Over the weekend, I read Evelyn Waugh’s A Handful of Dust. I’ve been making my way through all of his books, and this one, I felt, had the potential to be my favorite. However. While I understand that it might be a biting satire or a comment on society, the facts remain that Waugh creates characters like normal writers do, characters that you begin to feel for, oh and then they turn out to be AWFUL AWFUL PEOPLE and you hate them and your heart is broken. Or they die and your heart is broken. Whichever.

I finished the book in the Baltimore airport and then immediately went and bought a Marie Claire to lift my mood/pass the remaining two hours. It turns out that Marie Claire is the worst women’s magazine ever. Vapid, unrealistic, obvious, awful. Here is how bad it is: a subscription card offered two years for $10. That’s…that’s…forty-two cents a magazine! Nope, sorry. It’s that bad.

Larry and I were in the Baltimore airport because we were coming back from my annual trip to DC in order to hand out pencils to the nation’s schoolchildren. He had a chance to sightsee while I was on pencil duty, but the only noteworthy thing I saw was a girl plucking her chin hairs on the train. I admired her prowess: she used no mirror, just felt for the offending chin hairs and yanked them out with tweezers. I texted Larry (who was across the aisle) and alerted him to this, and then 10 seconds later she asked if I had a mirror she could borrow. Psychic chin hairs!

Scene: a restaurant during lunchtime.

Man at table 1: Excuse me, can you pass the black salt?
Man at table 2: (pause) Um. You mean the pepper?
Man at table 1: I SAID “BLACK SALT,” MOTHERFUCKER!

• Overheard in J. Crew:
Lady: What do you think? Could I get away with wearing this scarf?
Teenage daughter: Do what you want. I don’t care.

• Today at the corner of Fortification and Greymont, I saw a well-dressed man cross the street with something in both of his hands. Upon closer inspection, I saw that he had three lightbulbs in one hand and two in the other.

• At the same intersection, I saw a lady put on deodorant in her car. Oh wait! That was me.

• I have a few product endorsements for you for no particular reason than these products have brought me great joy lately:

1. Woolite One Step Carpet Cleaner. This is the carpet cleaner that I would’ve waited my whole life for if I were the sort of person who waited on carpet cleaner. The can specifically says it takes out fruit juice stains, and as some little baby has dribbled his apple juice all over my precious living room rug, I really needed this promise to be true. So you vaccum your carpet, spray this stuff on it, let it sit for 15 minutes, and then vacuum again. And people: the stains, lo, they are gone. There is no scrubbing. The stains magically disappear. Also, the stuff is like $3.

2. Revlon ColorStay eyeliner. I’m a big fan of eyeliner in general, but have always had a problem finding a perfect one that wasn’t too smeary or wasn’t too hard. This stuff is rad: it’s not an actual pencil, so there’s no sharpening going on (and therefore no shards of wood to accidentally jab into your eye): you just twist and more magic, glide-on eyeliner comes out. It stays put and doesn’t rip off your eyelids upon application.

• I read that potato peel pie book. You know the one. You know what? It wasn’t bad. Not the best book I ever read, but it was enjoyable, a quick read, and had the added bonus of letting me learn something else gross about World War II along the way. While I wouldn’t have sought out the book, it literally arrived on my desk and so I took that as a sign and read it. (My sign reading is very subjective, as I did not read the other books that arrived on my desk.)

• Attention anyone who misses the Doag Loaver! The house across the street from hers is for sale. You’re welcome.

• While it is every parent’s responsibility to teach their children the important things in life, I have apparently chosen to teach my tiny baby (who is now a big boy of 16 months!) the dumbest things ever, such as: (1) that if he points at me, I will touch my index finger to his and say “ding,” and then he will say “ding,” and then we will do this over and over; (2) instead of putting the nice stacking rings on the little post like you’re supposed to, we shall instead put them on our heads and wear them as hats; and (3) when eating crunchy things, it is important to squint, show all one’s teeth, and go hi-ya-ya-ya-ya while chewing quickly. You should try the last one. It’s fun.

I CANDIE
U CRAZY

It took me typing out I CANDIE to understand it’s supposed to be “eye candy.” It was on some red sporty car, which makes sense. At first I thought it was a super religious person who felt that they can die because they will unite with Jesus, etc.

U CRAZY = #2 favorite tag in town. The #1 spot still goes to OHH YEAH.