Wednesday Weirdnesses

It's been one of those weeks where the little details seem significant or funny or weird, and so I offer you a grab bag of them. These little moments that stuck with me, I offer you in homage to Crazymumma, who is the queen of the vivid moment.

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Yesterday, I finally unpacked a box of books that's been sitting unopened in my office since we moved here in 2004. Unsurprisingly, nothing in it was essential, and I decided about three-quarters of what was in there could, actually, go. So I put out some 45 books--romantic poetry, restoration drama, 1990s postcolonial fiction, some novels from a queer studies course, some theoretical takes on human sexuality, duplicates of classics of twentieth-century literature--out on a table in a common area, and asked the graduate secretary to send out an email. "Free books!" the email exclaimed.

This morning, the neat rows I'd laid out were completely undone. There were only about 15 books left, strewn about on the table like so many fallen soldiers on the field of a fiercely contested battle. Grad student buzz is all about the free books.

I feel good: I let go of a part of my past I don't need, made a lot of poor grad students happy, and feel a little more like a mentor and a little less like a student myself.

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Munchkin, last night, got up at: 10:45, 12:15, 3:00, 3:40, and then at 4:00 she decided we had to come downstairs to play. For an hour. She went back to bed at 5, and we all got up at 6:45.

There's better be a whole mouthful of teeth in there the next time I manage to pry her jaw open.

"Meh-meh-meh," she says, grogglily, crankily, with a little bit of hopefulness in her voice as she rubs her eyes violently against the hallway light. Meh-meh-meh translates to me-di-cine, as in, give-it-to-me-now!

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Of the non-perverse Google paths to this blog, the very top of the head in terms of frequency and my page ranking are: the every-popular 'baby ate philodendron,' and all the variations of questions you can ask about misspelled foot-first fetal presentations--that is, 'breach' babies.

I think I'm going to put a link to the philodendron posts on my sidebar: I get about one hit a week from this search. What do you think?

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Crazed from tiredness this morning, our little family lurched around sluggishly. While I tried to find pants to wear to work, Munchkin pinned Pynchon on the floor and sat on his chest to make her domination clear.

"She looks so much like you," he remarked.

"Why?" I asked.

"Because she's frowning."

Hmmmm.

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Two coffee shop stories:

A. I went to the resto-café closest to campus to work yesterday, and the woman at the table next to me asked if I could watch her stuff for a minute. No problem! You know what she did? She went to the grocery store, and came back twenty minutes later with two full bags of food. I thought she was going to the bathroom. I must look very trustworthy.

B. In my haze this morning, I drove to coffee shop I used to frequent daily when we lived in an apartment near to the university. The owner, despite my new hairdo and despite not seeing me for at least two years, immediately recognized me, and commenced to chat. "You moved to a house," she remembered, "you teach at the university" and "you were just married then."

Wow. And all I could think was: "Geez, I wished I washed my hair or was wearing nicer pants or something."

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Did I mention the teething? And the no-sleeping? It's been going full-tilt (and lurch, and slump) since Sunday night, and Monday we ran out of 'meh-meh-meh'. At 10pm.

Even if you lose the coin toss, and even if you are on your way to bed and even if it's really dark outside and even if you're really cold and even if you've been lulled into a stupor by two hours of watching Amélie in front of a roaring fire with the man who's now making you go to Shoppers Drug Mart? You still should not wear this to go out:


In my defense, I did in fact swap the Crocs for running shoes. But I don't really think it made much difference to the resounding don't-ness of this outfit, which consists of flannel pj pants with glittery stars on them, a massively oversized grey jersey from my undergrad days, and a grotty pink fleece that actually belongs to my sister. The mascara rings under my eyes from rubbing them all night are not evident in the photo, but they are there.

You may, though, admire my kitchen: I will disabuse you of your misplaced fondness for this room later.