having horrible hobbies

When the children were very small, the Sober Husband and I used to bitch that we couldn't pursue our hobbies. The children ate up all our time and energy. However, as they got older and more independent, we were able to start following our interests from time to time. I quilted, until the World of Warcraft started eating up far too much time (and also I'm suffering from Quilter's Block right now, sigh, a subject for another day). The Sober Husband revived a boyhood interest in chess, sparked by playing chess with coworkers over his iPhone, which I encouraged initially. When we were on one of our extremely rare date outings downtown, I dragged him to the chess club at the Mechanics' Institute. He'd scoffed at the very idea of this chess club, sure it was beneath him, but he agreed to stop by the library to look for some chess books. Walking around the crowded and old-fashioned chess room, he lost his disdain. "Some of these ratings are really high," he said as he looked up at the handwritten results of the last tournament. "Really high. International player level." I noticed a picture hanging on the wall showing Garry Kasparov playing chess in that same room. He got in touch with the chess director the next day and was soon a regular at the institute's chess room.

Soon the Sober Husband was studying chess in books, playing online, working out problems on a chessboard, typing in the moves from his games into a chess analysis program, and generally spending every non-work moment possible immersed in chess. He made flashcards to test himself on the classic openings, which amused the children, particularly after I suggested they could add some cards to his deck. Lola made a study card, among others, for "Vomit: Has Many Powers" which we giggled over together hysterically.

Characteristically he is now seen at every possible moment checking his multitude of chess games over his iPhone. Once a week he goes straight from work to the library on Tuesdays to play in a chess tournament, not getting home until after the children's bedtime. The children were terribly annoyed by this, but I considered it fair enough as I had taken up going out one night a week to an evening art class.

The problem is that the Sober Husband's hobby isn't relaxing. It drives him to despair. He frets that he's studying the wrong thing, that he'll never become good enough so there's no point, etc.., etc... A bad game leaves him in a dark, dark mood, and I've lost count of how many pep talks I've administered. This chess stress also seems to happen to an acquaintance of ours who is a long-time serious chess player, who reportedly was cast into self-doubt at being defeated by a child in a recent tournament. Recently I asked the husband, "Why do you have a hobby that causes you stress?"

"I thought that was the point of hobbies. That all hobbies cause you stress."

"Most people have hobbies that are RELAXING," I contended. The Sober Husband failed to take my point.

"I play Warcraft. It is RELAXING," I insisted.

But even traveling around a strange and rich world on an oversized pink bird, having adventures and slaying monsters, can have its stressful moments. Today I found myself hating Blizzard, Warcraft's corporate creator, as well as its customer service idiots. In the World of Warcraft, it's the Midsummer holiday, and at all the settlements, be they Horde or Alliance, there are bonfires and celebrations. There are a lot of quests related to this holiday, and I spent about four hours yesterday pulling one of the most difficult ones off: getting into the hearts of the Alliance's four capital cities and stealing the flames from their most special fires.

Getting this done did not go smoothly. I joined a raid group which managed to get a warlock (after many, many, many deaths) and some others into the subterranean tram underneath the dwarven capital of Ironforge, which meant they could summon the rest of us to join them as they teetered on a ledge in the dark. We got a bit giddy as our numbers grew, and we danced and threw rose petals on each other. Finally we stormed into the city itself, fighting off the guards and the Alliance players alike in a crazy scrum, and we got to the fire and back to the tram in a nonstop frenzy of fighting. This went wonderfully, and I didn't even die. Then an idiot in our group pulled a Leeroy Jenkins: he screamed, "KILL THE KING!" and ran back into Ironforge with no premeditation. About half the group impulsively followed him, while the other players, dumbfounded at this (we had explicitly, repeatedly discussed that we didn't have enough players to assassinate the king, barely enough to get the fire) stayed in the tram. Naturally the Jenkinsing players died and died and died, whining that the rest of us weren't helping them, and many of the sane players left the group. After the Jenkinsing players had finally managed to rejoin us, our sadly diminished group went on by train to Stormwind City, where we fought desperately, all dying over and over again, until we almost all of us got the flame. We were giddy at this hard-earned achievement (which would have been a piece of cake if the whole group had stayed together).

Then I got back home to my own territory and turned in these flames to the Horde Lorekeeper, so happy to have gotten it done, and nothing happened. I didn't get credit for stealing the fires. I didn't get the achievement. I did open an online ticket, and the next day I was told, "Good news! You can try it again!" I felt rabid. I spent an embarrassingly huge amount of time doing this silly thing, and I endured a classicly witless raid group of Leeroy Jenkins proportions, and I didn't get credit for it and now I have to do it over again? And this is my hobby? I bitched about it on the online Blizzard customer service forum to no avail. I can't believe this is how I voluntarily spend my time. I suck.

Addendum: I stole all those flames again, this time soloing because I couldn't face being in another big raid, and I got it done in a few hours. Ironically I got it done in about the same length of time, dying more, but that was compensated for by time saved not standing around waiting for other people.

an insult

Iris complained, half-laughing, half-peeved, that "Lucy called me a child of the devil, living in a hellhole" and asked, "Is that what I am?"

I had to admit that at times, I would find that description pretty accurate. Lola ran about squawking in triumph, and Iris tried hard to overcome the giggles and mold her features into a stern look of admonition.

the greatest idea

"Momdude, I just had the greatest idea! Has anyone ever invented beer milkshakes?" asked nine year-old (and future frat party attendee) Iris uber Alles.

"Umm, I've never heard of anyone drinking one, but I'm sure someone has tried it."

"Do whatever it takes to remember this," Iris charged me. "On my 21st birthday, at my party, beer milkshakes!"

geeks and a non-geek

Nine year-old Iris uber Alles and I had been looking forward to Robogames for weeks (once a year robot hobbyists gather in San Francisco for a variety of competitions). Lola, however, had no interest in attending. "I'm not going," she proclaimed over and over again, and she took the strategic move of refusing to get dressed. Her father wrestled a shirt over her head (ignoring her shouts of "DON'T MESS WITH ME!") which she shrugged off after he left the room.

"I'm not a geek!" she shouted. " I don't want to see the robots fight! I am not a geek!"

I pointed out that I do lots of things I am not interested in for her sake, but Lola was unmoved. I noted that many of the robots at Robogames are cute little things; it's not all about fighting 'bots (indeed I was intrigued at the awards ceremony when two tuxedoed men accepted a bronze medal in the "Bartending Robots" competition for their robot named "Khaz Modan." First, how did I miss that there would be bartending robots? And secondly, why am I not hanging out with these people who share my interests in formal dress, cocktails, and Warcraft? Khaz Modan was bested by "iLush", however, whose creator was shaggy but happy).

Finally it was Iris who got Lola dressed and ready to go, after both parents had failed (the Sober Husband having issued some threats involving withholding of videos, television, and chocolate milk, but Lola viewed these as empty threats). Iris told Lola that if she didn't have fun, Iris would pay her five dollars... but if Lola did have fun, Iris was going to take five dollars out of Lola's piggy bank. This bet got Lola dressed, but what got her scurrying down the stairs was Iris's musing that some of the robots were bound to have butts. Our scatologically-inclined kindergartener headed for the door, giggling about "pooping robots!"

pranks and how to spin them

Not long ago I picked up kindergartener Lola to take her to ballet. A propos of not much, she remarked in the car that she hated her older sister. I said, "You don't always hate her. Sometimes you love her."

Lola thought about it. "I love her when we're playing games, but I hate her when she is bossing me around or playing pranks on me."

I had never heard of any Iris-on-Lola pranks. "She plays pranks on you?"

"Once she told me Bob Marley [our faithless ex-cat who moved in with a neighbor] was in the hall, so I ran down to see him, and she dropped a parachute on my head," Lola said wearily.

Later I picked up Iris uber Alles, while Lola was at school. I repeated to her what Lola had said, and nine year-old Iris interrupted self-righteously, "I don't play pranks on her." I continued with the story. Iris said quickly but yet judiciously, "That may have happened, but it was for entertainment purposes only."

a lonely vegetarian in a protein-crazed world

About a week ago I picked up third grader Iris uber Alles at school, and, when I asked her how her day at school was, instead of her usual "Meh", she said with intensity, "Momdude, I made the biggest mistake of my life today. Telling the PE teacher that I'm a vegetarian."

First the teacher went off on a sort of rant in front of the whole class, according to Iris, going on about how Iris should go on a mission to teach the world not to eat animals. But then, after considering it further, the teacher called Iris to her office for a private conference, where, turning her big earnest eyes on Iris, she asked, "Where do you get your protein?" Iris felt put on the spot and humiliated and embarrassed.

Hearing this, my blood pressure soared. I ranted in the car for a while. I hatehatehate idiots who turn their blank gaze on you and ask, "Where do you get your protein?" If I were ruder, I'd ask them in return, "Well, where the fuck do you get your fiber, vitamins, and minerals, because they sure as hell aren't in that meat you're so freaking fond of."

I realize that I've built up a chip on my shoulder about being a vegetarian. Whatever sense of humor I ever had about it wore off over a decade ago. I'm tired of being asked where I get my protein or being told that in Genesis, God gives animals to Adam to eat like fruit or being asked if being a vegetarian makes me have to forego oral sex or being informed that I'm at the bottom of the food chain while intelligent people are at the top of it. More than anything, I wish my beautiful, smart daughters wouldn't have to put up this crap.

Then last Friday I chaperoned an all-day, teacherless field trip for the third grade. Another chaperone had the very good idea of taking our group to Juban for lunch, a Japanese restaurant where you cook your own food on a little grill inset into the marble table. Of course the girls were thrilled with this, and this chaperone ordered filet mignon for them all, with one order of shrimp as a bit of a side, with rice. I intervened as gently as possible. "Iris and I are vegetarians." For us, I ordered tofu, corn, zucchini, and asparagus, which we happily cooked together. The chaperone (whom I actually like, a very nice woman) looked over at me and asked, "Where do you get your protein?" I could not believe that with everyone else at the table eating the nutritionally questionable choice of meat and plain rice while Iris and I had a rich and full meal of corn, tofu, zucchini, and asparagus, someone would question OUR nutritional choices. I responded as politely as I could, pointing out gently that the average American is rather protein-crazed and eats far more protein than recommended, including American vegetarians, and noting that as ovo-lacto vegetarians, Iris and I eat cheese, tofu, beans, eggs, and many other protein-laden foods regularly.

Meanwhile the end-of-the-year picnic for Iris's class was coming up. Last year this was held at a prestigious country club and catered, with each family required to pay a hefty charge. I asked, as civilly as I could, whether there would be any vegetarian food included, and I was told in return that no, there wouldn't be, and I would need to bring plenty of food for my family and assume we'd get absolutely nothing, but I still needed to pay the full, outrageous catering charge because it wouldn't be fair for our family not to help pay for the picnic. Neither the Sober Husband nor I felt like driving for well over an hour to pay for other people to have a catered picnic, so we skipped that one. This year's picnic was happily being held within the city limits at a reasonable price, but I still didn't feel like asking about vegetarian food. I'm sick of being the only vegetarian parent of the only vegetarian child in the third grade. I don't want to talk about it or bring it up with any of those people.

There are supposedly vegan families in the upper school, but I don't personally know them. The Sober Husband is a weak ally, given that he scarfs down meat on a regular basis and occasionally goes off on me about how he hates to go to fine restaurants with me because he feels constrained about ordering meat. Given that he lived primarily off taco chips and ramen noodles when we met, I do not feel any guilt about my impact on his diet.

Today I was feeling upset and unhappy, and a strange thought came to my mind. I realized that I missed my ex-husband. For all his faults and failings, the man was a dedicated vegetarian, and I never felt lonely as a vegetarian during the decade we were together. I always had someone who understood these issues and who was just as quick with an eye-rolling over that ubiquitous "how do you get your protein" or to take offense at foie gras. My children are more strongly and vehemently vegetarian than me, but they are children. (Indeed Lola recently learned that her father isn't a vegetarian and burst into tears. "I thought we were all vegetarians," she said between sobs). I don't have any other vegetarian friends these days, particularly vegetarian friends who are parents. I used to post on a board for vegetarian parents, but iVillage shut it down, the carnivores. I'm alone in this, without allies or anyone who gets it.

I tried to talk to the Sober Husband about the gym teacher's faux pas, but he didn't get it. "I thought you said the other chaperone asked you where you get your protein, but it was the gym teacher? Or the chaperone?"

"BOTH. They both did," I said impatiently. "EVERY idiot asks that. There used to be a vegan zine called 'Where Do You Get Your Protein.'" I hung up. How low I have sunk indeed, I thought, to be missing my ex-husband.

starting too soon

Today at a large picnic commemorating the end of kindergarten, six year-old Lola said to me wearily as we arrived, "Don't do anything to embarrass me."

an enigma depressingly revealed

A few weeks ago I came across a strange blog, an egocentric retelling of "the Journey" of a thirty year-old man with a large nose, who gave up his career as a financial adviser to pursue an acting career. This fellow, Arthur Kade, is certainly not lacking in self esteem:

At that moment, I realized that I am a savior, a god to people who sit at their desk the whole day, hate their lives, and want to probably jump off a roof because they are so miserable. I am the modern day “Acting Moses”, the person who was given the drive, looks, and talent to lead my followers to the promise land, and make the impossible, possible.

He's not lacking in misogyny, either (and constantly the question is raised, in the comments and in the reader's mind, "Is this guy severely closeted?"). Mr. Kade opined that he would not deign to sleep with Halle Berry or Charlize Theron; they are simply not hot enough for him. He won't even speak to a woman who is less than a 6 on his demanding scale; she isn't even worth being a friend. When misguided drunken girls come up to him in clubs, he fumes if they aren't hot enough. What made them think they could approach him, when he's out of their league? His misogyny was perhaps the most annoying the day when he had blood drawn from an unattractive female phlebotomist. Arthur kvetched that he should have asked for a different person; it's just so horrible having to have blood drawn from a woman who hasn't bleached the dark hairs on her upper lip.

Arthur posts videos of himself at his acting class, and it's pathetic, to say the least (my cat has a more charismatic film presence. So does my left foot). So far Arthur's "Journey" has led him to being an extra on "The Gossip Girls" and "Salt." Despite the fact that he hasn't been paid to utter a line on film yet, he's musing about all the Oscars he will win and what kind of characters he will play (he sees himself as a dark and complex leading man, despite lacking any signs of talent whatsoever).

I spent hours reading about "The Journey", all the while thinking, "This has got to be some kind of scam, some viral marketing, right? NO ONE can be this clueless and self-obsessed. It's not possible. What can this be promoting? What is really going on here?" From early on, commenters have been unrelentlessly harsh to Arthur (the Acting Moses!), and I couldn't imagine any burgeoning actor or blogger who could withstand so much meanspirited (and sometimes hilarious) mockery. But Arthur kept barreling along, spewing out judgmental remarks about women's looks and bragging about how he was so pepped up after delivering a eulogy at his grandmother's funeral that he could use that energy to bawl out a bouncer at an Atlantic City club and scam his way in without paying (Arthur views himself as God's Gift To Sleazy Nightclubs and always maneuvers his way in without paying a door charge). The mere fact that he could withstand the wave of disbelief and hatred washing over his every post made me think it HAD to be viral marketing.

But then Philadelphia" magazine ran a story on "the Internet's Most Hated Man", musing on whether Philly should be proud or ashamed of its most overly self-loving native son. A reporter followed Arthur around for two weeks, witnessing his self-deception (at an acting class, the reporter lies and tells Arthur his wooden recital of lines was good) and massive ego in action. The day that article came out was a dark day for the soul. It is true that a man of no visible talent, who would not lower himself to flirting with Angelina Jolie (on the grounds that she is "Mother Hot, not Stripper Hot"), who has no accomplishments whatsoever beyond being an extra in a crowd of extras, can spend much of his life musing about his many wonders and boasting about them online, always using the word "amazing" and capitalizing at random. Oh the humanity! I shudder at the horrors of what the human soul is capable of.

uh oh, competition

Lola just handed me a colorful slip of paper, reading:

(Mommys Needed) MOMMYS ARE BEST
BEST Momma AWARDS

BEST MommY contest

It is illustrated by a smiling, smug looking girl labeled "child" over the caption "Mommys are best", next to a frowning brown-haired man labeled simply "Dad."

I liked the artwork, but I harbor no arrogance here. I could well see Lola informing me kindly, with a condescending pat on my hand, that I have placed last in the "BEST Momma AWARDS."

angry senior citizen ceramicists

Since Lola started kindergarten, I've been taking ceramics classes at the Sharon Arts Studio. The spots in these classes are highly coveted, and in order to get one, the aspiring student (or her "proxy", in a certain case, an abstemious husband) must arrive on sign-up day around six A.M. and wait in line until noon, when registration starts.

That is, however, if the aspiring student isn't a senior citizen. Senior citizens have been allowed to register the day before, at their leisure, without waiting in line. This gives them an advantage, of course, and the classes are predominately composed of senior citizens, with there being huge competition for the remaining slots and plenty of middle-aged and youthful adults walking away disappointed.

This system is due to change, with the city pushing for the studio to join the rest of Rec and Parks in having online sign-ups. Although this system won't be starting for months, our instructor passed forms at our last class and encouraged us to create online accounts to be ready when the time does come, probably next fall. This will mean no lines, but instead thousands of people hitting the enter key over and over again, trying to claim a spot. It will also mean, as one disgruntled Marinite in my class discovered, no more senior citizen advantage. She asked querulously about whether there would be some system set up again so that seniors wouldn't have to compete with younger people for the coveted class spots. "We did that [early sign-up] so the seniors wouldn't have to stand in line for hours," the instructor breezily explained. "You won't be standing in line in this system-- you'll be in your house, at your computer."

"It's going to be a level playing field," I said in a light voice. The woman, normally friendly (and indeed one of my favorite members of the class) affixed me with a firm glare and started a monologue about how it's discrimination when you take things away from senior citizens and how the city might have to pay if a lawyer got involved, you can't just go taking something away from senior citizens, you know.

Our instructor made a big deal out of not taking, as required by the city, proof of identity and residence. "Here you are who you say you are." This soothed the nervous Marin residents, but it did irk me, and it made me think again about the senior citizens' advantage in signing up.

These highly coveted classes are paid for by the property taxes of San Francisco homeowners (the charge for these highly subsidized classes is minimal). The Marin seniors have a lock on spots in their preferred classes, keeping those spaces for years and years, and since they've been able to sign up a day before general registration open, they've had no fears of losing those spots. They don't have to go to the trouble I do to try to get a spot in the class. They don't pay taxes here; why should they keep San Francisco residents out of these classes? For one of them to start muttering threats that she'll get a lawyer to stop this discrimination is beyond ridiculous. Such a sense of entitlement, coming from someone who'll be lying about her place of residence to keep a spot in the class.

There are plenty who'd mock me for writing this, though. I don't actually stand in the Infamous Line From Hell: my husband does it for me. Here's his picture of last time's line:

All the seniors were tucked up in their cosy beds in Marin while the San Francisco taxpayers (or their significant others) waited in this line for what few spots were left, for over seven chilly hours.

using math in real life with the Drunken Housewife

Nine year-old Iris uber Alles is supposed to be learning how to divide and multiply fractions. She admitted at dinner tonight that she doesn't understand it very well and, what's more, she doesn't want to understand it. It's a dumb thing that she has no interest in learning.

I cut that off. "It's really important to understand percentages and fractions in real life!" I cast about briefly for an example, and then plunged on. "In cooking, when I double or triple a recipe, I have to be able to multiply fractions. And if I cut a recipe in half, I need to divide the fractions."

Iris was silent for a bit. She didn't want to admit that I had a point, and she does love to cook. Then she turned to her father. "Remember the last time Mom-dude was trying to find an example of using math in real life, and all she could come up with was Warcraft? That when she's selling stuff on the auction house, she uses nines?" Iris shook her head at the idiocy of grown-ups and their math and their MMPORGs. "Warcraft! That was the best she could do!"

it's driving me crazy lately

Lately I've been incensed that the Republicans are trying to end Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi's career, on the basis that she knew American forces were torturing sundry Muslims.

I'm not a fan of hypocrisy. It strikes me as dishonest that the Republicans contend it was okay for Bush and Cheney to authorize torture, which was called "enhanced interrogation", and it was just dandy for it to be done, in the national interests, and all that, and that it was important right up until January 18, 2008 to both carry out and defend this practice heartily... AND that Cheney, Bush, Rice, and all their cohorts should be enshrined in history as American heroes and certainly under no means judged figuratively, much less literally, for this... BUT that Representative Pelosi's career should come to an end just because she may or may not have known it was going on. The people who ordered it are heroes, but someone who had no power to stop it should be condemned and thrown aside?

Incidentally I'm no fan of Pelosi's. I live in her district and voted for Krissy Keefer last time out (I turned against Pelosi in the nineties when she proposed that the Presidio be financially supported by authorizing a large animal testing facility there). I'm angry on her behalf nonetheless.

not to you

I overheard the Sober Husband saying frustratedly to nine year-old Iris uber Alles, "I don't have to make sense to you!"

Confliction resolution- the boring style. By Iris Uber Alles

The other day when I picked third grader Iris uber Alles up at school, as usual I asked her how her day was. Instead of her usual noncommittal grunt, Iris let loose with a rant about how instead of gym, she'd had a conflict resolution seminar. I found this fascinating and asked her to write a guest blog piece. Please welcome our resident nine year-old expert on conflict resolution and gym classes:

Okay peoples I'm her to talk about what happened a few days ago which was apparently very amusing.
At school everybody plays a game called "Four square" It involves a ball, and four squares and you pass it on and on and on, and you can't bounce it in your own square twice, and there's code language like "Buy me a soda" and "Peace out" and blah blah blah the rules go on and on and on! It's never ending! The P.E. Teachers are supposed to be in charge of this, because the homeroom teachers don't want to have to deal with people having "problems" caused by people not following the rules when playing this game. I don't play it. People talk about how they can make the world a better place, and how all wars should end, and then they play four square! by doing that they're promoting the opposite of "Peace out" which is why that is such a terrible game! But that's not the funny part. A few days ago, we walked out of the classroom to go to P.E. (I call it peh.) the "peh" teachers came up to us and said they were going to divide us into groups. they didn't tell us why, I expected we'd be like bouncing basketballs or something, then they led the first group indoors, and I didn't know what to expect. I was in the last group,and they led me into the other third grade classroom with the so-called"PEH TEACHER OF DOOM"! Then we sat down, and she said we were going to be talking about conflict resolution. I immediately realized that this had a deep connection with four-square. then we started talking about conflicts and resolution and stuff then the teacher pulled out a globe and pointed to Iraq. Then she said, "What is happening here?" I really wanted to laugh at that point but I had to hold it back. Then one person, with their face full of light, said, "A war!" Then we went over to the white board and the teacher explained how Anger is a good thing but you have to use it right. Then she pointed out what are good ways to let out your anger and bad ways. and what really made it official that this entire thing was pointless was one person raised her hand asked if war was a good thing! and then yeah it basically ended, or at least I wasn't there, because the lunch bell rang and for me when I hear that sound I just automatically start dashing out the door.

FIN


P.S. I need braces!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!OH NO!

there are some talented women out there, as well as those from those icy, cold places

This last week I had the pleasure of reading three mindboggling good books, books so good that you don't want them to end and hesitate to start another one right after, sure it can't live up to the pleasure of the one before, and another pretty good book as well. Two of these books continued my personal theme of reading authors from cold, icy lands of long winters, where there seems to be a disproportionate amount of literary talent.

"Doghead"(St. Martins 2009, originally published in Denmark in 2005) by Morten Ramsland comes to us from Denmark, where it's evidently considered the best book written in aeons. It swept the Danish literary awards, winning Author of the Year, Book of the Year, the Reader's Prize, and their very most prestigious prize, the Golden Laurel Prize. It also picked up a couple of prizes in Italy, but so far other nations have withheld their loot from Mr. Ramsland. I enjoyed this book, a rambling recount of a family's generations of harsh luck and odd characters, but not quite so much as the Danish did. It struck me as a much quicker moving John Irving novel, covering as much ground in 5 pages as Mr. Irving might in 75.

Another novel from the cold Northern lands, "Last Rituals" by Yrsa Sigurdardottir (Harper 2007, now in paperback, originally published in 2005 in Iceland) absolutely riveted me. This was Icelander Sigurdardottir's first book, and it's unbelievable that she could have such polished prose and well-turned plot on her first outing. A heavily pierced and scarified German graduate student comes to Iceland to write a thesis on medieval witch burnings (which in Iceland were all-but-one of men, unlike mainland Europe, where women were the primary victims). His mutilated corpse is found at the university, and a single mother and attorney is hired by his family to keep an eye on the police's investigation. Ms. Sigurdardottir has a second book just out in the U.S., with the same main character, which I am eager to read.

"Dream House" by Valerie Laken (Harper Collins 2009) was my other top favorite of this very good batch of books, along with "Last Rituals." A neurotic high school teacher pushes her slacking spouse into buying a large fixer-upper in Ann Arbor, Michigan, later learning that a murder occurred there. Incidentally the man who committed that crime as a teenager has just been released from prison. This book is a tour de force, with truly believable, well-rounded, and flawed characters. I never wanted it to end. Like "Last Rituals", this unbelievably good book was a first novel. Both are very literary books, although "Last Rituals" can be termed genre fiction, a murder mystery.

The other very enjoyable book I read was "Life Sentences" by Laura Lippman (HarperCollins 2009). Ms. Lippman is already a bestselling author, but I hadn't read her previous works (her top-selling book, "What the Dead Know" is now on my to read list). Ms. Lippman gives us Cassandra Fallows, a best-selling author of memoirs full of too much information, who has just released a less-well received first novel. Ms. Fallows needs to write another memoir, since fiction isn't working out for her, but she despairs of wringing more material out of her life. Then she finds out that one of the girls she went to school with committed an infamous crime.

I felt like I was on a roll, reading one great book after another, without a dud in the lot. I hope this luck continues.

that age-old mystery, what women want

Back when I was single which seems like a world away now, I was often flabbergasted by what men would do to attempt to attract me. There was the old "have you been saved in Jesus" routine (funny how no one tries to check on my soul's status now that I'm middle-aged; when I was a young hottie, it was practically a daily occurrence). There were the chronic liars, who would go on about their cutting edge martial arts achievements and knowledge of dead languages (strange how those two seem to go together). In general, men tried to act like some fount of wisdom, dispensing the knowledge of the ages. And when it came down to their penises, they truly were at their most clueless, presenting them as though they were expecting the beholder to faint with ecstatic joy, and -- at the very worst -- introducing these rather ordinary organs by name. My God, how pathetic do you have to be to name your genitals?

I recently ran across a website run by a man who devotes himself to ridiculing men's attempts to woo women on the internet. Weasel, the foulmouthed proprietor of that site, has it down exactly when he muses that most men seem to view themselves as accessories to their penises, which they are eager to introduce to women. Weasel has an even better, but smaller, site, where he runs pathetic letters written by men to women(don't worry, fellows; he's intending to branch out and is actively soliciting insane notes from women to men, acknowledging that women can stalk just as well as men).

Over in Weasel's little corner of the web devoted to man at his most loseriest, I found an unintentionally hilarious gem, a film made by a man hoping to use it to win back his ex-fiance, whom he had not seen in two years:

This would make a great commercial for selling four-wheelers, but it is a loser as marketing the man as husband material. Evidently this young man thinks that women love carrying rocks and hay bales around in their spare time and building obstacle courses out of tractor tires. Who wouldn't sign up for a life of that? I'm particularly stymied as to why he would show his vehicles having trouble -- an unreliable car is not exactly sexy. There's nothing, in my experience, like a highway breakdown to bring a person to near-psychotic crankiness unless it is, say, a passive aggressive mother-in-law.

After making this little classic, the four-wheeling bachelor spammed forums all over the internet to get it as widely seen as possible. However, besides lacking an understanding for what women want, the video's star and auteur lacks a sense of humor. The posters at Cracked.com's bulletin boards saw the video and promptly dubbed its star "Douchebag Quadbike." One of them, Sanchez, wrote a parody song, "The Ballad of Douche Quadbike" and put that up on Youtube. After our lonely fourwheeler found that, he sent a series of threatening emails to Sanchez, including references to teams of lawyers winging their way to him on an airplane that very moment, years in jail, being reported as a terrorist and put on the no-fly list, etc.., etc.. (It can all be read here, if you have plenty of time). In response, the Cracked.com regulars made more videos, songs, and lots of T-shirts mocking the fourwheeling stud-wannabe. My favorite is Drizzt's techo remix of Sanchez's song, which is truly hilarious:

I suspect that the lonely four-wheeling guy's life would be easier if he were gay. Then he would understand the mind and desires of his love object; they could tone their dorsals and pecs together and hop through those tractor tires side by side. But sadly the hours of work put into his video paean to his four-wheeler and his muscles are not going to win his fiance back or earn him much more than the derision of the Cracked.com wits.

cannibal potatoes

Last night Lola screamed, "Mommy! Mommy!" in the night. I dragged myself into her room, where she, crying, told me that she dreamed "there was a potato, without any skin, in my bed, and he was eating himself. And there's another one over there! (pointing towards the side of her bed by the wall) Another potato without skin! I'm scared!"

I ended up sleeping with her for the rest of the night to protect her from the self-cannibalizing potatoes.

Garbagey update

"Garbagey is now named Hilary," Lola happily informed me. "My Hilary!"

free at last, thank God Almighty, I'm free at last

Yesterday morning at the breakfast table, the Sober Husband noticed some tiny white dots on Lola's scalp. We tried blowing them off (this is the test we were taught to distinguish little scalp flakes from lice eggs: lice eggs are glued on the strands of hair, but dandruff and miscellaneous dreft are loose and may be blown away). They stuck to Lola's hair, but some could be scraped off. "But she's using that lotion every day, that's supposed to loosen the nits," I argued. "It could be nits." The Sober Husband blew at Lola's scalp again. "It's nits," he said resignedly.

The Sober Husband became deeply depressed at this and dragged himself off to work in a dark cloud. "We're going to be spending $1,500 a month for the rest of our lives at the Hair Fairies. I can see no end to this." When I tried to cheer him up from this pessimism, he snapped at me. "I don't call you crazy when you think bugs are crawling in your hair. Why are you saying this is crazy?"

Lola had won herself a day off school, to older sister Iris Uber Alles's great displeasure. It wasn't a particularly fun day, as we spent most of it waiting for a call back from the Hair Fairies lice service, who ended up not getting back to us until mid-afternoon and who couldn't fit Lola in. Today Lola had another day off school, but she balked at going back to the Hair Fairies. She'd had more than enough of sitting still and having her hair picked through.

"It's not lice! It's glue! It's little pieces of paper!"

I was unmoved. I forced her to get dressed and go over to the Hair Fairies, where she sat sullenly in the chair, refusing to make conversation with the kindly young woman treating her. To our great surprise and pleasure, Lola's specks were diagnosed as "dandruff, sticky dandruff" and (slow, building drumroll) since Lola's last visit, a whole week before, had yielded only eight nits and no bugs and this visit showed a completely clean head, Lola was declared to be free of lice and cured, by God, cured. Iris had previously gone over a week between clean headchecks, and my own head had been declared lice free. It seems that we are over the lice.

I was stunned and happy. No more daily changing the sheets and pillowcases, no more boiling all the hairbrushes every single day, no more elaborate lice shampoo-and-lotion regimes!

Meanwhile a blonde upscale woman had brought her foreign au pair in. The au pair was diagnosed with lice, and the blonde woman was not the most sympathetic. It seemed obvious that the au pair would be paying for her own treatment at Hair Fairies ("You have money, right?" the woman asked). The blonde herself was not willing to pay for Hair Fairies and loudly made an appointment for her children somewhere cheaper on her celphone, right there in the Hair Fairies. The blonde woman also first offered her au pair the day off due to fear that the sweet, soft-spoken au pair would contaminate her blonde children, but then reneged on that offer after considering the inconvenience of caring for her own children personally that day. "You can just play with them OUTDOORS. OUTDOORS. Okay?" I wondered why this woman felt it was less likely the lice would pass from one head to another outdoors than in, but held my tongue.

Later in the lobby, as I was leaving, the blonde woman set up for her au pair to come back the next day, presumably at the au pair's own expense, but loftily informed the Hair Fairies woman that she would be taking herself and her children somewhere cheaper.

Lola and I were happy as we left, Lola sporting a pretty braid with cobalt blue streaks. "I tried to lie before," Lola confessed," about it not being nits, but I was right. I tried to lie!" We laughed and held hands.

a truly terrible solution to the landfill problem

The other night nine year-old Iris Uber Alles ate a granola bar while watching "The Amazing Race" with her mother. I admonished her to throw away her wrapper, but she felt too lazy. She picked it up and contemplated it. "Hey, Lucy", she called to her little sister. "Lucy!" Lola looked over.

"Look," Iris said in an inviting tone. "It's Garbagey!" [Lola is a hoarder, given to collecting disposable slushee cups (the alpha one is named "Cupy"; the rest referred to indiscriminately as "Cupy Family") and paper clips (all known as "Clippy." One of the worst moments I had as a mother involved tracing our steps to recover a lost "Clippy", all the while thinking, "What kind of idiot goes to all this trouble for a frigging paper clip?")].

Lola was skeptical. Iris snaked her hand around alluringly, so that the torn granola bar wrapper caught the light. "Look, Lucy! Garbagey is shiny!"

"Give me that!" Lola demanded.

Later that night, I could hear the soft murmurs of the Sober Husband putting Lola to bed, interrupted suddenly by a terrible shout. "NO! THAT IS GARBAGEY! PUT HER BACK! SHE'S MY GARBAGEY!" The granola wrapper has become a treasured possession.

The next day I affixed Iris Uber Alles with a stern glare. "If you EVER," I hissed, "do that again, I will punish you severely. And I mean it."

Iris tried hard to keep a straight face. I upped the ante. "No videos --- and I mean no "Simpsons", too -- for a WEEK. At least. And more punishments, too."