Adventures in the Pointless Forest

That old chestnut.

We were talking about the Salvation Army, and the conversation naturally turned to Smurfs. Specifically, to Smurfette and her participation in bukkake, group sex, and other orgiastic activites.¹

"In the end, you know, Smurfette holds all the cards."

"You do outnumber her by about two hundred to one."

"Oh, but we could never force her to do something she didn't want to do. Fortunately she's up for quite a lot."

"What about the rest of you?"

"Well, sometimes we go for the cat."

"How does he feel about that?"

"I think he'd like a little more turnabout. But we know he's got a barbed penis. So -- sorry Azrael, only receiving for you."

"And he understands that no means no?"

"Oh yes."

"So your perverse sexual universe doesn't have any rape."

"Of course not. It is a children's show!"

¹ Really -- first we were talking about the Salvation Army, and then, by a very short and entirely natural short sequence of conversational transitions, the conversation moved smoothly to the sexual exploits of the Smurfs. And everyone who's spent even the smallest second thinking about Smurfs has discussed the Smurfette gang-bang scenario.

Two dreams.

1. In which my subconscious does a terrible job of dwelling on my anxieties, opting instead for a hearty dose of deranged wish fulfillment

It's time for me to have the baby! Labor takes about fifteen minutes; it is quick and tidy, like delivering a well-wrapped package. After a brief period of confusion in which she looks strikingly like the cat, she is as pink, plump, unblemished, and at least three months old as any 'newborn' on television, and has a full head of lovely black hair. We are surprised to discover that she can climb the stairs right away (also rather like the cat). For some reason, we have named her Danielle. I am feeling fit as a fiddle, and it occurs to me to check to see how squashy my postpartum middle has become. Oh, how funny, it's not squashy at all. Indeed it is positively toned. I certainly am feeling well. Perhaps I'll go do some grocery shopping.

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2. A psychic experience

I dream that I have heartburn, AND THEN I WAKE UP AND REALLY DO. It is just like one of those amazing spooky dreams in books where you get in a fight with a terrible monster and have terrifying glorious adventures and then are all 'oh wow, what a crazy dream.' Then you get out of bed and see that your legs are all scratched up in reality from your supposedly dreamed escape through the brambles and are like WHOA and then you discover that the key to the treasure is actually under your pillow. Yes, it is exactly like that, except with Tums.

Gaze not.

The other day I awoke to an intense, sudden, and overwhelming awareness of the horror of the "morning zoo" style radio program. The circumstances under which this apprehension arose, as I lay in a guest room bed at ten minutes to seven, might make you think that it was inspired by some actual exposure to the thing.* But no, it was an unprompted revelation, beamed into my skull as a special gift from the goddess of banal pseudo insights.

Not that the fundamental notion that morning radio is horrible is incorrect or indeed news to anyone, but in my drowsy hypnagogic state I was convinced that it is truly the face of the abyss. The frenzied auditory capering, the pathetic sequence of zany set pieces and wacky songs about how unpleasant it is to get up in the morning, the jokey nicknames, the promotional photos displaying weary middle-aged radio personalities in labored 'funny' poses or costumes -- all too, too depressing to contemplate and surely the product of a species that has been beyond hope since at least 1981.

This, you will have noticed, is a profound and significant epiphany. I am almost deep enough to be fourteen again. (If I really were, though, I'd be far too busy practicing my newly crabbed handwriting by filling countless tiny green notebooks with an endless stream of cryptic phrases to tell you about it.)

They are really awful, though, aren't they? Or were. Actually I have no idea how widespread they are anymore. They used to be tremendously popular. There must still be something in that genre and time slot. I still see billboards advertising radio stations' Whatever Team and Loony Crew. How far-ranging was the zoo phenomenon, anyway? Are there radio presenters in New Zealand playing 'Fish Heads' at six in the morning and bumper music about how much the listener can be presumed to hate getting out of bed? Are there Spanish and Norwegian Zoo Crews? Ugandan?

It turns out that Glenn Beck, jackass 'political' 'commentator' extraordinaire, first made a name for himself on one of the earliest and most popular of those programs. And actually, once you know that, his whole spazzy, coked-out, goofy-voiced pile of tics suddenly snaps into focus as something with a provenance. Steve kindly suggests that thinking of Beck's career as one long run from the horrific maw of morning radio makes it slightly more sympathetic, but I'm afraid that's a vastly more generous interpretation than the facts can bear. Still, even the hint of sympathy for Glenn Beck suggests that my fourteen-year-old self is absolutely right about the abyssal qualities of the Zoo Crew.

* In fact, I awoke to the infinitely superior sound of 'Single Ladies.' Suck it, Nietzsche! No abyss for me.

Pears for victory

Soon we are off to balmy Florida to observe Thanksgiving with Snark's parents, where the sun shines all day on egrets and big tropical flowers and tiny dogs and retired people, and you would never know that winter is coming. I like seasons, though, so I am going to try setting up a post to go off (as it were) while we're away, with some photos from my most recent bout of highly autumnal cookery.

This will not be interesting for anyone, of course, but at least the photos won't go to waste.

Let's see if it works!

Look, I peeled some pears. They were very cheap at the grocery store, because it is currently autumn, when pears are in season.

Lots and lots of pears. Six pounds of pears.

Mmm, pear peelings. (This peeler, incidentally, is fantastic. You can peel raw bell peppers with that thing, or tomatoes. It is powerful.)

Burble burble burble burble.

A mere three hours later, they've turned all pink!

I was thinking of taking one of these jars with me to Florida, but then I realized that they weigh a ton and would be taken away from us by the TSA in any case. Also no one there would appreciate them the way that I would, so I will save them for some other purpose.

Meanwhile, what exciting adventures do you suppose we've been up to while you were falling asleep reading this? Have we been watching something boring on a very large television? Have there been awkward silences? How many? Have I been tempted several times to kick a certain very small and skittery dog who shall remain nameless?* Has someone touched my middle? Has anyone told me that I am "big"? Have I felt both irritated and guilty? Have I desperately, desperately wanted a drink? Who can say?

*I promise, I will never kick the dog.

No, I don't have any special cravings, why do you ask?

SCENE: It is before dinner. I am eating some crispy fried onions directly from the jar.

STEVE: Jesus, do you have pica?

ME: They're food!

STEVE: No. They aren't. It's like you're eating paint chips. Let me make you some toast instead.

ME: What a good idea. Okay.

STEVE: Would you like some butter or some almond butter?

ME: Butter and marmite and almond butter.

STEVE: And olives! And jalapeños!

ME: And paint chips.

The life of the mind.

There is little I enjoy more than the sight of someone completely, entirely nerding it up.

Consider this photograph, for example, from a New York Times article about the high costs of medical devices:

Now, I am sure this researcher is perfectly debonair in his everyday life, but the photographer certainly has captured a moment of pure Pointdexterhood here. You can just hear the nerdy voice of Marvin the Martian about to spring from his lips, can't you?

Even better, though, to my mind, is this fellow here:

He has the wonderfully specific and gloriously nerdsome job of being the curator of the Natural History Museum's egg collection, and you can see that he is just the man for the job. I love him and his zip-up sweater. His only flaw is that he should patently be named Martin.

And then there is this lovely interview with Carol Greider, one of the winners of this year's Nobel Prize in Medicine.

What I found out on Christmas Day 1984, through biochemical evidence, was that telomeres could be lengthened by the enzyme we called telomerase, which keeps the telomeres from wearing down. After I found that out, I went home and put on Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the USA,” which was just out, and I danced and danced and danced.

I bet you did. Merry Christmas!

Things things things things

The other night we went out to dinner with friends at this extravagantly popular establishment specializing in grilled cheese. Warning: the photo you first see when you click on that link is sadly revolting. The reality is fortunately substantially more appealing, but the picture does give you some idea of the scale of the meal.

As we waited, we wondered how it was possible that they consistently have a wait of at least an hour on weeknights and multiple hours on the weekend. The answer is that it takes a very long time to eat all that damn food, and then when you are done, you do not want to move ever again, so you don't. I think I have finally recovered, though I do retain a certain feeling that I should spend the next month and a half eating nothing but steamed vegetables to redress the imbalance.

The astute reader will have noticed that the next month and a half includes both Thanksgiving and Christmas, so this plan may not come to full fruition.

photo from Beklina

We are trying not to add too many things to the house at the moment, even anticipatory baby things, since it seems inevitable that every room will fill up with more clutter than we ever imagined soon enough. But these "sheepskin" rugs -- actually thick sheared wool on a cotton backing, no sheep-skinning required -- might merit an exception. They are made by Lina Rinnell and sold at Beklina, a pairing also responsible for my very favorite belt, which I fondly look forward to wearing again someday.

And, finally, QUERY: Why is it that the cat always wants to sit on the greatest number of object layers available? If there is a thing on top of a given surface, he can be guaranteed to sit on the thing, not the surface. Note that not only is he sitting on the paper rather than any other bit of the table, he is specifically sitting on the spot where the pieces of paper overlap. Is this strategy adaptive in some way? Do other, non-domesticated cats have the same habit?

Conspicuous.

My mother's father, who was a classical pianist and gleeful wag in a sort of Danny Kaye mode, was famously, charmingly, appallingly conspicuous everywhere he went. My mother remembers a time, sometime in the late 1950s, when the family found themselves flying to England via Japan Air. She and her brother begged Granddad not to do any funny accents on the plane, because they knew him all too well.

He swore that he would not, but in the event the temptation was just too great. My mother and her brother were beside themselves with horror, and would have leapt out of the plane to expiate their shame if they could have. But (at least as my mother remembers it) all the flight attendants were delighted by his terrible antics. It seems implausible -- surely they were just acting delighted by this ridiculous behavior? -- except that I saw him in action time after time, and he really did pretty much universally charm the pants off every single person he encountered, everywhere, anytime.

Anyway, the result of this tendency to draw a certain amount of attention to oneself eventually led my mother to suggest that the family motto should be "We Didn't Come All This Way to Be Inconspicuous."

I am not sure I am entirely ready to embrace this philosophy, but I must confess that, in practice, the shoe often fits. Last week I seem to have crossed the line into looking truly, unambiguously pregnant, no matter what I am wearing. People began remarking on it in the elevator and hallway. They are all being very nice, of course, but disconcerting. From here on out I suppose it is an unbroken trajectory of becoming increasingly conspicuous, though, so I should find some way to take advantage of it.

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Speaking of what I am wearing, I recently made the mistake of shopping at an actual, real live maternity shop. Not only is the shirt I bought there not really worth the money, the checkout process blew my innocent little mind. The actual transaction took about ninety seconds, but was greatly prolonged by an unexpected procession of promotional inquiries.

Steve was there, too, and nearly choked himself holding back his laughter at my response to this procedure, which started off especially inauspiciously when the clerk took me by surprise with this apparent non sequitur: "Would you like to subscribe to the Baby Einstein club for only $4.99 a month?"

Briskly: "Oh, certainly not."

There was a moment's pause as she digested this and entered my purchase into her computer. Then she proceeded to the next item in her routine, which conveniently was also in the form of a yes or no question, though I suspect few people treat it as one: "Can we get your email address?"

"Oh, no."

From there I pulled it together a bit and began inserting more polite Thank yous and I'm afraid nots. But it was a long list of suggestions, and the poor clerk dutifully made her way down to the very end though it was transparently evident that I would be taking her up on none of them. Then, having paid, we fled. Sorry, clerk.

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Today was not as productive as it might have been, thanks to a two-hour period in the middle of the day when I found myself weeping uncontrollably at my desk.* Rarely have I been so glad that I have an office with a door. The things that got me to that state did not really merit such a watery response, but first I was drizzling and then I was dripping and then I was sobbing idiotically with my forehead on the edge of my desk.

I feel terribly guilty about my failure to be more warm and open to Steve's parents, for one thing. Then some emotionally complicated planning involving different people altogether made me feel very much like a friendless shut-in. It also reminded me of how disappointed I was at my dreary PhD graduation, which was held in a venue so deeply uninspiring that no one who was there could get remotely excited on my behalf. And my diploma got damp. What this has to do with anything other than perversely casting my life as a series of failed celebrations, I do not know. 

There was also time, as always, for a stop at Stagnant Career Station, as my sad little pile of job applications was right next to my head.

Oh, it was all very stupid, and not worth getting worked up about. I certainly prefer to be smug and merry, but I was enbleakened by hormones and self-pity. As a result I missed both lunch and the chance to get a pile of grading done. More fool me. When I got home, though, I had a hearty dinner and am now having a very small beer for solace, both of which were good ideas.

Writing all this also made me feel better. My only trouble now is that I don't know how how to wrap it up. Well, that and this stabbing pain in the small of my back and horrible burning sensation across my ribcage, but those hardly count as troubles, do they? More like lively conversation starters.

* Steve: "Two hours? Jesus, baby!"

Me: "Well, off and on."

Steve: "Still, two hours!"

Me: "Off and on!"

Fashion and geography

Last night I gave Steve a long-overdue hair cut.

The way this generally works is that he begins looking disreputable and vaguely mad scientist around the edges, and I say: "You really need a hair cut." He agrees and we go back to reading things. Then three weeks or so pass, until his head has become a whirling vortex of Christopher Lloyd.

"That's Taxi-era Christopher Lloyd," he clarifies.

At last it is too much for even my profound inertia to withstand, and it is time to go down to the cellar. That is where hair cuts happen, among the laundry and old packing boxes and other impedimenta. But first the hair must be made wet, so Steve showers as I read something. A warbling falsetto drifts down the stairs.

"That was quite a song," I remark as he emerges.

"Yes. 'O Canada'!"

"Oh, I thought it was 'When the Saints Come Marching In'."

"Well, it was to the tune of 'When the Saints Come Marching In'. Here, I'll sing it for you."

O Canada
You are a land
A land with lots of polar bears
Lots... and lots of bears
O Canada, you are a land.

O Canada
You're in the north
You're in the northern hemisphere
The northern, western hemisphere
O Canada, you're in the north.

Then I cut all his hair off. The end!

Her blessed thistle trembled below his tremendous manhandle.

This apple is called a Catshead.* Apparently it cooks to a sharp firm puree. I'm not quite certain what exactly that would consist of, but it sounds like it doesn't stand for any nonsense. I imagine you wouldn't either if you'd been around since the early seventeenth century.

The past was better at names. Threadneedle Street, Gropecunt Lane. (These are two different names for one road.) Sneezewort. Breakbone Fever.

Medieval English units of measurement are good too. A poppyseed is a quarter of a barleycorn. There are forty square perches to a rood. Sadly, perch as a measurement doesn't have anything to do with the approximate length of a tasty freshwater fish. It just means "rod".

Speaking of rods, shaftments sound nice and dirty. Their Wikipedia entry doesn't particularly dispel that impression, either:

A shaftment is the width of the fist and outstretched thumb. The lengths of poles, staves, etc. can be easily measured by grasping the bottom of the staff with thumb extended and repeating such hand over hand grips along the length of the staff.

No doubt the purveyors of fine period romance novels are already making full use of this handy turn of phrase. "Fumbling the laces in her eagerness, at last she worked his trousers loose and gasped at what she saw. Faith! Two full shaftments in length and thick as a country sausage!"

*Check out that whole site. It is fantastic. Not only is it a "comprehensive resource for apples and orchards," there is an incredible list of apple varieties where you can read and post comments about each one. Are you a big fan of Northern Spies? Do you have questions about the eating qualities of the Nonetit Bastard? (YES! Really!) Go to town.