peep show
IT’S EASTER! time for the washington post sunday source’s peep diorama contest!
my vote of course, when not going for my friend wah’s contribution, would definitely go for say anything, if not reservoir peeps.
Author: wrekehavoc
words
i was tagged by that crazee, childbearin’ gal who-comes-from-alabama-with-a-coupla-babies-on-her-knees (while simultaneously cooking, cleaning, and creating nuclear fission in her kitchen) — ms. onthecurb (via amy derby, whose blog i also like to read) with a meme: share a favorite quote and dedicate it to three other hapless lucky bloggers who keep the love going.
i am a lover of words and quotes, so this is a toughee™ for me. yes, beware the jabberwock english major, for she, yea she, possesses a poetic license and is not afraid to use it. yep. i can quote myriad biggies. there are so many who have inspired me. but anyone who reads this blog regularly knows that my favorite poetry comes from music. and although i know i am supposed to pick only one, there are two lyrics, one by aimee mann, and a simpler one by bruce springsteen, that are hugely influential for me and which seem to work together here.
first aimee mann, from it’s not safe:
All you want to do is something good
So get ready to be ridiculed and misunderstood
‘Cause don’t you know that you’re a fucking freak in this world
In which everybody’s willing to choose swine over pearls
for those of us who are (or think we are) relatively pure of heart and truly aim to do the right thing every day — teaching our kids to be decent people, treating other people kindly, and viewing issues in a global way — even though the world sometimes seems to be in conflict with that goal. for those days when you marvel at other people’s children, or other people’s parents, or just people in general who just loathe you or rip into you simply because you’re living your life your way. it just seems, as mann points out, not safe, to live that way. it rips your heart in two; it occasionally embarrasses or hurts your loved ones; it might not seem like you’re doing the right thing after all.
but then bruce simply and succinctly cuts to the chase. from new york city serenade:
It’s midnight in Manhattan, this is no time to get cute
It’s a mad dog’s promenade
So walk tall or baby don’t walk at all.
or, more to the point, as the divine ms. m once quipped, fuck’em if they can’t take a joke.
i tag these folks, four of the many who inspire me to walk tall every day, even when i step in a field of dog doo:
and
okay. so that’s four. two quotes and four bloggers. see, math is hard for us english majors 😉
in my house
dear playdate person who seems to have mysteriously landed here friend,
welcome to our home. we’re very glad you’re here! please enjoy your time with my child. let me tell you a little bit about what i expect, conduct-wise, when you’re in my house.
i am honestly delighted to provide you with a snack or lunch or whatever foodstuffs i might have on hand. please let me know whether you have any food allergies; i don’t have an epi-pen handy and would prefer the playdate not end in the ER.
also, regarding food, i have been teaching my eldest child that when she is a guest, she can indicate preference for food if her host gives her a specific choice; however, she is not to turn up her nose at things but try them unless they are pork or foods she knows she cannot have because she’s a red sea pedestrian. (i’m quite proud of the way she actually ate a sandwich on whole wheat bread the other day at a playdate and didn’t say boo about the bread. that’s one major leap for parentkind.)
how nice it is that your parents will make you a completely different meal if you don’t like what they’ve made for dinner. that rule, unfortunately, does not apply in my house. please, if you don’t like something, simply say no thank you. diatribes about how nasty a food is are not necessary. further, i’m sorry if you don’t like the brand of frozen pizza, peanut butter, or what have you. if it is unsuitable, i suggest you eat before you arrive.
you may not go upstairs and play in my room. that’s my room. i’m the mom, and i say so.
the vents come out of the floor. i don’t know why. that doesn’t mean you ought to pull them out. they actually are somewhat functional and probably aren’t appropriate for use as a child’s toy.
that pinball machine? it’s a vintage 1980s piece of our family history. my husband, BS, looked for three years until he found it and bought it. he carefully had it shipped first to the airport and then to our home, where it was put together. is it a little crazy to have a 20 year old pinball machine in your home? perhaps. but it is the same game we played when we were dating back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, and it is probably among the top five of the most romantic gestures my BS has ever made for me. hence, while i don’t mind when you and my child play the game, i would appreciate it if you did not angrily bang the glass each and every time your turn ends.
do not act mean to my younger child. while he is a major bruiser and is known in these parts as hellboy, he is still nearly 5 years younger than you are and doesn’t take kindly to insults. as he is a boy of a certain age, he also may resort to physical expressions of his displeasure. and, if i know he has been provoked, i will of course attempt to stop him from such expressions, as i know he can probably hurt you a lot worse than you can him. and i will make a mental note.
despite the fact that casa de wreke usually looks like a bomb hit it, do not be fooled into thinking that the floor is a proper receptacle for trash.
i love loved the pretty tulips. the ones you just trampled. is it customary to step on garden flowers in your own yard? please do not step on them in mine.
i truly enjoyed your explanation of how you get your way in your own home. it was especially entertaining to hear how you have taught your sibling your technique. i would humbly suggest that when that child is a little older, he/she will respond as hellboy would: he/she will whack you. worse, he/she will use it on you. just so you know.
i know you think i’m a mean, hardass mother. please be aware that i expect the same behavior and deportment from my own children. i really do like you, you know. but just as i am teaching my own children how to behave when they are guests in others’ homes, i am expecting that your parents have been doing the same. alas, to paraphrase something my BS often reminds me about others, i cannot expect that everyone in the world has been raised by me. (more’s the pity.) so don’t be alarmed if i gently remind you of our home rules as the situation arises. i am treating you, in essence, as i treat my own.
yours,
wreke
p.s. you’re not sleeping over.
you never give me your money
as my MIL always says, class shows — no matter how low.
unhappy with her ex-husband’s lawyer, heather mills decided to throw water all over fiona shackleton, former solicitor for paul mccartney during their less-than-collegial proceedings. this, after being granted about $48 million dollars after only four years of marriage… oh, and that figure doesn’t include money for their child beatrice’s education and protection, jewelry, and important works of art. and no, we don’t mean some candlesticks from the wedding — this means works by warhol, haring, john lennon, and julian schnabel. not too shabby.
the UK papers are having a field day with her latest ranting: it’s hard to pick which is better:
The former model’s face is all over today’s front pages, accompanied by unfavourable if funny headlines after she was awarded £24m in the couple’s acrimonious divorce. The Sun excels with “Mucca chucksa cuppa water over Macca’s lawyer Shacka“. The Mirror plumps for “Wet it be“.
all the laughter aside, what i find appalling about this case is that mills’ rants are so self-centered. it’s all about her. when she speaks of beatrice, apparently conceived immaculately, as she is always her child, she worries that the little girl will not be able to travel first-class like her dad does. i suspect sir paul won’t let beatrice languish — heather is fighting to have information about what paul will pay for bea’s care kept private — but one does wonder — if she’s concerned about stuff like that, what about all the acrimonious things that may end up as public record down the line? what happens when bea reads that stuff? what is she to think? and will mills poison the child against her father?
in every breakup, everyone shares some piece of the blame. macca i am sure has contributed to the breakdown of this union. but mills bizarre public behavior, ranting, and obnoxiousness generally makes one wonder whether she got what she deserved? she probably got more than she deserved. as a feminist, i am somewhat appalled by those who would stand up for her and say that she is a deserving partner in all of this. these are monies earned long before she entered the picture. what makes her entitled to them? i don’t begrudge the child a thing, but the mother?
ugh.
so sad, so sad. it’s just another day.
guilty pleasure monday: lady (styx)
i’m really going to get laughed off the internet for this one. or at least sent to hell via a certain river.
no, not the chickenmaster’s lady. not lay lady lay (which makes me want to vomit — what the hell was dylan thinking? was this recorded pre- or post-motorcycle incident?) not even layla, a fantastic ode to patti boyd harrison clapton boyd-again.
we’re talking styx here, people. lady. as sung by dennis de young, maybe vocally separated at birth from my very favourite professional poker player, daniel negreanu.
i love this song. and it ought to be against some law for anyone else to sing it.
i glommed onto this song when i was a wee lass of nine. there was something cool about it — it was slow and pretty, and, at the same time, it was fast and rrrrrockin’. (yeah. for those of you under the age of 40, that’s how people talked in the 1970’s. far out, man!) i remember being reminded of the song one night when i heard it while watching a late, lamented show, freaks and geeks.
and i hearted it all over again, much to the chagrin of my BS, who probably prefers something like, uh, i dunno, mr. roboto.
which just goes to show you. styx, in one way or another, is probably on everyone’s guilty pleasure list.
anyone over 40, that is.
a tisket, a tasket akismet=spam basket
woohoo. just officially hit my 1000th piece of spam caught by the mighty Akismet. Akismet rocks, my friends. mightily. and no, i don’t work for them. i’m just really impressed with the product 🙂
don't know much about history
i have been quietly but officially branded as The Idiot Parent™ by BC.
i was trying to do six things at one time yesterday as i tried to help her with her math homework from afar. long story short, girlfriend (AKA einstein junior) suggested a way to solve a word problem, and i told her it was incorrect. fast forward to later in the evening, when she was finishing her work with BS. BS told her that her solution was actually correct, and i was wrong.
from here on in, BC only wants to do math homework with BS.
i should be happy about this: one less task (check.) truly, i do have the mathematical ability of a raccoon. my scholastic math experiences didn’t help matters. but over the years, i have built up my confidence, at least to the point that i think i’ve mastered things like long division. (do they teach that anymore?) but where i memorized my multiplication tables to multiplication rock as a child, BC is learning more about thinking about numbers in a way that i never did as a memorizing fiend.
i just don’t want to set a terrible example for her. while i find math about as interesting as watching grass grow, i know i have to put on a big show about how cool math is. (anyone have ideas as to how i do this convincingly, let me know.) and yes, i know math is important in the world; no preaching required. i just never found it interesting the way i found reading interesting.
and, in a related vein, girlfriend wept last night. she has to give a report on the sun. she worked on said poster and picked out five interesting facts about the sun all by herself. however, she is afraid the boys in her class will rip her apart. her sun facts apparently aren’t terribly impressive to anyone but herself. after giving her a mini-lecture about how she shouldn’t care what the boys think (boy, do i see this as something that will come up again and again in the future), and that she should only care about what she herself thinks about her work and what her teacher thinks about her work, i started to have a mini-reverie.
and i got pissed.
in this family, i make my kids do their own projects. (i passed third grade. i don’t need to pass it again.) i was surprised when i went to her parent/teacher conference last week and saw some of the other solar system posters, which clearly had serious adult contributions. what the hell? i want my kid to learn all by herself, and here she has to compete with projects completed by forty-plus-year-olds? i sure hope teachers see through this sort of thing, as it is unfair to compare her work, which clearly looks like the work of a third grader, with the work of a grownup.
what do parents think when they do their kids’ projects? do they think they are helping them? will they be walking into chemistry class later on in high school to help their child complete an experiment? joining them on job interviews? i don’t get it. and i hope my kid doesn’t get penalized down the road because she did her own work. why the hell do they need to start the competitiveness crap this early?
in short, grownups need to grow up.
can't buy me love
eliot spitzer’s recent alleged dalliance with high-priced prostitutes is just one more disappointment in the world of male leaders, but not a surprise. whether you’re bill clinton with an intern in the oval office, wilbur mills with a stripper in the tidal basin, newt gingrich divorcing his wife by her hospital bedside, or even jim bakker with a church secretary G-d-knows-where, men in power have an abysmal history of being infantile idiots who think they can’t get caught with their hands in the cookie jar, democrats and republicans alike. i even remember rumors of george bush senior having a certain special someone; somehow, that didn’t get much press, though. (wonder why?) it isn’t just politicians, as i pointed out above; it’s just that we hear mostly about the politicians when they’re in trouble. the opposing party of the problem child makes good and well sure of that.
i often joke that living in washington, dc, is like living in the land of former high school student council presidents. smart, nerdy and shrewd, they couldn’t land the cheerleaders in high school. so they come here, and they land usually-smart girls who appreciate a smart guy. only, too bad for the women, since the guys, finally landing a date (or a lay), see that there are other mountains to conquer (so to speak.) they can’t help themselves: they feel like they finally are getting their day in the sun.
unfortunately, they look for this day in the sun after they’ve put a ring on someone else’s finger. cos they’re all about doing the right thing. or having the right image, anyway.
so why would someone with a reputation for corruption-fighting go and throw it all away? what does $5,500 an hour buy? it buys cachet: the i got ice cream, you can’t have it effect (mature language for those listening at work). the same guy who didn’t have a date for the prom, the same guy who didn’t get laid until he was in his 20s, the same guy who probably got beat up one too many times for being a dweeb — now he can have things those morons back home can’t have.
unfortunately, spitzer went beyond the immoral — he went illegal. frankly, i don’t care what politicians do in their personal lives, as long as they don’t break the law. but he did.
i wonder sometimes whether women in power do these similar things. are they tempered by their experiences so that they don’t want to be bothered with extracurricular activities? are they too intelligent or moral for that? or are they smart enough not to get caught with their trousers down?
i know i ought not be surprised by this latest info. but i am still very, very disappointed. calling spitzers literary agent — time for spitzer’s political memoirs: smart men, stupid choices.
let's go crazy!
…because it is absolutely critical to buy your kid $250 converse sneakers.
guilty pleasure monday: the music from Hair
yesterday, it was my birthday. i hung one more year on the line. i should be depressed; my life’s a mess. but i’m having a good time. – Paul Simon
okay, not too depressed, especially since it’s:
guilty pleasure monday!
anybody still with me out there?
cool. since i’m reflecting on my younger years, i thought i’d drop this heavy trip on you, you dig? groovy.
when i was a little kid, i used to listen to hair incessantly. and yes, i danced around the living room and the basement, just like this little kid is doing. i wanted to let my sun shine in, i wanted to let my freak flag fly, i wanted to understand what the hell these people were doing and whether their parents knew. (i was 4 when this came out, people. remember, i was a rather messed-up precocious child.)
a long time ago, i ranted about how much i hated the movie version of hair and how my parents let me run around the house singing a song with nasty, awful words i’ve declined to put in the blog because: a) i get enough weird search referrals, and b) if i did, one day, my kids — probably hellboy — will do a search to find all the naughty words on earth — and he’ll find them here in his mama’s blog? and need lots of therapy? thank you, no.
i don’t need to rewrite the tale; all i can say is that if someone threatened to barrage me with showtunes while i drove cross-country, i’d probably be ok with that if the show was hair.
(it’s my birthday. or at least it was. so indulge me, please.)