass doors, waiting for her to flip me off/tackle me to the ground. I could hear her on the phone still.

“Um–what was I saying. Ok, then he said, wait. What? I lost my train of thought.”

I really thought that telling her that she was a dumb parker would make me feel better, but it just made me feel like an asshole. As I stood in line to place my order, a drop of water from the air conditioning vent hit me on the head, confirming that the universe agreed.

When someone is helping you with housework, is he/she obligated to fold the towels the way you fold them, or is it reasonable to expect that he/she will fold the towels the way he/she wants to even though they obviously do not fit in the cabinet in that way? What about this: when you are at the person’s house and have occasion to fold towels, do you bend to their crazy folding wills or do you not worry with it? Also, have you ever had occasion to even fold someone else’s towels? Do I worry too much about towels? Have you ever read a blog post featuring a paragraph in which the word “towels” is mentioned six times? TOWELS. (Seven.)

Last week I read Ann Beattie’s Walks with Men. I don’t think I’m smart enough for Ann Beattie. There were lines that were like shiny gems, and then there was the rest of it. I’ve never read her before, so maybe that was the problem. Another person I’ve never read before is Jane Smiley, but I’m reading her latest, Private Life, now. Usually when I get books from the library, I give them a few pages to see if I’m going to like them and then I get way too excited when I get to toss one aside and never think of it again. I’m on page 104 of Private Life and still can’t decide if I’m going to read it or not. Every time I think, oh good, this is going to go in a direction I find boring, something else happens and I’m compelled to keep reading.

I am having to talk myself off the Ledge of Annoyances lately and remind myself that other people’s dumbness should not adversely affect my mood. One of my pet peeves is when someone pulls out in front of me dangerously close (even though there are NO cars behind me and they only would’ve had to wait for 15 additional seconds for me to pass by) and I honk at them and then they get all bent out of shape for pointing out that they are driving stupid, so then they gesture wildly in their cars, getting angrier and angrier, like HOW DARE YOU MASH YOUR CAR’S NOISE-MAKING IMPLEMENT! DON’T YOU KNOW I AM ABOVE SUCH REPROACH? Once I honked at someone on the highway for trying to kill me and 20 miles later, they passed me and all the children in the car were hollering and waving their arms around at me. That’s like 20 whole minutes of continuing to be angry because their mama can’t drive.

But besides drivers, I am having to actively write notes to myself as reminders to not be affected by other people’s negativity and complaininess, which makes me feel like a hippie and/or my high school English teacher, who writes stuff on her Facebook page about the beauty of the moon and how the trees are whispering and stuff.

I’m reading A Dangerous Age, the most recent Ellen Gilchrist novel, and early on I came upon this passage. If you are a hardcore Gilchristian like me and have read everything she’s written, you will understand why my heart swelled up a little when I read this:

I don’t believe you ever stop loving anyone you ever really loved. You have them there like money in the bank just because you loved them and held them in your arms or dreamed you did. You can forget a lot of things in life, but not that honey to end all honeys.

OH ELLEN GILCHRIST! I still love you.

My mother has recently moved from the town I grew up in to a different Texas town, and as such has has the misfortune to clean out my closet. The misfortune part is that she put most of it in boxes and dumped them at my house this weekend. Larry was suitably mortified when he saw the pile in our back room.

Since Larry was miffed, he was 0% interested in going through the boxes with me, and thus missed out on my existential nightmares as I opened each box. It was beyond depressing to open a box and find all the cards my parents’ friends sent them when I was born. What in the HALE am I supposed to do with those? Giving them to me places the burden on me. I wouldn’t have cared if my mother threw them away, but now they’re MINE and oh, hell, I kept them.

Things that were easier to get rid of: a blue duffel bag (that I won for selling eight zillion Girl Scout cookies in 1982) filled with Cabbage Patch Kid clothes and the matching shoes, which never fit well anyway, and were kind of melted and greasy. I will admit that I saved one outfit for the Cabbage Patch Kid that Spike plays with/tolerates. The duffel bag lingered in the keep pile before I decided it was stupid to keep it since I forgot it existed until five minutes ago. It smelled exactly like 1982.

As a child, I used to buy super-clearance baby clothes at Marshalls and TJ Maxx for my dolls, and man, am I glad I did, because today I am the proud owner of the most hideous striped velour shirt for a 6-month old in all creation. I am only sorry that I didn’t find it when it would’ve fit Spike (but if you have an infant you would like to torture, you are welcome to borrow it).

In unrelated news, I bought a new bottle of nail polish this weekend, and it brought me more joy than I imagined possible. Apparently all my other polish is also from my 1982 duffel bag, and painting my nails has been a laborous struggle. This new bottle, however, is like a dream! Thanks, $4 nail polish, for restoring my faith in…nail polish.

GORJUS, STOP READING NOW. YOU’LL THANK ME LATER.

Something that did not restore my faith in anything was reading Beth Ann Fennelly’s poetry collection, Tender Hooks. I wanted what the book flap promised: that Fennelly would be “fearless in delineating the joys, absorptions, and yes, jealousies of new motherhood.” Awesome! Sign me up! I love joy, absoprtions, and yes, jealousies! Oh, God. For every interesting or beautiful observation, there was an asshole. A literal asshole! The book is full of assholes. This particular line, from “Telling the Gospel Truth,” which imagines Mary giving birth to Jesus and the animals all around her, sent me over the edge: “Let the puckered stars of their assholes flex and soft wads of shit fall to the hay” (69). I just don’t think the poem would’ve been harmed by a kindly editor quietly suggesting a different turn of phrase for that.

I’ve been thinking about my reaction to this book all weekend. People, I love a good poop story (btw: Spike pooped in the tub the other night for the first time! HORRIBLE), but “soft wads of shit” doesn’t contain striking language or imagery. It’s just a soft wad of shit falling next to Mary’s head. Also: “wad.” Why is it there? Was Fennelly’s intention to make me say “OH GOD” and write a blog post about it? If so, well done, madame! I think the real reason is to say: “childbirth and motherhood is a dirty, nasty business — and I can prove it. Also, do not lump me in with Emily Dickinson!”

P.S. I have many feelings about last night’s True Blood, but I don’t want to spoil it for you.

1. I highly recommend scheduling a haircut only after you’ve been creeping around with terrible hair for several weeks. Sure, I could maintain a haircut and look decent all the time, or I could look terrible for a month, then markedly better after a haircut. This is to say that I got a haircut yesterday and I feel like a new person. Yay, vanity!

2. Speaking of vanity: did I tell you that I gave up on wearing contacts, and am now AGAT? That’s All Glasses, All the Time. Even though I have worn glasses since I was 9, in my mind, glasses = nerd. I’m still trying to get over this. To attempt to do so, I ordered a Tina Fey poster and put it up in my bathroom. (NO NOT REALLY.)

3. So yes: while I knew that it was certainly possible for someone my age to be a grandmother, and have certainly heard of such a thing, I didn’t know anyone it happened to. So I am still a little fascinated by the whole I-have-a-two-year-old-and-ole-Cammie-from-gym-class-is-someone’s-MawMaw. I discovered this on Facebook (of course; it’s not like our gym class sends out alumni updates) and then proceeded to scour all the photos for pictures of the baby, the baby daddy, and the baby mama. Results: the dad is 16. The mom is 15. Baby is named after a Twilight character (I thought, hmm, maybe she’s named for Twi — oh. Look. Mom is wearing a Twilight t-shirt). Let us all sigh wearily.

4. This morning I saw my neighbor walk her dog while wearing a robe AND with a towel on her head. That is some devotion to dogwalking, isn’t it?

5. BIDUADU

6. Books I’ve recently given up on: Wolf Hall.

7. Apparently I am under some stress, as my right shoulder keeps s-l-o-w-l-y rising up and trying to hang out with my ear. Several times an hour, I become aware that I’m caught in a lopsided shrug and release it, but soon after, it starts creeping up again. I’m trying to keep my arm in my lap when I’m not actively typing or using the mouse, but someone with their arms dangling by their sides staring at a computer looks…off.

8. Last night I took a picture of myself so I could show my mother that I did not, in fact, get a Susan Powter hairdo (my mother’s desire for me to have long, luscious locks borders on pathological, although I have not had said hair since 1991 and it wasn’t that luscious anyway), and I had to immediately delete it because I swear to god I looked like Eudora Welty.

Oh my Jesus. This girl I graduated from high school with just became a grandmother.

That is all.

I’m walking into daycare behind another mom who is wearing fantastic bright yellow espadrille wedges. I say, oh, I love your shoes! And she says thanks but never turns around. We continue to walk in a single file, me scowling at the back of her head/plotting my escape to an all-cat convent, far away from humans.

Someone at work left the shared computer without closing all his windows. This was the search term in Google:

define flaccid

At work, I come upon The Poems, Plays, and Other Remains of Sir John Suckling. Once I get over laughing at his name, I laugh at his picture. Apparently he was alive between 1609-1642, which is why when I accidentally read this poem, I laughed some more:

1.
If when Don Cupid’s dart
Doth wound a heart,
We hide our grief
And shun relief;
The smart increaseth on that score;
For wounds unsearched but rankle more.

2
Then if we whine, look pale,
And tell our tale,
Men are in pain
For us again;
So neither speaking doth become
The lover’s state, nor being dumb.

3.
When this I do descry,
Then thus think I:
Love is the fart
Of every heart;
It pains a man when ’tis kept close,
And others doth offend when ’tis let loose.

Reactions:
1. Haha! FART!
2. This poem is terrible.
3. FART!!!
4. I wonder how long the word “fart” has been around? It’s in the Miller’s Tale, which is what? 1300s?

Thanks to my beloved OED, I now know it was first used in 1250 (followed by Chaucer’s hilaritor usage in the Miller’s Tale when he is establishing what’shisname as a dandy: “He was somdel squaymous Of fartyng”–meaning, he was somewhat squeamish of farting).

Other etymological farty highlights:
–Fart was once used to mean “a ball of light pastry.” Bakers, unite! Let us bring this back. “I made the most delicious lemon-blueberry farts last weekend.”
–The word “partridge” comes from the Latin “perdix”–farting bird. “Perd” was thought to be the sound of a fart, and apparently partridges make a farty sound when they fly away. Listen here–doesn’t sound particular fartful to me, but I am 100% behind this anyway.
–”Feisty” comes from “fist,” whose first definition (now obsolete) means “breaking wind.”

As you were, feisty partridges.

That is all.

What I Just Read:
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson. (I want his name to be Lars Steigsson, btw. When people ask what I thought of it, I generally say, “It reminded me of The Da Vinci Code.”)

What I’m Reading Now:
The Puttermesser Papers by Cynthia Ozick. (Beautifully written; I have to concentrate on every sentence for fear I will miss something pretty.)
Thanks for the Memories by Cecelia Ahern. (Nothing has happened yet, but this book was clearly written in order to be turned into a romantic comedy starring Ashley Judd in 1997.)

What I Tried to Read and Could Not:
High on Arrival by Mackenzie Phillips. (I have no shame in admitting I gleefully snatched this off the shelf at the public library, but man this is one depressing book. The child got high at ten years old…and that’s on page 6. Plus, I already read the really gory parts in the airport when it first came out.)

What I’m Going to Read Next:
Poplorica by Martin J. Smith and Patrick J. Kiger. (I am looking forward to the chapter on how tv dinners came about.)

At Kroger. Sally (with Spike in grocery buggy) approaches the sample lady, who is doling out samples of two store-brand sugar cereals. One is blue and purple and the other is pink and white.

Sample lady: Oh haaay! Would you like to try some cereal?
Sally: Ok. (reaches for pink and white cereal sample)
Sample lady: Oh, well, ma’am, this one over here (gestures to blue cereal), this one is for boys.
Sally: I’m pretty sure he’s not going to turn into a girl if he eats pink cereal. Say thank you, Spike!
Spike: Tank too.

Grrr. Blue cereal for boys! Pink cereal for girls! WTF, Kroger? (Also, WTF, Sally? I just wrote out what my child said in kiddie dialect. I hate it when people do that!)

1. If you saw a dude not just picking his nose, but, like, playing it like it was an instrument while driving down the highway, would you be surprised that he had a vanity tag? Me either. Bonus: it was 2RAW4U.

2. In Sunday’s NYT Magazine, there’s an article about Stieg Larsson, author of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. While who controls his literary estate is interesting and all, what I thought was most fascinating was this:

“Baksi [who has written a memoir, "My Friend Stieg Larsson"] does not have the typical Swedish personality. He’s voluble, talkative, a bit of a self-aggrandizer. His book has offended a lot of people, because it violates the Swedish principle of jantelagen — of not sticking out or making too much of yourself. He has claimed, some of Larsson’s friends say, a much bigger part in Larsson’s life than he actually played.”

JANTELAGEN. It’s kind of what I’ve been waiting for my whole life. After I read more about it–that while it’s a Swedish principle and all, it originated from a novel and that it’s much harsher than the NYT explanation–I thought maybe I wasn’t a jantelagen enthusiast after all, but I’ve decided to embrace it anyway. I’ve decided the Mississippi version of jantelagen is “no one’s studying you.” It’s okay to think you’re special, but don’t assume everyone else agrees with you. And shut UP about youself, will ya? (Uh, says the lady with the blog.)

3. I just read Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen. Why was I under the impression that this book was narrated by an elephant? Friends, it is not. I was so convinced that at the end of every chapter I kept waiting for the aha! elephant narrator! moment. Nope. Narrated by a human all the way through. Set in the Depression, it’s about a man who accidentally joins the circus. (You’ll like it better if you ever entertained the idea of going to clown school. What?) It’s one of those books that is engrossing but not necessarily your favorite book of all time. Your mom will probably like it, but tell her to watch out for the scene where the lady in the cooch tent does the act with her boobs.

4. Is it ok if we don’t talk about Lost? I’m tired of talking about it and getting mad that Shannon was apparently Sayid’s one true love and not Nadia. Let’s just say, “Goodbye, Lost! It was fun for awhile and then you made us mad and then it was good again and I always kind of thought you were dicking us around and then it turns out that you were but it was a pretty good ending anyway so let’s all start watching Treme with real interest even though every time Steve Zahn sings I want to die, ok?”

5. Someone recently signed an email to our entire research emporium staff with “Love you all.” Not a typo, just an outpouring of love. Can’t a person be real and emotional in this world? Is everything a joke? Look, it’s a beautiful thing….that I forwarded to several people.

6. I ate a huge lunch and am about to start crying I’m so sleepy.

From an Amazon review of a booster seat:

It does seem a little small to fit a toddler into, but once the tray is removed and it is used as just a booster seat, it will probably be fine. I really like that your child can get so close to the table using this little seat.

Thumbs up, way way up, for this little seat. I plan to buy two more as baby gifts for my brother and cousin who are expecting babies in October (not with each other).