Category Archives: Ma’am, try not to get so worked up.

Look! It’s rant time!

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To whomever wrote: “You’re probably feeling a whole lot better as you settle into your second trimester. Less nausea, fewer mood swings, and “glowing” skin contribute to an overall sense of well-being.” SCREW YOU, LIAR!

To the cat whose illness has led to feces on my bed, urine all over my house, and a $400 vet bill with a shrug and an “I’m not sure what’s wrong with him,” SCREW YOU! Next time you get sick I’m spending the money on an iPod and you get a brick in a pillow case.

To the vet clinic who told me to collect feces and urine for my cat then forgot to give me the kit and locked the doors before I had even gotten to the car: Screw you, too. I’m not coming back for the kit then going home then coming back with samples. Screw you a lot. Now YOU get to come over and collect feces and urine. For all the family members. I do it every other day; now it’s your turn.

To the phlebotomist who closed the lab ten minutes before we got there: Screw you. No, I didn’t check your hours by calling or anything. But who the hell runs a lab open 9am to 4:30pm, closed for lunch 12-1? Seriously? Do you do any work? I collected a toddler and a sick cat, both of whom needed more than the usual amount of fecal clean up today, got the noisier of the two into the car and drove half an hour for your stupid one vial of blood intended to scare me about all the things that could, hypothetically, but we can’t tell you with any certainty, what might be wrong with my poor, maligned, nauseating Hazelnut. Screw you, lab tech. You give phlebotomy a bad name. and sphignomenometers. And sternocleidomastoids. And stuff like that.

To the librarian who accused us of returning a DVD case with no DVD: SCREW YOU! I always double check because I don’t want to walk all the way down here and have to go back for a stupid disc. AND, I don’t rent baby Einstein crap. No, I didn’t. No, I didn’t. Stop telling me I need to go home to get it. I’ve never IN MY LIFE checked that crap out of your library. I’ve never seen that DVD in my existence. No, I didn’t. Oh, and how do you propose I do that? Buy a new one and give it to you? Screw you. I may have mentioned that, but it bears repeating. SCREW YOU. Oh, you’ll double check? That’s so thoughtful. Oh, it wasn’t me? Oh, you’re paging a different library patron without apologizing to me? You’re ignoring me now? SCREW YOU! I’ve never liked you. You’re greasy, icky, and rather creepy and give my kid a bad image of the few male librarians on this planet. You know what? I’ve taken bibliographic methods. I’ve aced out of all the methodological and theory-based library sciences courses. I could OWN you if I felt like it. Don’t ever accuse me of Baby Einstein Forgetting again.

You know what, world? Screw you. Screw all the nasty people and the yucky people and the rude people. Screw all y’all. Cuz I don’t have the patience for your asinine driving, ugly looks, rude cell phone talking, and general in-my-way-getting. Get off this planet, you jerks. Especially the dude who took the last jar of m—-f—ing olives today. Screw you. You’d think I’d have something new or clever to say, wouldn’t you? Nope. Screw you. You people are killing me. And you don’t need those olives like I do.
I hope global warming takes out, like, 85% of you by next year.

(And to the little emotional sponge who lives in my house, who is way intense and way sensitive and way perceptive and way neophobic, I’m sorry dude. I know when I’m way off my rocker it’s even harder for you. I watched as each of these little wrongs in our day sent me further and further from reacting well, you absolutely melted down. Sorry, friend. We’ll both get some sleep and one of us will have a really, really dreamy can of caramel colored sugar water and tomorrow will be better. That said, if you ask “why” one more time I’m ripping your arms off and shoving them down your throat.)

We now rejoin our midlife crisis, already in progress

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We went to the guitar store today to restring Peanut’s awesome little 1/2 scale SX guitar. He earned it potty learning, when he got 20 dry days in a row (and therefore 20 stickers) at 21 months. He bought himself a guitar with the stickers. You’re damned right, kiddo. Not yet two and dry all the time? Guitar? Fine.

Well the trip to the guitar mecca coincides with a midlife crisis I’ve been contemplating, based in part on the nausea I’m feeling at life, my choices, and the impending and rapidly growing BOMB that will descend on my already precarious situation. My midlife crisis today looked a LOT like a $2660 twelve string guitar. Then it looked like an $80 used and totally awesome used natural ash wood bass for the band my newest peeps and I are starting. Then my midlife crisis looked like a miraculous $3200 keyboard that sounded honest to goodness like a well tuned piano.

And then my midlife crisis reminded me what end was really up. Because besides not having even the $80 for a bass, I don’t have time for a new hobby. I have a novel to edit. Again. I have a paper to submit, another paper to write, and a PhD application to ponder for next fall. I have to find a babysitter and a preschool.

I grabbed an Atwood at the library, because there’s nothing to counter balance 32 picture books like an Atwood. We got home late and I had to wash dishes and make dinner. Peanut was in a lovely mood and tried to dump out a whole canister of ground flax. Sealed, luckily, but he was willing to test Oxo’s sturdy seal.

I asked him nicely to put it down, and he did. Sweetly. In the dining room. I continued thinking about whether, really, cowboy boots would serve the same purpose as a guitar, as midlife crises go. Maybe I’d need them for the band (blues, I think, but whatever. Everything goes with buckaroo boots.)

I went into the dining room to give Peanut some carrot sticks. He had dumped all the flax neatly on the table and was sorting it into piles. I took a deep breath and told him to get down. I asked, as I gathered the placemat parking lots, what he was trying to do. He was making pretend smoothies. Sure. okay. As I brought the soapy sponge back and forth from the kitchen, I explained that while pretend is a good idea, his pretend kitchen is a better place for pretend juices. And that using real food for pretend food isn’t a good idea. And that I understand how he wants to help, so he can make a real blender juice with my help. But real food always needs a yes from Mommy.
Okay?
Well, kind of. Except that now, at the dining room table, he has his face burrowed into my brand new, 64 oz. jar of organic kosher pickles. tongue fully extended, licking the brine in the freaking jar. i collapsed on the floor. Took a deep breath. Contemplated a good cry and realized that I already had his cold, so, no harm no foul. I mean, really, really foul, but I’ll be done with the pickles in a few days, so…meh. I told him how not okay it is to put hands or mouths on containers of food. I try to explain, I try to be forceful but casual. I remember a gorgeous burbinga wood guitar and take another breath.

So we make a smoothie together. He’s happy and proud of his blueberry pouring skills. I’m almost ready with dinner. I turn away to get cups for the juice. I pour the juice. I turn away to get lids for the juice.

And now I need one fewer lid because he’s poured all of one juice on himself, trying to get to the purple one first. “you can’t have thee purple one,” he began, before getting really wet and cold.

Here’s the thing, people. I’m barely hanging on. And now the flax-y sponge has to sop up 12 ounces of blueberry smoothie. WHY CAN’T PREGNANT WOMEN DRINK, AGAIN?

I don’t think a late night trip to the pawn shop to trade my wedding ring for a guitar is too much to ask.

My first and last poem

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And then your lids flutter
and sighs betray you.
Cells decompress and
the world levitates off my sternum
where it resides every moment that you’re awake.
No more fire-cured creations will shatter;
no shrieks at passersby,
friends,
pigeons.
No more protecting society from all you would unleash
nor you from all its ills.
As long as those lids press and
breath comes softly
I am at peace.
I should kiss your brow
but I stick out my tongue and
scowl at you.
I’ve stifled it all day
and now is the time to
catch up.

Dear people

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Dear Peanut:
Thank you for saying no to everything today. Really. It made me feel I’ve earned my $0.00 salary. And what a joy it is to feel one is worth about as much effort as shaking your head side to side. Constantly.

And thank you for that very creative and intriguing tantrum about not washing your hands before we eat. It gave me the unheard of opportunity to pluck my eyebrows, standing there waiting for you to come to your senses. It had been too long. What a gift your lack of reason has been today. Thanks ever so much.

Dear DPW,
Thank you so much for tearing up the streets to repair something under the ground. Your skill is surpassed only by the gratitude society has for your public works results. On both sides of the street. During working hours. I really appreciate you saving City money by not doing the work, say, after hours. Or much more slowly by, say, working on the east-bound side THEN the west-bound THEN the north-bound. Thank you for doing them all together so that every car inches forward exactly ten feet per green light during lunch hour. And thank you, too, for not working at all on the south-bound side, since I don’t drive that way and would not have gotten to listen to an unending lecture from the backseat on what kind of trucks do and why I’m wrong to call a front loader a front loader when it’s clearly, from the special vantage point of a car seat, “maybe” a snow plow. In August. In California. It sure is good to have possibilities!

Dear Neighbors,
Thank you for the glorious aromas of your wondrous breakfast offerings. I wasn’t having a colorful enough walk before your omelets and pancakes and pork products produced a sparkling technicolor yawn from somewhere, it seemed, deep in my knees. What a new world you’ve opened my eyes (and pyloric valve) to by sharing your various intensely scented meals to my day. Thanks, especially for the Denver omelet, neighbor five blocks away. I hope it didn’t repeat on you like it did for me the whole rest of the way home.

Dear Children Visiting the Elementary School,
Oh, isn’t wonderful that school is out and you can use the local school’s playground whenever you wish? So much fun! Especially that delightful game you have of chasing each other and screaming “HELP!” at the top of your young and particularly shrill voices. Delightful. It’s quite special for you to engage in your spirited play so close to my highly empathic son, because he spend the whole day asking me why you were scared and why someone needed help but the fire fighters weren’t coming. It’s a wonderful teachable moment about shrill, screaming little children who should, maybe, be freaking parented on a semi-regular basis, and I do so appreciate that gift.

Dear People in My Way,
Oh, your presence is a special addition to my life. Thank you for being in my way, no matter where I go. You make me appreciate the vast quantities of patience I naturally possess, and help me create wonderful linguistic moments in the car where I explain to a three year old why shouting “Can’t you people all just go home?!” is really rhetorical, not a genuine request that the entire city go home. Though that would be lovely. You deserve it. Go home to your families. Enjoy some time off the streets, out of the stores, away from the parking spaces, and out of my life. Consider this chance to get the hell out of my way a special gift from me to you.

Food Inc.

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LOVE having grandma live nearby. Saw Food Inc. last night, our fourth movie in three years, and cannot get over it.

What has become of our nation’s food supply? Why is it all made from a couple of crops, paid for by tax dollars, even though it’s not the healthiest food?

I mean, I taught Fast Food Nation for three years to my freshman English students. And I’m pretty well versed in everything Pollan says on NPR when they get in one of their all-food-all-the-time blocks. But I’m still shocked by a lot of what Food Inc. had to say.

Sure, it had the predictable propaganda moments. Music swell over repeated shots of the boy who died from E coli poisoning because beef recalls are still voluntary and the FDA and USDA have no real regulatory power anymore. Dastardly sinister music while we watch what technology has done to assembly-line food production. But pretty simple parsing of the purpose of the film would predict that. Of course it’s propaganda. Doesn’t mean it doesn’t have important information. Critical thinking skills (which, unfortunately, are not always taught in colleges anymore), deduce that most of the fundamentals of the film are sound.

Mostly, I’m shocked that when the government complains we’re out of money, that we can’t get Americans healthy because we can’t afford it, they’re ignoring a glaringly simple way to rescue two birds with one pocketed stone: stop paying anyone not following organic practices. Stop it. It should not cost tax payers for huge farming corporations (all four of them who control virtually all of what this country produces) to make food seem cheap. What tax dollars buy is the ability for chemical-laden corn syrup and soy Frankenbeans to be cheaper than more healthful foods (healthful for our bodies and the planet).

If we stop paying huge multinational corporations to produce tons and tons and tons of food that we then overprocess and feed to animals who should be eating something else, maybe food will cost what it should. Maybe a head of broccoli will be cheaper than brown, carbonated sugar water trucked all across the country using scarce petroleum. Maybe organic proteins will be cheaper than a chemical-laden, ammonia bathed, bacteria-opportunistic burger or chlorine washed chicken breast at a fast food restaurant. Or maybe people will cut back from their average of 200 pounds of meat a year because the real cost finally makes it a food they enjoy but limit.

And maybe if we take the tax savings and pay for health care, people who buy the now cheaper whole foods will be healthier and not need as much medical treatment. Maybe obesity and diabetes will decline from epidemic proportions and we will all be eating what our local farmers produce instead of the chemical sludge, shipped from thousands of miles away, that we’re all pretending is food.

So cut all subsidies to food producing companies. Don’t lie about how important corn syrup is for our national health. If we have that much corn, so much that it can be processed into any number of pretend foods, then we have too much corn. Stop paying agribusiness to genetically modify and pesticide and herbicide and chemically fertilize and gas-harvest and chemically wash and process and alter and reprocess and package and truck and sell.

Now that we have all that money back, take the savings and give us health care instead of massive profit private health insurance. Or subsidize organic farms and teach small farmers to become organic farmers. It would do the nation’s food supply a lot more good than huge quantities of sprayed and processed and modified foods.

And while the gov. is taking care of that, please vote with your dollars. Buy food grown safely by people you trust.

After the movie, we ate here and I still eyed the potatoes, a produuct normally so pesticide and herbicide treated that it has to sit for several weeks after harvest to outgas all the chemicals before it’s deemed suitable for human consumption. Mmmmm.

Marital hope

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According to a fluff piece over at CNN (sorry, Ms. Stinchfield, but it is pretty fluffy), marriage is better before kids and after kids leave.

My takeaway:

“A 2008 study found that marital satisfaction actually improves once children leave home. Female participants reported spending equal amounts of time with their partners both while their children lived at home and after, but they noted that the quality of that together time was better once the kids were out of the picture. “Suddenly the tyranny of the children controlling the household is relieved,” says Dr. Robbins. “You don’t have to have dinner at 6, you don’t have to spend Saturdays at the soccer field, and you don’t have to be so responsible all the time.”

So I’m putting out a call to all landlords, employers, and colleges who will take a 3 year old. Please.

What in tarnation?

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Why does it cost me $10 to get wifi at the airport? Shame on you, SFO. Hell, the rest areas in Iowa have free wifi.

Why do small people smell a crisis and grow impatient with the world just because you are?

Why does it take ATT three days to believe me that our DSL is down. “Says here you shouldn’t have any green lights. Why do you have three green lights? Maybe you need to buy a new modem.” Did that. Changed all the cords and the modem and the problem is clearly yours. “Oh. We’ll be out next week.”

Why does the company who put in the windows (thank you…just in time for summer, we can actually open our windows now) leave little shards of glass EVERYWHERE? In the toy box, in the dishes, one every floor, in the cat box, in the beds. Why did you say “move the furniture three feet away from the windows” when you meant twelve feet? Why did you not just tell us to move out? And landlord? Why did you not do this last month, before we moved in? Good damned thing I wanted windows that open…

Jerks on the red-eye across this great country: why did you all bring your kids? And why did you all buy up the upgrades before I decided it might be worth it to pay my life’s savings to get out of coach on a red-eye? Let me guess. You’re gonna keep me up all night, with your kids and your “WOULD YOU LIKE TO BUY A MEAL?” nonsense.

Sigh. I’m gonna miss Peanut and Spouse. I’m gonna have a blast. And goddess help me, I’m really nervous about making it home in one piece, so help me out on that one.

Words to the wise

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Dear handyman: get off your high horse and lose the attitude. It took you a month to schedule one stinking morning appointment, so if I cancel because of a family emergency (I want to take Peanut to the concert in the park and farmer’s market more than I want the leak in the sink gone, but you don’t know that and you’re not gonna) then that’s my problem. Do you want the work, or don’t you? Don’t act as though you’re losing your home just because I canceled. I gave you 48 hours notice.

Dear printer: stop lying. You’re not out of toner. I just bought you toner. you’ve printed, like, 200  pages. I know you better than this. I raised you, printer. You will shut your paper hole and I will obligingly open every stupid door and drawer, shake the toner cartidge, and put it back in, and we’ll have another 200 pages before you lie again. And I’ll go through the whole bullshit process again, at least twenty more times, and you’ll give me at least 2,000 pages, andIi’ll wonder which is harder: kidgloving my stupid f—ing printer or putting a toddler to bed. Secret answer: I don’t know. Neither is particularly fun or easy, but I have you both down to a science, so whatever. It’s like knowing you have to start your car on a hill. Sucks, but at least you know the drill.

Dear lady outside the Starbucks’ bathroom: stop rattling the g–d—- door knob. Didn’t you figure out the first four times you rattled it that someone is in here? i refuse to holler “someone’s in here” because any idiot can figure that out from the LOCKED DOOR. Also, I refuse to holler “almost done” because I just got in here and I am not almost done. I mean, relative to the guy before me who took half and hour and peed on every square inch of the seat, I’m almost done. But relative to my need not to talk to you, I’m not. You’d think I could pee by myself one freaking time this week. Just for that, I’m washing my hands twice. And checking my pores. And practicing origami on the paper towels, because it’s not like they’ve given me a lot of entertainment options in here.

Dear blogosphere: get back here. Just because I post anti-spanking and anti-segregation instead of lame jokes about how much my kid gets my goat, doesn’t mean you need to stop reading. By half. How the f— do half of you go away just because I talk all serious about stuff? Fickle freaks. What, are you over at the Bloggess listening to her in prison on the Nimitz story? Please. “Oh, look at me, I’m funny and patriotic and not ranting about respecting your kid.”  Fine. I get it. You’re not tough enough to take my brand of genius. Whatever. Your loss.      Wait, I mean, get back here. I’ll try to be funny. I swear. Or not, if that offends you.

Dear so-called medical experts: shut the f— up. You have no idea what you’re talking about. ‘Nuff said.

Ditto you parenting experts, job experts, and Pynchon experts.

Dear lady we saw yesterday: you’re damned right, you should be embarrassed. When you’re walking your first grader home from school, with your iPod blaring, you *should* feel guilty enough to drop the earbuds and listen to your talking kid. Kind of pathetic that it took us running by (not judging you because we didn’t know, until you dropped the buds like they were contraband) to make you listen to your kid. After she’d been in school all day. I’m glad you feel bad.  You totally suck.

Dear advertisers: stop manipulating people.  You suck.

Dear government: would you please get them to disclose what natural flavors they use? You know it’s anchovies, I know it’s anchovies. Would you please make them put anchovies on the label? Cuz otherwise I might someday thing, well, it’s natural, so it couldn’t possibly be ground up carmine bugs, right? Wrong. Trade secrets my ass. The amount of  brown sugar in something is a trade secret. The fact that they’re feeding dead chickens to cows and dead cows to chickens should be on the front of the package. In simple pictographs because nobody reads labels anymore.

Dear neighbor: please don’t call the cops. He was doing that because we’ve had trouble with deer eating our brand new sunflowers, and we thought that the only natural defense we have, since the Ivory everyone else swears by isn’t working,  is human urine, and I know you probably looked the other way when it was a three year old, but he doesn’t have a big enough bladder and the tall guy does. Besides, what are you going to tell the cops? It’s our yard. And our urine.

Negotiating

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Cat sinks claws into Spouse’s back while trying to cuddle him. I trim cat’s claws, because Spouse refuses to. Never has. Nine years.

After the trim:
Me: Would you grab the dustpan and sweep up the cat’s nails?
S: You trimmed ’em, you sweep ’em.
M: I trimmed them for you. You sweep ’em.
S: You trimmed them haphazardly. You sweep ’em.
M: I swept all the crumbs under P’s chair. You sweep this.
S: You made *and* served food that made crumbs. You *deserve* to sweep.
M: There is no deserve about sweeping. Our house, our chores.
S: Nope. You find the puke, you clean it. You cut the nails, you sweep ’em.
M: [speechless]
S: That’s right. Post hoc ergo propter hoc.
M: That’s not how you use it!
S: [Grinning and walking away] I know.

It’s a wonder I haven’t killed him yet.

And did I sweep them? Of course. Because while Spouse is at work, enjoying his own thoughts and peeing by himself  and getting paid for it (that’s all I remember about work now is thinking and peeing and getting paid), Peanut will step on cat claw trimming and scream bloody murder about how something hurt him and then will sit down to examine it and will undoubtedly try to eat it and then shriek that it’s gross and then try to stab me with it to see if it hurts me the same way it hurt his foot and tongue, and I’m not going to have that be my morning. So, yes, I swept up the nails. It’s a wonder I haven’t killed me yet, either.

Moms gone wired

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Clearly, these people who accuse mothers of small children of being “at risk for Internet addiction” and who belittle the habit of switching tabs from Twitter to Facebook to blog to email and back until someone responds are not whip-smart blogging mamas. (Okay, yes, I read the article, and yes, she is exactly that. But she’s a quitter, too, because she dropped her four blogs because they were taking time away from her kids. Um, hello, that’s the point.) And the authors and publishers and contributors and  promoters have it  out for mom blogs. (Forget for a moment the article is written by a mom who spent as many as eight hours online a day while the kids were awake. Lady, do you know how much I could get done if I got to be addicted like that? Why can’t I have that personality instead of the “eighteen projects sitting half done because I can’t bear to ignore my child-rearing job” personality?)

They don’t understand that we have finally,  in blogs and twitter and facebook, found forums in which people who understand us and empathize flock to our feet to hear our pearls of wisdom. At home/work we’re ignored. Yelled at. Shat upon, literally. Online there are others like us, feces-covered and chagrined, wishing someone would hear us and tell us we’re worth a shower. Online we all respect each other. Dote on each other. Celebrate each other.  I think these people at CNN are mamablogga haters. And we don’t allow the word “hate” at our house, do we mamas?

People who bandy about the term “addiction” do so without acknowledging that it’s a relatively new term (twentieth century) that basically applies to any activity that takes you away from the socially mandated priorities of work and family. If we were a culture who valued laughter above all else, alcoholism would only be applied to nasty drunks. Silly drunks would be contributing members of society. Since we are Puritanical believers in work and family, online activities that take you away from work or family for one, two, or nine hours a day allegedly represent problems. (But somehow, work that takes you away from family for twelve hours isn’t a problem. Oh, right. That’s just for men. Work that takes women away from family for one, two, nine hours gets a big ol’ judgemental eye roll, too. Lady, do you know how much work I could get done…oh, wait, I’ve already pulled that in this post.) If we were just a society that valued Twitter (don’t hold your breath, for that would be an even more despicable society than we have, really), maybe then moms who spend one, two, nine hours online would be contributing members of society. You moms who Tweet every freaking thought, stacking seven posts on top of each other (which, for the record, is a blog, not Twitter, so stop it and compose your thoughts into something longer and more coherent) would be the superstars of our society, overpaid and overappreciated for your prolific online contributions.

So let’s be honest. We use/dabble in/devour facebook and Twitter and blogging and online shoping and email because it’s almost like being a whole person and having friends who can actually make it to the dates you’ve had to cancel three times, mutually, for sick kids or sleepless nights or filthy houses or school projects.

As one of my friends (whom I would not know without the glory of the Internet) said, she takes all the facebook quizzes just in case the results will reveal a deep understanding of herself she had never achieved by other means, and will save her in therapy and life coaching fees.

Being at home with a small child (or more, heaven help you ladies and gents ‘cuz I’m barely making it with just one) can be frustrating and anger-provoking and stifling and unwelcoming. Those of us used to doing eighty things in a day, being respected, being listened to, being creative and logical and articulate and productive have a hard time, since the product of our labor will be unpaid for twenty to thirty years. Not until we see who our children become, what they love and whom they love and how they love will we know if our work was done well. Not until our children send a Mother’s Day card like the one my brother just sent my mom, apologizing for every single hour of sleep he ever cost her, does the job pay decent wages.

So if we spend a few extra hours on our blogs, or spend one third of our otherwise billable Saturdays off scheduling seven blog posts to arrive each morning, just as though we were productive members of society (ah, crap, I just gave away the secret of my prolific blogging), maybe you’ll cut us some slack and not call us addicted. As long as we promised the padooter will only go on when the wee ones sleep, who does it hurt that we’re on facebook at midnight?

Ah, hell, what do I care if they call me diseased? As long as you’re reading my blog, I don’t care what they call either of us. Cheers, readers. Hope something on the padooter makes you feel a little less stressed at whatever issues your day brought.

*for the record, the CNN article is actually pretty gentle, even if it’s groossly sponsored by pediatric fiber tablets and full of links to sunshine and buttercup links about how to enjoy parenting.  Treacle. But mocking their gentleness is not as much fun as hyperbolic mamablogga hating.

I’m so, so old

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Just when I start using a technology, it’d dead. I swear, if there were such a thing as a penultimate adopter, I’d be the model.

I resisted CDs though the 90s because I thought something else would come along. It did, but not for about 10 years after I finally caved to the expensive little discs. I think that was 2001 or so. I still have tapes and  still use ’em. Suck on it.

I didn’t get a blog until everyone and their grandma had a blog. I didn’t get a cell phone until I simply couldn’t resist any longer (and because those little elves that make technology made an MP3 player phone, so I could jump on two technologies at once). Hell, we just got a T.V. And I still refuse to even look at, let alone have an account on, myspace. I’m feeling foolish and pointless twittering.

And now I find out that, right about the time I start compressing ginormous URLs into TinyURLs, Bit.ly surpasses TinyURL in popularity. Even the New York Times knows I’m a dinosaur.

Now kids, tell me about this texting thing you’re always doing… (Not in my class, though. Oooooh that pisses me off. It’s bad enough that you never speak with each other between classes or on breaks anymore. But you’d better get your ass out of my classroom when you’re tempted to text. You’re adults. This is a meeting. Leave if you need to take a call or text, but don’t let me catch you using your damned technology while I’m lecturing, or while you’re supposed to be doing work. It’s time to read so we can all discuss what you’re read, not an excuse to type “what R U doing?” to your friends who are in better classes.)

Awesome children’s books

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After reading this AP story on gender-biased children’s stories, and after hearing a compelling feminist reading of the Berenstein Bears books at the Southwestern Popular Culture Association conference a few months ago, I’ve redoubled my efforts to find rocking children’s books. (I’ve already posted about how, in our house Ming Lo’s wife has a name, not just “Ming Lo’s wife” and dads appear in stories that are only written about child and mum.)

One new title in our library, after hearing friends’ laments about princess bullshit and distress over the Barbie dilemma, is The Paper Bag Princess by Robert Munsch. The short version? Princess rescues the prince, and when he criticizes the paper bag she had to wear to get there, she heads into the sunset without him.

Between thid princess and finishing Flux, which reminded me that, though Spouse and I negotiated roles before  getting married and before having Peanut, we need to revisit the discussion to readjust the “default” setting of mom doing everything related to anything. So I’m going to hand off all the domestic duties to Spouse (haven’t told him that yet) because I’m trying to raise a feminist, and that can only happen if I do more of my freelance work and less housekeeping. (You may TOTALLY borrow that justification for yourself. It’s genuinely why I’m slacking on housework [starting now; before this I was trying desperately to do a decent job because of social expectations] but intentional transition of work avoids being shirking and will teach the whole family a lesson *only* if Spouse actually picks up the slack.  Otherwise we just become a penicillin experminent gone awry. I’ll keep you posted.)

Crossroads

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I’m at a defining moment in my parenting career. I’ve espoused ideals about raising the next generation to do better—be better—than previous generations. To raise a thoughtful, intelligent, wonderful creature. And if that really is my goal, I have to step up to the plate now. Because it’s go time.

But I’m not sure if I’m up for it. Picking our battles, and all. Limited resources and energy, and all.

I mean, if I’m the only one in the house who wants the seat down, and there are 812 battles a day as it is, do I really want to fight a three year old over leaving the seat up? To tell him, patiently, every day for the next 15 years that it needs to be down?

Spouse, who has always put it  down, would prefer it up. Peanut uses the whole seated apparatus more than the rest of us each day, and is new to the gender politics of leaving it up. And is a pain in the ass to reason with. The twin male cats use biodegradable  litter that gets scooped right into the toilet, which is easiest with the seat up. Four to one, my friends, are not odds before which I wither. Four to one, ladies and gents, is nothing for a spitfire like me. Four to one, dear readers, is the odds I am playing against my summoning the reserves to pick this battle.

Seriously, I should put up or shut up. I spend my whole life railing about men who left the seat up. Who raised these insensitive, lazy louts, I wailed?

Well, it seems, maybe, possibly, probably—Me.

Have I taught you people nothing?!

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This morning’s blog stats note that someone found Naptime Writing by Googling “crutches make me nauseous.”

People, people, people. Or, really, person, person, person. Nauseous means making others sick. The smell of vomit is nauseous. When you smell it, you are nauseated. Or it nauseates you. Saying crutches make you nauseous means that using crutches makes you look so disgusting that people retch when they see you.

Is that true? Damn, I thought I looked a bit schlumpy on crutches, but I didn’t worry that people were hurling the contents of their stomachs into trashcans and gutters just watching me crutch by. That’s some serious problem you’vt there, Google reader.

Also, please read all my other grammatical posts. I’m guessing you put apostrophes all over the f—ing place.And you need help.

You know you do.

(btw, don’t turn to Strunk or White. Those f—ers don’t know their that from their which…love this piece in The Chronicle of Higher Education by linguist Geoffrey Pullum.)

Rantlets; little rants of the day (v)

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We’re back for another installment of “everybody bugs the crap out of me.”

It’s been a while….

Hey, toy makers? Yeah, you. The ones outsourcing to China and making crappy toys.  Would it kill you to put nipples on your dolls? I know some of Middle America likes their dolls without groinal distinguishers, and without any openings except those that can be crammed shut with a pacifier, but could you please put nipples on your stinking dolls? You don’t have to build separate sets…boy babies and girl babies all have nipples. All humans do. We’re mammals. We feed our young with milk. We have nipples whether the formula companies let you admit it or not, and whether we have weird post-delivery black hairs around them or not. My kid wants a doll, and I want him to have another doll. But all your dolls drink and wet and cry without nipples. i mean, I’d drink and wet myself and cry if I had no nipples, too, but that’s a little traumatic and advanced for a three-year-old, don’t you think?

And can you put nipples on all the mammal toys, while you’re at it? Peanut wants to know where a deer’s nipples are. We’ve seen elephant nipples (armpit) and horse nipples (belly) but we have no idea where deer nay-nays are. Help a frustrated stay-at-home basketcase out, please! i don’t want to have to take him to the library and teach him where the encyclopedias are. That’s *so* 80s.

Mr. Center of the Universe? You’ll do it because I said so, that’s why. and if you ask why again you’re going to have to sit through presentations at the American Academy of Sciences conference, because if you want to “why” me to death, you can do it with those who have mastered the purposeful “WHY,” because it would be a joy to think at that level for a while, instead of developing an answer to the questions you readily admit you could answer yourself.

Nannies at the playground? I know you have it tough, what with being paid to do what I do for free, and making me feel all gyped because I was paid exorbitant amounts to do things I didn’t like and am now being paid in blackeyes and pee-soaked laundry for tasks I like even less (if that’s possible) but would you please stop making your tiny ward give stuff to my kid? Teach sharing not the same as teaching surrender. I know you’re better than 50% of the nannies at the playground because you actually watch the kid you’re paid to watch. And that you pay attention to the kid you’re paid to pay attention to. But could you give that kid a chance to play with stuff before ripping it out of their hands and giving it to my overpriviledged kid (who needs to be taken down a peg or two by an older kid, anyway)?

Stores and restaurants…please. Before I go all Sharpie on  your ass, it’s “DVDs and CDs.” There is no apostrophe in a plural. Dinners, diners, customers, all. No apostrophe if it’s plural.  You are the strraw that just might break the deer’s back, depending on where her nay-nays are placed in relation to the hay bale.

Finally (it’s a short list because I’m out of practice, what with being all sunny and perky all the time), um, self-absorbed working dads? Stop it. Just f—ing stop it. You have no idea, and you have no right to speak, and I’m going to cram this all the way from your hole-less nethers to your pacifiered crier if you don’t just bite your lip and keep your delusions to yourself.  It is not an easy job, and if you weren’t so clearly wrapped in your own world and not in your child’s, you might see that.