Two weeks later, just before the old world ended, Miranda stood on a beach on the coast of Malaysia looking out at the sea.

Anybody else gettin that end-of-days feeling? That thing where you perceive a slight list in the decks on the metaphorical Titanic, juuuuuuuust enough that it's like one side of your body is working a little harder than the other, and but instead of the ship righting itself, and shifting the other way, the list keeps becoming more pronounced?

For all my joking around about apocalypses being my jam, I reeeeallly wasn't wanting to have to participate in one, but here I am -- trying to figure out what to do when (not if) my kids' schools are closed indefinitely, wondering how many sacks of dried beans I can buy without looking like a nut, going to gas up the car in case there's a supply issue, going ahead and booking that goddamn Disney trip for next month because fuck it what the hell idk man (but not telling the kids so I won't have to deal with the fallout if we cancel, and for DAMN sure reading the T&C on cancellation/rebooking before I hit purchase), avoiding my ILs (who are in their mid-80s and whom I love and do not wish to straight-up murder with germs), still going to the gym because I will lose my FUCKING MIND if I can't (working out is one of the two things tethering my frayed and battered sanity to my soul; the other is Pokemon GO), and, of course, thinking about how much reading and binge-watching time we'll have if we're confined to our house for the duration. All Mr. Gleemonex and I keep saying to each other is "WTF are we supposed to do, huh? Guess we'll ... [current plan for whatever specific issue / activity may or may not be happening bc plague]."

The elementary school this morning was a ghost town -- probably 25%, maybe more -- of the kids are preemptively being held out, and everybody who was there was playing Plague Tag (aka running all over the playground shrieking "CORONAVIRUSSSSS!" at each other and trying to slap-tag each other). Some douche in my kid's classroom said "It's only girls that have it!" and there was about a solid 10 minutes of uproar until the teacher hollered them all down. Bless, bless.

lol this post from 2009 didn't age well did it.

Florals, for spring. Groundbreaking.

OK so the Fashion silhouette of the moment is: Bad.

Got those high, high, HIGH-waisted pants paired with boxy crop-toppy things, often with sad 70s Office Working Girl ruffles (even if the top in question is a SWEATER, y'all) and weird flaps and tiebacks and shit. I mean -- not me, I'm personally not wearing it, but like. If it doesn't look good on teenagers, and ya can't make it look good on professional clothing models, then I just. Don't hold out a lot of hope for us Normals. Especially not for me, personally, who has a literal inch between hipbone and bottom-most rib. At 46, I'm in the best fucking shape of my life, my bod is ROCKIN, but I look like the most amazingly misguided/overmedicated child's drawing of a girl in those outfits -- it's truly an abomination unto the Lord who Made Me. Thank christ I'm old enough not to fall for that shit again, midway through my fifth decade on this boiling blue marble, right?

And if it's not that, it's Dresses. Why god why. I don't wear dresses, except on very formal occasions, for reasons I may yet detail here (where the fuck else would I, right?), but -- ok. Look. I like dresses in theory, they look really good on y'all, and DAMN I have the legs for a dress but I cannot and will not wear dresses as a regular thing, so all these cute dresses that like, fucking Gap and Boden and whoever the fuckall Kim France is loving at the moment (and don't get me wrong, I fucking LOVE Kim France, I just have no idea who she's talking about, designer-wise, at any given moment, on account of having lived an entire life of thinking $80 is a real lot to spend on a shirt) are just -- not gonna happen for me.

And so: Here we are again, with me in distressed black jeans, band T-shirts, a flannel as a stand-in for the Northern-California-Perpetual-Light-Jacket-Item, and whatever footwear is at the axis of my personal assessment of Cool vs. Comfortable that particular day. I have Fly London, and Frye, but also I have fleece-lined Cons. So ...

Fuck, man. My Birks -- yes ok I have them, this is who I am now -- need to be tightened after a winter of wearing them (IN THE HOUSE ONLY, I SWEAR) with socks. And y'all tryna get me to wear dresses, or Skinny Jeans with a gotdamn 11-inch rise and a shirt with the lines of a Chinese takeout box. [siiiiiiiiiiiiigh] Whatever.

I am WITH. HER.

Oh lord help me ... I'm gonna do a GOTV canvass for my girl Elizabeth Warren. You guys, this is SOFA KING FAR out of my comfort zone ... but I think that tossing $10 her way every once in awhile is not enough to beat back the Anxiety Monster that tells me at 3:12 in the fuckshit a.m. I'm not doing enough to fight back in this shitshow, and I'm gonna actually have to do the work. Fuuuuuuuuuck. OK. Imma do this. godDAMMIT.

bit of a sticky wicket, eh wot

Thought-Taco Thursday

--I'm boutta get into cricket, gods help me. Mr. Gleemonex got me started on this GD documentary series called Cricket Fever, which (at least the season we've watched) follows one team -- the Mumbai Indians* -- through a season in the IPL. I had, at first, no fucking clue what the goddamn hell was going on during the games (although I immediately got swept up in how exciting they are); by the end, I had like a tiny, asthmatic, wobbly-but-tryin-real-hard clue what was going on, although you could still tell me literally any cricket fact and I'd believe you, even if it was "Traditionally, every fourth guy who bowls has to do it ass-out, no pants on at all." I definitely wish they'd do it Pop-Up Video style, with context clues and further explanations, e.g. "Hardik Pandya is the Tim Lincecum of this team" or "The Mumbai Indians traveled 1,800 miles to this match, hopefully by air?" or whatever. And BOY do I have questions: How come all the players except the overlarge Aussie beast Mitchell McClenaghan are so THIN? and Where are all the women fans? and What in the White Cultural Hegemonic Nonsense made the team owner do that to her skin? and Oh so he's TRYING to throw it at the batsman's feet? and I'm sorry, what is an "over," again? and Ohhhhh my god YIKES this is a literal auction (to draft/build teams), English history of slave-trading WHAAAT??? holy shit, and (etc. etc. etc.). I fucking love it.

--I'm reading Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder, and y'all, it's really good, but wow, did she have a hard life. Harder than the Ingallses had it in the Little House books, by an order of magnitude. Yikes. (BTW, lemme also wholeheartedly recommend Caroline, A Little House Story -- basically a book-length fanfic of LHOTP from Ma's perspective, and I mean that in the very best possible way.)

--Mike Holmes is back! I went randomly looking at old posts -- I'm tryna get this thing going again, even if I'm the only one reading it -- and found one from 2010 that is all about my strange love for the man, the myth, the legend, just days after Mr. Gleemonex found the guy's new show (Holmes & Holmes, where he does projects with his now-grown son). Recurrence Phenomenon FTW!

--Just in case you wondered if my politics has changed since my last active years on here: Fuck yes, I'm way farther left now. And in the national arena: I'm for Elizabeth Warren, big-time, but I will vote for whoever the Democratic nominee is, because JESUS FUCKING CHRIST WOULD YOU LOOK AROUND OH MY GOD.

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*That cracks me up -- it'd be like, what, the New York Americans. 

Regrets, I've Had a Few

Chief among them, today: Having learned the lyrics to the Godfather theme. Yes it has lyrics. No you don't want to know what they are, because you can never un-know them.

My sister had the WORST crush on Bruce Willis because of this. And also his wine coolers commercial. Oh, 80s, never stop doing you.

Random Lines I Remember From Moonlighting, Which Ran From 1985 - 1989 (When I Was 11-15 Years Old), By Which I Mean I Remember These From the Original Run, Not From a Re-Watch: A Partial List

"Where are the pieces of guy?"
"The what?"
"The pieces of guy!"
[There had been an explosion, presumably killing a guy, but BW points out there were no "pieces of guy" to be found]

"Her name's Freddy, short for [can't remember].  ... Her favorite color is rug burn."
[BW on a suspect]

"You know my usual jelly? Make it a cruller!"
[Agnes di Pesto, living life out loud]

"David, may I please have some answers?"
"Delaware, all of the above, 90 degrees ..."
[fucking SLAYED ME -- actual weeping with laughter]

Although the red-jacketed still-black Michael Jackson put in a good effort, the kid in the homemade dinosaur/dragon thing -- ON STILTS -- won Halloween.

Overheard this morning as the school Halloween parade dispersed:

Second-grade girl to second-grade boy, who was wearing the most perfect Luke Skywalker getup I've ever seen: "There were so many Darth Vaders, I don't know which one was your father!"

Bonus good times: Shout out to the Indian kid going as Tupac, complete with fake Thug Life tats. Extremely well done, young sir.

Wolves not far

My eye fell upon this, in the leveled-reading section, as I exited my kid's classroom through the library last week ... and I've been laughing about it at least once an hour ever since.

And when we go crashing down we come back every time

This Is Why People Have Kids' Parties at Kids' Party Places Like Pump It Up or a GodDamn Bowling Alley: A Partial List

• 16 fairies, with wings
• 2 little brothers
• 1 babysitter who was so helpful I should have paid her $500
• 1 parent who was so helpful I probably embarrassed her with the effusiveness of my thanks
• A fairy house painting craft (fucking Pinterest, goddamn) that was actually rather a success
• A cake parade (18 kids marching through the house shouting CAAAAKE! CAKE CAKE CAKE CAKE CAKE!!!, much like drunken adults at a bar when that "Shots" song comes on)
• A fairy dance party (primarily to Taylor Swift's entire 1989 album,* purchased online for the occasion, on repeat)
• The pin the wand on the fairy game (I forgot both the eye covering -- eventually using a scarf that, well ... I just really hope none of those kids had lice that night -- and the fact that there's supposed to be a prize for the winner)
• A fairy egg hunt in the gloaming, which served as the distribution for and stuffing of goodie bags 

Mr. Gleemonex and I are exhausted, but the party was a hit, and Kid Gleemonex was thrilled and grateful (oh my heck, one only turns eight once, doesn't one, after all?), and we are NEVER DOING THAT AGAIN.

---------------------------------------
*Here's how you know a person is An Old: They still call it an album and honestly can't think what the fuck else they're supposed to call it so shut up 

Gentle and soft / smoooooooooth and easaaaaayyy

So I was practicing my bass this morning (I do 10 minutes a day -- at this rate, I'll be an expert pro bassist in four million years!), and I was working on "Hotel California," and I could not stop laughing to myself, thinking of this, which is the most brilliant thing in the history of ever and if you are not watching the entirety of Documentary Now, you are MISSING OUT:

Mad, Mad, Mad Respek for the Mouse

In Which the Blogger Gets Over a Not-Small Amount of Snobbery and Learns to Love -- I Mean, Fucking LOVE -- Disneyland

You guys, the Mouse has got it DIALED.

There is a reason people go there, and then go again and again and again. Every detail -- holy shit, they have every detail covered. Everything from ambient music to shop fronts to the way the queues work -- every perfectly-groomed trash-and-gum-free border planting -- every attendant's themed uniform -- every vista -- every bathroom, for chrissake!  The rides are fun as hell (OMFG, Radiator Springs Racers! Worth the park admission all by itself!), the FastPass system is genius, the workers' commitment to upbeat hospitality is awesome, the experiences of each area and attraction ... holy crap, you guys. I cannot praise this family vacation highly enough -- we barely looked at our phones, except to coordinate our movements and meetups, and we watched precisely zero TV or iPad for five straight days, which is miraculous for us. We walked as much as 13.2 miles in a single day, we blazed from six a.m. to 10 p.m. three days in a row ... we are all fucking exhausted but had such an awesome time! I'm over being a snob about the kind of people who go to Disneyland -- cause now I'm one of them, and I love the Mouse.

Herewith, some thoughts:

• I would under no circumstances attempt Disneyland & California Adventure:
• at anything less than 90% of my optimal health and mobility (CHRIST there's a lot of walking, stairs, walking, getting in and out of small spaces, onto boats, etc., and walking), 
• with any child under 40" tall (the threshold for virtually all the best rides), 
• without the Extra Magic Hour/Magic Morning (obtained either by staying in an on-property hotel or via buying the whole package through Costco Travel -- a whole hour before the park opens to the public. It's worth every penny)
• or with less than a 3-day park-hopper pass (there's no way to see/do everything you want to do in less time without dying of exhaustion). 
• I was under the impression that the FastPass system was pay-to-play -- but it isn't. I won't explain it here, but all it is is, with a little planning, you can skip lines and just ride rides. DO IT. 
• Cars Land -- Radiator Springs -- is the greatest theme park "land" I've ever seen in my life.
• The animation academy -- learn to draw a Disney character in about 15 minutes -- was fun, and not something I'd've thought to do, but Kid Gleemonex wanted to, so we did, and now I want to do more of them.
• The spaces allowed by the queue fencing on all the older rides (basically all of Disneyland, and anything built before, say, the mid 90s) are hilariously narrow -- not built to accommodate today's XXL American Physique, lordamercy. 
• World of Color was kind of meh -- it's supposed to be fountains and fireworks, and it is, but it's also -- primarily -- this weird worship service for The Genius And Wonder of The Most Beloved Dreamster Of All Time, Walt -- WONDERFUL Walt -- Disney. 

Don't lean on me, man, cause you can't afford the ticket

How come every time I go to Michael's, the place is filled with legit demented people?

I don't mean Pinterest Moms -- they're quietly demented, in a way that I can actually understand, because goddammit I do like crafts and if I had a sexually-uninteresting husband, I could see falling down that rabbit hole in a big way. No, I mean serious, genuine, criggity-craggity-cray folk, like the lady who kept trying to talk to me about whether aqua was a good color for her and whether this or that was "too much" as she tried on bead jewelry and laughed inappropriately and I tried to figure out how many of these fucking favor bags I have to buy for Kid Gleemonex's upcoming birthday party. I AM MATHING HERE. I CANNOT MATH THIS WITH THINGS FALLING OUT OF YOUR BLAB-HOLE INTO MY EAR. Or the one with no bra who followed me down the aisle of $1 wooden boxes/birdhouses/picture frames asking me what I was going to do with "all them tiny birdhouses." (In her defense, the 20 of them I bought must have seemed a lot for someone who didn't already smell of bird droppings.)* OR the lady with one fully-bandaged arm and zero shoes upon her feet, who appeared to be trying to run some sort of returning-items-for-cash scam, at absolutely glacial speed, on a teenage cashier who clearly did not have English as her first language but was trying heroically hard to be fair and pleasant.

Where did they come from, where do they go? Don't look now, it's crazy-eyed joe!

---------------------------------------------------
*If you must know, it's a birthday party craft I found on, um. Pinterest. They're fairy houses. Or will be, when they're painted and have a bunch of glittery stickers and shit all over them.

Workin' on my night cheese

Disgusting Food-Liquids That Are Supposedly Harmless: An Incomplete List

• The watery whey-milk that usually manages to crest the top of the waxed-paper inner barrier of my Fage yogurts. Pleh. 
• Tuna-can water. You can never ever not get that stuff on your hand. Everybody Loves Raymond did a bit about it that ran through an entire episode once, and throughout, I was like: Truth. 
• The gunk surrounding the weiners in a pack of turkey dogs. I mean, they're supposedly cooked and this stuff is -- what? Lube so you can get the GD dogs out of the package? 
• The oil on top of a fresh jar of Skippy Natural peanut butter. Why god why. 
• The bean-liquor that rises to the top of a can of pintos. For some reason, the same stuff in a can of black beans doesn't bother me as much, but the pintos -- uccch. 

Cause darling, I'm a nightmare dressed like a daydream

So I am feeling very very weird right now, because it's my first full day alone since the three weeks of pre-delivery maternity leave I took in October/November 2011 -- Danger Toddler is now Danger Preschooler, three days a week. 

I keep checking my rear-view mirror as I drive, having mini-panic attacks to see the carseat empty -- but then, I'm listening to Stern, which I haven't been able to do since he was a pre-verbal baby, so that's cool. I went to get a mammogram this morning after the gym because I am officially An Old (and lol, two hours later, I just realized I still have the stickers on -- they put these stickers around your nipple and any moles, of which I have one, to distinguish them on X-ray from stuff that oughtn't to be there), and only really "got" to do the mammo because I could go to the doc alone. I have not watched a single Paw Patrol, Olivia, or Blaze and the Monster Machines episode today; instead, I have dealt with arranging a trip for my in-laws, sorted out various "estate" stuff with my siblings, made plans for a wedding we're going to in July, done some work on a pediatric cancer fundraiser, eaten a real lunch, and now am writing (without worrying that every time I move my chair an inch, the scraping sound on the tile floor will wake the kid from his nap and Productive Tyme is over). And but I am oddly bereft, verklempt even, and missing his sweet little ol' voice -- nobody's asked me for "gummy beaws" all day today, or told me that the 18-inch-tall plastic dinosaur is his "banana shooter" and is about to shoot bananas at me, so "Wook out, Mommy, or you'll get banana on you!"

So, back to eating more of those cream-cheese-filled cupcakes I made with Kid Gleemonex the other day. And also to more writing. The time has come. 

I mean, at least Blaze and the Monster Machines teaches about trajectory, and acceleration, and magnets and shit. GOD.

Could you have imagined that there is, in fact, something worse -- far worse -- than Paw Patrol? Even on Nick Jr. -- I'm not talking about those shouty, cunty, thoroughgoingly awful tweener shows on Disney et. al., which will absolutely not be allowed to play on any computer or televising device in my house now or ever, mark my words --  just good ol' inoffensive-if-occasionally-stupid Nick Jr.

And the answer, if you were imagining whether or not there was something worse than Paw Patrol, is: Yes.

You know what it is? It's Little Charmers. These fucking little student witches with their christing "Charm House" and sparkle magic wands and way-too-adult-poppy theme song and constant refrain of "Sparkle up, charmers!" and fake curse words like "Oh, toadstools!" and so on, which you let your first-grader watch because A) you are trying to let her Be Herself so you don't want to imply that girlieness or bestie westie BFFs are bad things even though you yourself get the mini-pukes just from thinking about the type of girly girl who invariably coos "Awwwwwwwwwwww!" in that singsongy widdle voicey-woicey when meeting a kitten, baby, or other Certified Canonical Cute Thing, and B) surely -- SURELY -- she will tire of it soon. Right? Right. Yes. Certainly. She will. She -- she will. Tire of it. PROMISE ME, JESUS!

Theme weeks are BULLSHIT and I'm not going to do them anymore: A treatise on why not.

So my kid's school has this thing called Red Ribbon Week, which is something or other about not doing crack because it's a ghetto drug, although they just tell the first graders a whole bunch of vague shit about "making healthy choices." Which, fine, whatever.

The problem -- the fucking PROBLEM -- is that they send home, on Friday, this list of all the shit for the themed days for the week beginning the very next Monday. It's a full weekend, and ain't nobody got time for that. So I kiiiiind of ignore it, a little bit, figuring we'll find something that'll do. But then on Sunday night, there is PANIC AND SCREAMING from the first-grader about Monday's Theme: Wear Red.

Kid Gleemonex does not wear red. She doesn't have one stitch, one thread, one ruffle of red clothing. She wears blue and only blue. Always. It is her thing. I remind her of that, and that this is why she has no red: She won't fucking wear it, so I don't fucking buy it anymore. But she won't just wear her school uniform, either, which is the only non-red option allowed. Tears, weeping, a keening ambulance-like wail of distress, heavy yelling (from me), etc. The next morning, the WORLD IS STILL AFLAME WITH PAIN at the goddamned red thing. So she ties her hair with red curling ribbon, makes a braided belt of same which she ties over her uniform, and the screaming stops.

Tuesday: Yellow and black, because "I BEE-lieve in the best Me I can BEE!" Mindful of Sunday night/Monday morning's emotional hellscape, I spend two fucking hours at the mall -- the MALL, with a two-year-old in tow -- dragging every single awful shitty tweener store for something that will do. Christ, there are a lot of those stores -- Justice, H&M Kids, Crazy 8, Old Navy, etc., plus of course Target. I pick up something at Old Navy that is yellow and gray.

Monday evening: Screaming, thrashing, recriminations: "It's got graaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay in it! You don't understand! It's supposed to be blaaaaaack! I HATE YELLOW!" etc. to infinity. Next morning, more of the same. She finally puts on the black velvet dress that is actually the base of her Halloween costume, pulls the uniform skirt over the dress's skirt, calls it good.

Tuesday morning: Back to goddamned Target to try again to find an item for Wednesday's theme: Team/Sports jerseys or T-shirts: "Let's TEAM UP to Get Active & Healthy!" Fascist conformist bullshit aside, Kid Gleemonex -- predictably -- has no such item. They're not BLUE. I find a Giants jersey (you know, they're in the World Series right now -- but this is the only Giants shirt in the entire South Bay, as far as I can tell).

Tuesday evening: WHY DO YOU ALWAYS BUY ME CLOTHES THAT ARE TOO BIG? THIS IS UGLY! (this goes on for a fucking hour).

Wednesday morning: [repeat] [repeat] [crying] Feeling emotionally abused, I finally just snarl "Wear it or don't, but get in the goddamn car." She did, but bitched at me for literally the entire ride and walk and standing waiting for the pledge of allegiance; various accusations were hurled, including but not limited to: me being mean, not understanding things, doing it wrong, could have made our own, she could have worn her soccer shirt, it's my fault she buttoned her cardigan wrong.

The moral of this story is twofold: 1) I begin to see that my kid is just a little bit tightly wound, and 2) Fuck "CRAZY HAIR/HAT AND/OR SILLY SOCKS" day tomorrow, right in the crazy nads.

Little in the middle but she pack much back

This post has nothing to do with the title -- "Baby Got Back" just happened to come on the car radio today, and my kids think "I like big butts and I cannot lie" is the funniest fucking thing in the history of the world. 

Bumper Stickers and/or Car Decals That Bum Me Out: A Selection of Recent Sightings

MITT

NRA Member Since 2012

Got Twins +1?

My Pugs Are Smarter Than Your Honor Student!

[Calvin, down on his knees, praying before a large cross]

JAGERMEISTER

Nader 2000

[license plate] 4WRKGOT

Also I almost never pass a day without at least one Mitch Hedberg assay flickering across the old brain pan.

Two Unrelated Things

1) It is a rare day that I do not think to myself, "Settle down, Beavis!" Some days I say it out loud, but about 93 percent of the time it stays in my head.

2) When *I* go to BevMo, I come back with the thing or things which I intended to buy there (e.g. a handle of Stolichnaya, an xmas-gift-level bottle of sipping tequila, a sixer of wine for a party, what have you). But when *Mr. Gleemonex* goes there to pick up some Glenlivet, which for some reason has turned both rare and expensive around here (?huh?), he comes back with three bottles of Glenlivet, a twelver of Spaten, a bottle of sake (Wandering Poet label -- which of course, dear Twelve, made me think of the Troubador -- wonder how many times he's been nut-punched over these many years?), some Knob Creek, and a plastic "travel flask." He ... already has a very nice leather-bound flask. So ... I don't know. I like all this stuff, but -- for why is it here?

My parents keep asking how school was. It's like saying, "How was that drive-by shooting?" You don't care how it *was,* you're lucky to get out alive.

So hey, show of hands: Who else is writing a novel set in the early 1990s and just realized that a not-small chunk of it (of which you were pretty dang proud) is actually just a mashup of two episodes of My So-Called Life, including the names of two (2) minor characters?

Oh. Just ... just me then. Mkay.

California is both the greatest, and the worst.

Goddammit, we have to talk about vegetable lasagna. Or, rather, vegetable "lasagna," because that is some air-quote-deserving bullshit right there.

Why do people think that people who don't eat meat or just don't feel like it today would rather eat a goddamn panful of wet gross zucchini and wrong-textured bell peppers sliding all around over the noodles instead of: CHEESE LASAGNA? The kind that is just like the traditional meat version, but without the meat? It's the same people who, if you say you don't want meat on your pizza, will come back to you with a pizza-like item that is fucking covered with two pounds of broccoli and red onion and (again -- AGAIN -- with this fucking stuff) zucchini. What the fuck is that? I didn't say I wanted a fucking farmer's market on top of some bread, hippie! And listen, don't try to tell me that the vegetable "lasagna" or the Jolly Green Giant "pizza" is healthy, or even "healthier," because it's not -- you already made the decision to eat something that is basically carbs and cheese, so own it, and get that cock-knuckled vegetable shit out of my face.