Back from the desert. Wow, it was hot. Duh, you say, but really you're thinking, It's summer, you freak! Yes, I am a freak because I live in a town wherein if the thermometer hits 80 everyone says, Oooh, I'm melting, and swoons into their sidewalk cafe chair, spilling their iced blended mocha all over their three-inch platform flip-flops. And now Fiesta is starting. Ah, Fiesta: a weeklong celebration of colonial oppression. Santa Barbara was once home to lots and lots of Chumash Indians who were then enslaved by the Catholic padres to build a big, horrible symbol of oppression -- uh, I mean a Mission. Big church. Murals. Spooky graveyard. Tolling bells. At Christmas they bring in a bunch of sheep and goats and pen them in around a life-size baby Jesus. It's a big Holy Petting Zoo. You'd think that with attractions like that I'd be running to get Jackson baptized into such a fun-loving church as the church of Rome is. No, I'm afraid his immortal soul is in his own hands. As is everyone's. Did anyone read that part in Edie where the author describes how all the Sedgwick ancestors were all buried in a circle, so that on Judgement Day they'd all rise up and they'd only have to look at each other without having to acknowledge all the tattered riff raff in their cheap suits buried around them? What kind of religion is that, I ask you. Is there a champagne room in the afterlife? A frequent flyer VIP lounge?

Anyway, Fiesta is either an excuse to put on a frilly shirt and go watch a bunch of ten-year-old flamenco dancers, or an excuse to go get stinking, dick-in-the-dirt drunk while still wearing the tattered remains of your frilly shirt, which, if you're not careful, you will be buried in -- so shop wisely. I'm now at the point where I do my best to sidestep the political incorrectness of the occasion, simply so that everyone can enjoy their margaritas in peace. I may be a whiner, but I'm not a spoilsport.

Palm Springs is hotter than Satan's burrito. But Hollywood week continues here on Fussy: Jack's dad was on AMC this morning in a movie called Tension at Table Rock. It's a not-too-bad grade-B cowboy flick, made in the fifties. Jack's dad isn't on the screen for five minutes before he gets shot and killed, of course, which made Jack's mom laugh and laugh. (They were divorced when Jack was small.) She actually hooted, and said to Jackson, "Grandpa's laying down!" Jackson seemed confused, since grandpa's been laying down under a big tree in Connecticut for about six years now, but things cleared up for him after I took him to the port-a-crib and forced him to take a nap. Then I sped away to the public library's computer room, because God knows I can't be separated from the Internet for more than forty-eight hours without breaking out in hives.

We're going to visit Jack's mom for a couple of days and we're bringing a duffel bag full of laundry. Yes, two adults with a child and car payments are still bringing laundry to mom's on the weekend. Oh, we almost had a washer/dryer, but then our landlord must have woken up one morning and said to herself, Why have I told my tenants they can buy a washer/dryer when the only place they can install it is above my bedroom?

I used to love doing laundry, it gave me time to sit on a hot dryer and read Russian novels. Don't ask me why, maybe all that marching through the snow made by butt cold. But once Jackson came along I started dropping off the laundry. Ninety cents a pound, just close your eyes and hand over the cash and try not to think about how many washer/dryers you could have paid for by now instead of letting Concha and Teresa do the laundry for you.

But really, Concha and Teresa do my laundry far better than I ever did. Would you like your white t-shirt to stay white, or would you rather have it slowly turn an unpleasant shade of pink? Because if you want your laundry pink (or gray, or garbage-green), then let me do it while I'm rereading War and Peace. But if you want your clothes to look better than when you bought them, and if your baby needs a little extra kissing, too, just hand them all over to Concha and Teresa.

Concha is in Mexico* right now visiting her family for the first time in seven years. She took her two kids (a daughter, four, and a son named Brian who is two months older than Jackson) so they could meet their family. It's a wonderful summer break for all of them, but the trouble is, Concha may not be able to make it back. She may have to pass her kids over to Teresa at the border (Concha's husband is still up here to take care of them) and then figure out how to get back here without paying someone $3,000 to smuggle her into the country. If your kids are born here, they're citizens, but if you weren't, good fucking luck, my friend. She must have known she was taking an enormous risk when she left. I hope it was worth it.

*Time to complain about Mexico! I broke my toe there and then got my period and was afraid to go into the water because I thought hammerhead sharks would attack me. And it's all Mexico's fault.

And so we leave wearing the yellow jersey of victory! Ole!

Well, we went out to breakfast this morning, as directed by The New York Times, to a little restaurant called Tupelo Junction. This place has been avoided by us for a year and a half because of its trying-too-hard-to-be-a-Southern-roadside-shack concept. In actuality it was really, really good, if you don't mind paying $40 for breakfast, which I do. I do mind paying $9 for a half-order of French toast that mostly ends up on the floor (oh, but the real whipped cream was a nice touch, thanks).

See? I can complain unceasingly about Santa Barbara until the day I die! How fun for everyone around me. Jack, of course, LOVES it here. This is a picture he painted of the disgustingly beautiful view from our bed. Pretty good for a guy from Noo Yawk.

I've been complaining about Santa Barbara for as long as I've lived here. Eleven years! (You say, Fine, so why stay? Why don't you move? Oh, sure, I say, You and your simple, obvious questions.) This morning, however, a check of the e-mail brought two -- two! -- pats on the back for this beautiful, boring, smug, cultureless, pulseless town with its friendly parks and mild climate and plentiful parking. One was from George alerting me to a New York Times article that deems this placid little burg a fine place to spend thirty-six hours. Yes, I'd say thirty-six hours is safe (at forty-eight you lapse into a coma, though).

The second e-mail was from Jack's stepmom, Susan, telling me that the Santa Barbara Museum of Art is having an exhibit of photos by someone with three first names: Ruth Harriet Louise. According to Susan, there's a photo of her actress mother, Carmel Myers, in the exhibit. I've heard a few stories about Carmel. I know that she was in the original (silent) Ben Hur, and that she annoyed John Huston in a rowboat by playing the ukelele and singing the same song over and over again until he wanted to throw her overboard. If Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks were Hollywood royalty, Carmel Myers was the hottie lying on the carpet behind the throne recovering from a hangover. And now a photo of her is coming to our town! Can you stand the excitement? CAN YOU GET THROUGH THE MUSEUM BEFORE YOU LAPSE INTO A COMA?

I'm a Blog of Note! I knew that if I bought the t-shirt and upgraded to Pro, one of the many-headed Blogger Gods would notice me. The checks cleared and my prayers were answered. Now if St. Rocco would just clear up this weeping sore on my leg, I could quit groveling for awhile.

UPDATE: It's ringworm! Yaaaaaaahhh!
SECOND UPDATE: Ringworm has nothing to do with worms, it's a fungus.

I am an Evil Genius. I just discovered that I can make Jackson take a nap whenever I feel like it because he doesn't know what time it is. This morning he woke up at 7:00 (God bless him) and at 9:15 I said, "Gee, it's about your naptime," which was a total lie, he doesn't normally go down until 10:30 or 11:00. But all he did was grumble a little bit until I put his llama in the crib with him (LOVE THE LLAMA, whom we have cleverly named "Dolly"), and ten minutes later he was was sawing toothpicks. Tch. Babies. Can't tell time.

We recently joined a play group and I have discovered that playing nicely with other children is Jackson's specialty. There's a two-and-a-half-year-old boy in the group named Zach who was playing with two empty yogurt cups at the edge of the baby pool today. (It is a brilliant mother who brings empty yogurt cups to the baby pool.) Jackson went right over and reached for one of the cups, but Zach shouted, "No!" (Now, if you were sitting in a bar with two drinks in front of you and some guy came over and reached for one, you'd shout NO, too, wouldn't you? So you can't really fault a two-year-old.) Well, Zach's mom waded over to see what was going on, and then we started chatting, and then the next thing I know Jackson is giving a yogurt cup back to a taken-aback Zach, who holds it for a few seconds and then gives it back to Jackson. They went back and forth in such a civilized manner that I was reminded of one night in a bar long ago with my then-boyfriend and his brother. I didn't know his brother very well. It was too loud to talk so to break the ice in a mime sort of way I finally just started giving him (the brother) stuff out of my pockets. He caught on and started giving me stuff out of his pockets until we had traded everthing in our pockets. I think I ended up with some rubber bands, less than a dollar in spare change, and some weird little tools that you use to change a tire on a bicycle.

Well, I mean, how do you get to know people?

Those with a gift, take note.

"As Carmichael pointed out to me, Armstrong has always been gifted, but 'genetically he is not alone. He is near the top but not at the top. I have seen people better than Lance that never go anywhere. Before Lance had cancer, we argued all the time. He never trained right. He just relied on his gift. He would do what you asked for two weeks, then flake off and do his own thing for a month or two.' " . . . Carmichael believes that rigorous training is what ultimately turns a talented athlete into a star. 'Who hits more practice balls every day than any other golfer?' Carmichael asked. 'Guess what? It's Tiger Woods.' "

--Michael Specter in the July 15 New Yorker.

I have died and gone to refridgerator magnet heaven.

This one brings a tear to the eye of ex-Catholic girls everywhere.


This one speaks of simple satisfactions.

I always peek in my next-door neighbor's mailbox to see if any of our mail got mixed up. The other day I looked in there and saw a letter with a return address from someone named "Hugh G. Rection."

Creepy Playground Parent #1
The Faux-hippie Dad Who Can Find a Lesson in Anything

Faux-hippie dad and his two-year-old son at the marble maze (a wooden thing with zig-zagging chutes, you put a marble at the top and watch it roll its zig-zaggy way down).

Son, holding out his hand to show Jackson: "I found a marble! It's blue!"
Faux-hippie Dad: "You should share your marble with the little boy, son. Remember, we all live on this big blue marble together, we have to share it!"
Jackson: (grabs marble and shoves it in his mouth)
Me (stifling urge to snatch up Jackson and run to the car): "Whoops!"

Creepy Playground Parent #2
Spanking the Monkey, Part 2: The Girls Don't Wanna Have Fun

Emotional Vampire Mom and her Detached Cusp-of-Womanhood Daughter. Daughter is lying on her side on a low deck under the rope-climbing platform; Vampiric Mom can't quite wedge herself in there but has gotten as close as she can because it's time for a Big Talk.

Vampire Mom: ". . . it's the only thing most men want. I'm not saying all men are like that, I've met one or two who aren't. But only one or two. The way you're lying, your underwear is showing . . . "
Daughter: (shifts slightly, continues placidly picking at wood chips, says nothing)
Vampire Mom (stretches to tug at the hem of Daughter's shorts): "That's a little better. But you still shouldn't be lying like that, there are boys all around here who could see you. This whole place is bad for that, if you're up on the bridge thing, anyone could look up and see your vagina."
Daughter: (scoots away slightly, faces away from Vampire Mom, says nothing)
Vampire Mom (insistent, pleading): "Do you understand what horrible things boys can think and do when they see that? How careful you have to be around them? You can't just sit any way you want to, you have to be careful you don't show them anything."
Daughter: (trying to remember her old locker combination -- or something)
Vampire Mom: (Looks at Daughter deeply, starts stroking Daughter's calf -- slowly moves hand up to Daughter's knee; trails a finger around her knee for a moment and then begins to stroke Daughter's thigh.)
Daughter: (so placid and emotionless that my skin is starting to crawl)
Me, to Jackson: "Honey, why don't we run to the car and not come back here for a week or two, okay?"

One morning last week, at about 7:00 a.m., my father started feeling a little funny, so he went to his recliner and lost consciousness. My mother came in a short while later, sat down next to him, and fell asleep reading the paper. My oldest brother, who moved back in with my parents a few years ago, after his girlfriend died, came in about 11:30 a.m. to say Hey. My father roused a little bit but his speech was so slurred that my brother couldn't understand him, so, since my brother had been up all night watching movies, he went back to bed. He didn't check back until about 6:00 p.m., at which point my father could barely speak or move his arms or legs. My brother called 911. Paramedics came, roused my diabetic father with insulin, and hauled him (he's a big man) to one hospital that turned them away because they were too busy. After getting him into a less busy hospital and giving him a CT scan to make sure he hadn't had a stroke, they gave him a sandwich and a piece of chocolate cake ("make sure the diabetic in bed twelve gets extra chocolate cake!") and sent him home.

My father was so ridiculously blasé about this whole episode that after getting out of the hospital he went to Dairy Queen for ice cream. I have to say, this kind of perverse behavior runs rampant in my family. Just last week I had a practitioner tell me to cut caffeine and sugar out of my diet, and what did I do? I woke up the next morning and had a double latte and a chocolate-chip scone. I couldn't help myself. I want things even more after I've been told not to have them.This bizarrely spiteful impulse also caused me to reach for a pair of baggy-ass jeans this morning, after Jack had taken the time and trouble to pick out two new pairs of sporty, butt-loving shorts that look great on me. Because -- sheesh! -- why would I want to do something that would actually set a fella's pecans on fire? I know it's more complicated than that, of course, but I'm not one of those insightful blogging people, I'm one of those the-baby'll-be-up-from-his-nap-in-twenty-minutes-so-I'd-better-get-cracking blogging people.

Normally, doing yoga is one of those things that just makes life better for me. Mood better, muscles better, sleep better, food tastes fantastic, I can hear colors . . . no wait, that was that weekend in high school when we smoked twenty-six joints. Aaanyway, yesterday I was doing my yoga thing, and I was in a hurry because I had to get back home to pay off the babysitter (no, I am NOT one of those lazy, bloodsucking moms who spend all day shopping and going to the gym, so BE QUIET). Toward the end of my yoga routine, I was doing urdhva padmasana*, but I wasn't thinking too much about it, the mind was wandering, perhaps I was staring at my navel and referencing my pregnant neighbor who sashays around in a bikini with her belly button popped out. But no, it's not a good idea to let your mind wander when you're balancing on your shoulders and you're sweaty and weak and your legs are tied up in a knot. So I lost my balance for a millisecond and, to keep from being brained by my own shinbones and to prevent my spine from popping out through my back, I quickly had to call upon some muscles unfamiliar with the task of keeping me upright while upside down. Hence I woke up this morning and couldn't move my neck. Which is fun. It's fun to do some potentially crippling yoga pose for three and a half years without damaging yourself, and then to wake up one morning and wonder if there's enough Ben Gay in the world.

* This means balancing on your shoulders with your chin smushed into your collarbones, with your legs in lotus, i.e., crossed with each foot on the opposite thigh, and your hands on your knees. This picture isn't quite what I was doing, but it's pretty impressive, huh? Impressive or just nutty, your choice.

One of the fundamental joys of parenthood is dressing your kid funny. Stripes and plaid together! Wheee!

Every time I walk into a room and forget what I came in for, I say, "SO . . .". Unfortunately, this doesn't usually prompt my short-term memory, but it does compel me to become Joel Gray in Cabaret and adopt a sort of German-Australian accent -- " . . . life iz disappointing? Fagget it. In here, life iz beautiful. Zhe goirls . . . are beautiful. Even ze orgestraaa iz beautiful." Then I have to do the trombone "BRRAAAAPP yat da, dat da da da, dah daahh." Someday Jackson will tell me what he thinks of my little performance. I will try not to let it deter me from also performing large sections of Young Frankenstein, especially the Madeleine Kahn parts. Oh, for a fuzzy boa and a fright wig. To the lumberyard!

Robin Williams is just a third-rate Eddie Izzard.

Sunday night we took the Nut out to dinner at Aldo's. Apparently, every parent of a child under eighteen months said "Fuck it" and packed up the car to go out that night, because the normally pleasant and quiet downtown was packed with strollers and diaper bags. (I do not recommend the salmon with DIJON-MINT sauce, it is not a pleasant or even necessary combination of tastes. I also recommend, if you're taking a one-year-old out to dinner, to bring a banana or some Veggie Booty to keep them quiet because they'll hate whatever you order them from the children's menu and you'll spend the rest of your meal either dining alone or standing out on the sidewalk with a fussy baby while your spouse finishes all the wine.)

Anyway, one of the waiters also has a one-year-old child, a girl, who, he says, has a vocabulary of forty-two words. For those of you who aren't up on the developmental milestones, forty-two words at one year is FREAKISH. And I'm not just saying that because I've been working with the Nut for five months trying to get him to learn sign language, which was supposed to give him a sign-language vocabulary of fantastic breadth by the time he turned one, and the only thing close to a sign he ever does is dig wax out of his ear until it bleeds. Not that my child is in any way developmentally disadvantaged -- OH, NO -- and not that I'm jealous of the waiter/bartender's little genius, who's bound to have all sorts of emotional problems because in six months she'll be crawling out of her crib to go sell crack out of her diaper down on Haley Street -- OH, NO. I'm saying that forty-two words at one year is freakish simply because IT IS.

I have just figured out the base smell of Jackson's worst diaper dandies: nail polish remover.

But oh, you say, Wasn't he found chewing on a bottle of nail polish remover just the other day?

Yes, I reply, he was, but it was empty.

But didn't your husband tell you to wrest it from your son's jaws and throw it away perforce? And did you not recycle it?

Yes and yes.

And didn't your husband call you a negligent mother and threaten to call the child welfare authorities?

No, he didn't, he said, What kind of mother are you? but no threats did follow.

So that makes it okay for your one-year-old son to continue to play with poisonous liquids?

IT WAS EMPTY! DAMN YOU!

One of the things I used to love about reading Salon was that every other Friday there'd be a new story by Mary Roach. I don't know why that stopped, was it last year? Salon is having budget problems, I know, or maybe it was time for her to move on, but if you want to read a really great story about freezing your brain for science experiments, go here right now.

I have to clean up my act. This is what I said to Jack last night as we were driving away from the grocery store (the fancy Ralph's on Carrillo, not the down-on-its-luck Ralph's on De La Vina) and we saw this dumpy, middle-aged, gray-roots, baggy-shorts wearing mom hauling groceries with her cute teen daughter. I am on the tightrope between Lookin' Good and Needs a Bath, let's face it, and I don't want to become one of those women who, after ten, fifteen, twenty years of marriage just assumes that whatever she throws on in the morning is AOK because they've stopped having sex anyway and are staying together until Amber, Samantha, Jason, and Eli go to college.

Part of cleaning up your act at 38, however, is finding stuff to wear that doesn't make you look like a sad, overage teenager. I mean, I can rock the ultra-low-riding hiphuggers with the band of my Calvies showing, but do I really want to? Jack showed me a page of the Nordstrom catalog this morning and said, "This is you all over." The model looked like Sporty Spice covered in skin-tight Puma active wear, and I'm like, Huh, okay, this is a long way from getting drunk at CBGB's, isn't it.

Age 17 = camouflage, leather, and boots
Age 24 = thrift-store dresses and boots
Age 30 = Banana Republic sale rack pseudo-retro dresses and boots
Age 35 = Suede mini skirts and . . . BOOTS

But, you know, I'm a MOM now, so what the fuck? Join the sweatpants brigade. Then Jack's sister Maryann came up to visit with her boyfriend. Maryann is committed to Looking Hip at All Times, and yesterday she came to town looking like an Italian movie star from 1978, which is de rigeur in L.A. right now. And I'm thinking, she looks great, but every time I try to wear something that some goddamned women's magazine has deemed The Thing to Wear Now, the second I put it on and walk out the door I run into some poor, deluded sap like me who's wearing the exact same thing. At which point I turn around, go back inside, and hit myself over the head with a frying pan until every last word from said magazine has bled out through my ears.

At least when I lived in a big city I could find some style inspiration by just sitting on the subway. Now it's like, get in the Volvo, drive to the park, drive to the grocery store, go home, put baby down for nap, take battery out of smoke alarm, set all clothes in closet on fire.

Kids say the darnedest things.

Little Boy (about three years old, to Jackson): Count to three.
Jackson: (sucks on his fingers, plays with some wood chips)
L.B. (frustrated): Count to three!
Jackson (takes fingers out of mouth, makes pronouncement): Guh!
L.B. (to me): Make him count to three.
Me: He can't count.
L.B. (to me): You count to three.
Me (why not?): Okay!
L.B. (getting me started): One . . .
Me: One.
L.B. (because obviously this whole family needs a push): Two . . .
Me: Two.
L.B. (needs a ride is more like it): Three . . .
Me: Three.
L.B. (why stop now?): Four . . .
Me (please, God, make him stop soon): Four . . .
L.B. (triumphantly): Sexy!
Me (huh?): Huh?
L.B. (thinking I'm deaf as well as slow): SEXY!
Me (diplomatically): I think you skipped one.
L.B.'s Mother (sensing trouble from twenty feet away): Nathaniel, get over here and quit kissing that baby!

I just ate up 2,000 words about baseball by this woman, and I don't even really like baseball that much, despite the presence of a number 20 Yankees jersey in my closet, and the fact that I think Shane Spencer is keee-yooot. Of course, I just spent ten minutes looking for a photo to prove that, and, in keeping with Fussy's embrace of all that is pro-gay, I will share with you the gay sports fans site I discovered, it has lots of links to provocative athlete photos (nothing pornographic, so it's fun for the whole family!). If this was just some site devoted to Derek Jeter's butt or looking up Anna Kournikova's bloomers, I'd be disappointed, but somehow when I can read a story entitled Wimbledon: Still the Lesbian Super Bowl, I feel that all is right with the world.

Because I will talk all I want about babies and no one can stop me! Bwaa-ha-ha-ha!

Jackson's Latest Tricks, or, The Little Scientist's Latest Experiments

Flushing the toilet. Oooh, this is good. He's about ten minutes away from putting stuff into the toilet to watch it go down, I can see the little hamster wheel in his brain working overtime on this one.

Dropping food off of his high chair tray. Total tot entertainment. He takes a big handful of glop (e.g., cottage cheese) and holds it out over our Home Depot "Oriental" carpet, but before he drops it he makes sure I'm looking (if I'm not, usually he'll just give up and keep eating). I made the mistake of laughing at this once, so forget it.

Faking me out. This is when he pretends to drop glop off his tray, when actually he has quickly stuffed it into his mouth first and is holding out an empty fist so that I will think he has glop in it and get all ready to catch it. Then he opens his empty hand and smiles at me, and I say, "You faked me out!"

Climbing down from the bed. After watching Kitty leap down off the bed a few times, I guess he figured that was the coolest way to do it (since the actual human examples set by Jack and I are not nearly so aerodynamic). One morning he launched himself off the bed and landed on his throat. (Where was I? Umm, well . . .) So now he crawls carefully to the edge of the bed, grabs hold of the quilt, swings his legs down, and crawls off. How did he come up with that? Fuck if I know.

Erasing my posts. No longer allowed near the computer when I'm typing.

Unplugging stuff. Like the computer, while I'm typing, which successfully skirts the effects of being banished from keyboard and mouse proximity. He also likes to unplug the vacuum cleaner while I'm vacuuming, which is downright hilarious.

Dialing random telephone numbers. *Sigh*

Threatening to walk. This morning he took two unassisted steps, right in front of me, so stay tuned, all hell is about to break loose. Plus, I might win some ice cream!

I did not mean to take a week off from posting here, but my chi has been sluggish. That's the official word from my acupuncturist. My chi is humping along like a sad little donkey struggling with two loads of bricks up a 15% grade in 110 degree heat. At least that's what came to mind when Denise (acupuncturist) mimicked the halt, humpy quality of my chi pulse for me yesterday. Then she stuck two dozen needles in me and let me lie there in my underwear until I started hallucinating about that episode of Absolutely Fabulous when she gets her toe operated on to remove an acupuncture needle -- "I've only ever had acupuncture on my head!" (Look of horror.) Fortunately, Denise had also seen that episode and made a point of showing me all the needles were out.

Love Chinese medicine. LOVE IT. When I was pregnant I was having these weird hip sensations, like my pelvis was falling apart. I got bossed into taking some Chinese herbs and the pain cleared up within a day, labor was efficient and uncomplicated, blah blah blah. So now I tell every pregnant woman I know to find a good Chinese herbalist, and they all go, "hmm, okay," and they probably don't, but what would life be if you weren't free to ignore advice from shifty people with sudden, intense enthusiasms that make them feel as though THEY know the truth and YOU don't, you poor, unevolved believers in aspirin and such.

Jackson panic of the week:
Me: Where's the baby?
Jack: What the fuck do you mean, "where's the baby?"

Sudden frantic search of apartment. Baby is found -- he has carefully climbed halfway down the stairs after closing the security babyproofing gate politely behind him. (I love it how babies kind of miss the concept but they understand the procedure, at least.)

Jack: At least he closed the gate behind him.
Me: Gee, he didn't want us to fall down the stairs.

Last year I was so glad to have continuous sports events to watch while I was lying around recovering from the birth, figuring out how to make Jackson breastfeed before he starved to death, and staring in disbelief at my cellulite (couldn't miss it, it was too hot to wear long pants). (Just so you know, new mothers need big butts -- stored fat turns into breastmilk. Somehow. I'm not a scientist!) Two weeks of Wimbledon dovetailed nicely into three weeks of Tour de France, then we had a little pause for milkshakes before the U.S. Open. Then two planes flew into the World Trade Center and I was afraid to turn the television off for the next six months.

This summer? Watch Wimbeldon? Ha. The only thing I know about tennis right now is that Venus and Serena scare the shit out of everyone they play, and that poor little Timmy Henman is a "mummy's boy."
[link via Simon]

Here's something most excellent for you. Bitchypoo (aka Robyn) is giving stuff away! It's barely used stuff, really, and if you're lucky enough to win the drawing she even pays for postage. This week: Barely used perfume! How can that be beaten, I ask you. Not with the biggest of sticks.

Okay, enough with the haiku. For the most clever and amusing poetic form, one really need look no further than the double dactyl. Here's one by George Starbuck.

Said

J. Alfred Prufrock to
Hugh Selwyn Mauberly,
"What ever happened to
Senlin, ought-nine?"

"One with the passion for
Orientalia?"
"Rather." "Lost track of him."
"Pity." "Design."

Lunchtime Complaint

Temporary crowns:
three cracked teeth, upper left side.
Eating is a bitch.

Alternate last line:
Better drink my lunch.

We are taking bets on the exact day Jackson will start walking. Actually, I have taken a bet with myself and written it in my usually-quite-empty day planner -- July 15. If I win I will take myself out for ice cream. Jack doesn't seem interested in betting; he's not into performance pressure, or whatever you call it when men can't get . . . up and go get their own beer, so they ask you to do it, since you're already standing in front of the refrigerator wondering who's going to make dinner. Unlike your not-quite-toddling son, who gets around faster by crawling, who needs both hands for crawling -- he could carry an open beer in his mouth like a dog, I suppose. (And he'll have a sip of yours).

Pardon me, but I feel guilty about yesterday's post. I feel bad for saying that Mr. Noodle and his brother, Mr. Noodle, act gay, even though both actors are known for having played gay roles in films, and are obviously comfortable with bringing a little sass to their Mr. Noodles, as are the producers of Sesame Street. So why do I feel bad about pointing it out? I'm not sure.

I have stereotypes, and I guess I brought it up because I admire the way Jack is able to embrace his and make fun of himself for having them all at once, the way he can love you for your gayness/blackness/latinoness/womanness/guyness and give you a big ration of shit for it at the same time.

There is a widespread contention here in Southern California that a certain ethnic group should not be allowed behind the wheel of a car. It's a stupid, insulting stereotype that 75% of the time is right on the money, which makes me absolutely furious.

I don't want everyone to act the same or look the same, but I seem to want some people to quit doing the things that other people make fun of them for, to protect them from something I can't explain or defend.

My new favorite part of Sesame Street is when Elmo opens the windowshade and says, "Look! It's Mr. Noodle's brother, Mr. Noodle!" Every time Jack sees Mr. Noodle or his brother he just says, "Gay, gay, gay." Every time Jack tells his business partner, Gregg (who is gay), about something new that Jackson is doing that could be perceived as gay -- such as his current infatuation with drapery (Jackson will hide behind a curtain, and then FLING it open with his arm in a dramatic fashion and laugh -- ha ha ha! -- and I don't think he's seen that many John Barrymore films yet -- "Grand Hotel" was on the other night, but he was asleep -- Or so I thought! -- and anyway, John Barrymore couldn't have been completely gay, he had four wives . . . ?) -- Gregg says, "Admit it, you want Jackson to be straight." And Jack says, with complete and utter sincerity, "I don't give a shit who he wants to fuck."

I call this one "Professor Wittgenstein as a Child."

Why stop at haiku? "For centuries man has been reviewing films -- some use words, some use thumbs . . . others simply slash the seats and torch the cinema. Here at the four word film review we choose a slightly less aggressive or wordy approach. We believe that since most films start off as a short sales pitch, it makes perfect sense to return a film to it's humble beginnings and sum it up in four well-chosen words." My new favorite film review site.