Alison's starting to happen

In honor of Women's History Month, a Selection of:

Things That Are Makin Me Happy Today!

1.) The 80th anniversary of the Earthly manifestation of the Most High Anointed, the Grand Ka-Boom, the One From Whom All Blessings Flow: William His Highness the Shatner.

2.) Mimi Smartypants -- holy Shatner, does she kill me:

4. Speaking of, who on this train could you take in a fight? Pick somebody to hate. Picture yourself standing up and thumping the hell out of that person. Picture the spilled Starbucks, the torn North Face jackets, the general pandemonium. Maybe he would fight back. Maybe other commuters would join in, vigilante-style, to beat the crap out of you. Picture your black-eyed, bloody-nosed self being carried off the train by the police, still thrashing and fighting. Hey, I won’t be in today. I kicked everybody’s ass and got my ass kicked in return. I’ll check email later.

3) These goddamn little triple ginger cookies from Trader Joe's. WHY SHATNER WHY are they so tasty?

But then there's also, "I want to sit here and read books for awhile. You go back to bed and sleep some more."

In honor of Women's History Month, a selection of:

Things My Kid Has Said Which May Indicate Smallish Parenting FAILs of Various Kinds:

--I go over to her where she's scribbling away on a piece of construction paper and say, "Hey baby, whatcha doin? Can I get a kiss?" and she, without looking up or stopping her scribbling, says flatly, "I have too much dammit work to do."

--Putting on her socks, she says pleasantly and conversationally, "Pink goddamn socks today."

--As somebody ignores the rules and laws of the road and of common decency and barges into a four-way intersection out of turn, she pipes up from the backseat, "IT'S NOT YOUR TURN MADAM! YOU ARE A BAD DRIVER, LADY!"

--Picking up her apple juice and toasting me, she trills, "I have beer like Grandpa! Cheers!"


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Hat tip to the fabulous Sundry.

Now, the Medusa from Clash of the Titans, I didn't have a personal relationship with.

In honor of Women's History Month, a brief selection of:

Terrifying Women From My Past

--E.G., dance teacher: My first and entirely formative experience of ballet. She brooked NO SHIT, she gave no quarter, she taught ballet old-skool style and if your three-year-old ass couldn't handle it, you could just tippy-toe on out of there. After this, I couldn't really deal with the kind of classes that were all touchy-feely, do-what-you-like, hippie low-standards crap -- E.G. permanently ruined my ability to regard any kind of dance other than classical ballet (taught, practiced & performed at the highest level) as anything but amateur hour waste-of-time hogwash. Incidentally, her first name made my top three for my daughter's potential names. Innnnnteresting.

--L.S., music teacher: Made E.G. look like goddamn Carol Brady with the forgiveness and nurturing ... L.S. was the music teacher for my elementary school and also the music director at my church, so I got a double dose of her during the xmas pageant and the Easter shows. You know how little kids wriggle around, and sing off-key & out of tune, and generally kind of fart around in class? NOT IN HER CLASS, BUCKO. She kept the kind of order Hitler would have creamed his khakis over. And we always had to do terrifying things -- sing all the verses of the national anthem, solo, a cappella, and sans lyric sheet, in front of the class; recite the scales (bass & treble) forward and backward; sign our names to the BAD BOOK if we fucked up. She kept it on her piano. No one EVER got to sign the GOOD BOOK (except maybe Berwie once?). She FIRED US ALL from the second-grade musical for not knowing the words to all the songs without our books in the second week of rehearsals -- cancelled the fucking show, just like that. And you better believe, when it came to costuming for these shows -- church or school -- the moms hopped right the fuck to it and did it exactly to spec. They were scared of her, too. Oddly enough, her first name made the top-three list as well. What is WITH me?

--C.D.'s mom, L.: So unlike my own mom, and I never could tell if she was serious or not, and she was usually serious. C was an only child, and as such, got her mom's Full Attention, and No Wiggle Room. She's one of my mom's best friends now, and I genuinely enjoy her company, but man, back in the day ...

--Mrs. L., fourth grade teacher: Austere, severe, she met her every goal ... in contrast to my lovely sweet third grade teacher, Miss B., Mrs. L. was like a stone wall with dragons for eyes. This year was was a weeder year, the year when kids started falling out to other tracks -- and if you wanted to be a Track 1 kid, you did it her way. I was scared of her, I hated her guts (I believe this is when I learned the word "battle-axe"), and yet in the end, she became one of my favorite teachers of all time, and remains a friend to this day.

--S.S., friend of my older cousin: Rich, pretty, from a big and locally-prominent family, the members of which were all verbal scrappers/fighters/one-uppers. She thought nothing of tripping a little kid like myself -- physically or with words. She liked to play nasty tricks and call out your shortcomings whenever there was an audience. Taught me valuable lessons about that kind of person and how to spot them and keep them out of your life.

Our girlfriends are most chaste.

In honor of Women's History Month, a brief selection of:

Harassments To Which I Have Been Subjected

--That one coach/"teacher" of science in seventh grade, who assigned seating at the lab tables (which had those tall chairs), and put all the girls up front, basically so he could look up our skirts when he "dropped the chalk."

--This carny who, when I won a roach clip (...WTF?) at some stupid carny game at the Reunion the summer I was eleven, took my prize and pinched it to my shirt right between my 11-year-old boobs.

--Some asshole who tried to take an upskirt photo of me on the BART escalator about 5 years ago.

--A NYC taxi driver -- not a native speaker of English -- who spent the entire ride talking about pretty filthy sex stuff as he drove me on the errand my internship sent me on, junior year of college.

--An elderly, extremely nattily-dressed gentleman in the Willie Brown mold, who upon goggling at my St. Patrick's Day green plaid miniskirt as I crossed Civic Center Plaza on the way to work in 2000, stopped, leaned on his cane, made a curving/hourglass motion with his free hand and said, "Unnh-UHHH! Well-MADE!"

--A homeless guy who, just a few weeks ago, turned as I was passing him on the sidewalk and said directly into my face with forceful but flat animosity, "Hey BITCH."

--These two boys, who must have been about thirteen, who spent most of a day at the public pool trying to grab my friend C. and I in the crotch (we were eight).