When lawyers dine out, don’t you know,
They have split-fee soup, just for show.
They dazzle their guests
And I can attest
That the entree is broiled squid pro quo.
New Zodiac
So, because the earth is constantly in motion, and so are the stars, we’ve ended up with a 13th sign of the Zodiac. This sets everything askew.
Just like that, I’m a Gemini. Now I have to completely re-identify with twins. It was hard enough when just one of me was in my head.
Whatever will we do about that culturally important song?
When the moon is in the second and third house
And Jupiter aligns with Mars and almost with Venus
Then peace will guide the planets
And the Mayan calendar will put an end to the stars
This is the dawning of the age of Aquarius,
No, I mean the age of Pisces! Pisces! Pisces!
Catapult. Yes, Catapult.
Zombie Apocalypse: How it Happens
God, I love The Oatmeal!
- The Oatmeal’s Zombie Apocalypse
Tree Splooge
Spring is a miserable time of year.
First, there’s the weather. The damnable, changeable, hot-then-cold-again weather. The tornado, thunderstorm, wildly fluctuating barometric pressure, what the hell do I wear today, blustery, windy, knock me on my ass, fifty degree temperature spread in a day weather.
Then there’s the plants. You think it’s warm. There has been a recent series of beautiful warm spring days so you go to the local nursery and buy plants. You know, those tender annuals or baby herbs or vegetables just sprouted that make your mouth water with the promise of zucchini to come and tomatoes heavy on the vine. You put them in your car. You ferry them home. You place them where you want them and tamp the cool soil around their delicate stems, and after spending a day soaking up natural Vitamin D you go to bed, tired but fulfilled from a day playing the farmer, only to wake up shivering because you turned off the heat and the indoor temperature now matches the outdoor temperature of about 27 degrees and all the work you did yesterday is for naught. You vow next year to give it a week even after the frost-free date before you buy so much as a single packet of parsley seeds, knowing full well that spring’s siren song of false seduction will lure you to the nursery for that fateful waste of valuable money on plants doomed to die by the next sunrise.
The very worst part of spring, though, has to be the trees. Tall, bare-limbed, they stretch themselves and shake off the winter by emitting tentative tendrils of leaves, and before even the first leaf is full formed, the oaks go into full rut.
Oaks are horny bastards.
Because of the oaks, heinous fuckery most foul is visited upon me. Each fall the acorns hit my deck sounding like scatter shot, someone’s Daisy BB gun with an automatic clip, a terrorist squirrel at the helm of a acorn-grenade launching Gatling gun, firing hell bent for leather at my precious darling deck which never hurt anyone. Acorns are the demon-spawn of oaks. To create those diabolical children, the oaks engage in a springtime orgy that makes Bacchus himself blush at the pure wanton sex those oaks put out there for all the world to see.
The mighty oaks are masculinity personified. Baring their knotted chests, in Spring they take a deep breath and grimace, and from every pore pop squiggly spermatozoa, wiggling and waggling at other oaks, daring the other oaks to take a breath themselves and shoot back tentacles of spermatozoa in a war of silly string battle-inspired posturing and thrusting. It is indeed heinous fuckery most foul, as the foul squigglies waft their pollen and fill my unsuspecting gutters with their decaying carcasses.
Victims of these oaken battles of male dominance are cars, covered in a greenish yellow dust that hides the metallic grays and greens and reds. Victims also are the furniture, helplessly stationary in their designated positions, the flat planes of which act as a breeding ground not for acorns but for that same greenish yellow film that coats unprotected patio furniture and wafts into the cracks of car windows someone forgot to roll up.
Victim also are my sinuses, and Jack’s, and the sinuses of my receptionist (who I think has had a sinus condition since November). The virile oaks seek to splash their splooge on every available surface, in hopes that all the world will turn into acorns proving their masculine Darwinian fitness. In Spring, we walk through breezes of tree splooge morning, noon and night. Those damnable trees believe, like so many Arab IMers, that the world is a woman, open and panting for their splooge to fall fertile on something and make an acorn of it.
There is a scene in Christopher Moore’s classic Fluke: Or, I Know Why the Winged Whale Sings in which a pair of female oceanographers are studying sperm whales, and upon seeing a mating pair are delighted at their rare good fortune – until, that is, the female whale moves one way and the male moves the other just at the moment of his ecstasy. The two women are drowned in a sea of sperm whale splooge and instantly turn lesbian, seeking never again to encounter such a substance again.
That is also the novel in which I first encountered the term “heinous fuckery most foul,” uttered by a caucasian Rastafarian surfer called Kona.
My nose is stuffed so much I can’t sniffle. My cough barks deep within my chest. Today, I identify totally with those two female oceanographers. If I never experience tree splooge again, it will be too soon.
The oaks are virile indeed.
The fuckers.
Strange Maps
One of my favorite blogs is “Strange Maps.” I admit: I’m a map geek. The maps are really fascinating, I promise. Each map is accompanied by a well written, well researched article that lists its sources. I’ve never failed to learn something from these posts.
For instance, there’s the one that shows how King Cotton picks Presidents, something near and dear to my heart since my family has grown cotton in Arkansas since before the Civil War and is pleased to hold sway still over national politics. (Sorry, I will not entertain questions about how many slaves my ancestors owned. I hate to be prickly, but that is usually the tactless question immediately asked when I mention our history of cotton farming.)
Also on the political front was the map that showed clearly what illegal immigrants were aiming for when it came to the Absolut Perfect Mexico. Scary, huh?
Believe it or not, though, there’s humor in maps, too.
The “Strange Maps” blog featured a very special post on The Semi-Colonial State of San Serriffe, a place that is near and dear to my writing, punctuation-loving heart.
There are maps of strange and wonderful places such as Elleore, a kingdom 12 minutes ahead of Copenhagen. I never discerned whether they have Daylight Savings Time in Elleore, or if at some point they fall 48 minutes behind Copenhagen.
Then there are the bizarre maps of the modern world, such as the “Smart Medicine” infomercial map that located Australia off the coast of Baja California and situated Africa between Maine and Ireland, eliminating Iceland and Greenland entirely, and
a map of the “Special World” that only the hospitality industry inhabits.
Wonderful antique maps crop up occasionally, like the map that inspired Christopher Columbus to believe he could sail from Spain to Cathay in three weeks, overlaid on the true map of the world.
Maps on the site show useful things, too, like where to find goblins in Europe or what to ask for when one wishes to order a non-alcoholic carbonated beverage in a different part of the country.
I have to admit, though, that yesterday’s featured map, from xckd.com (a webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math and language) is one of my favorites, just for the sheer fun of it:
A Midget Comes to Chigger Hollow
Midget truck drivers didn’t show up in Chigger Hollow every day. In fact, there weren’t any midgets at all in Chigger Hollow, so when one did show up it was momentous.
The semi pulled into the parking lot of the Chat ‘n’ Chew convenience store about 4:30 in the afternoon. Norma Rae started a fresh pot of coffee. Usually truck drivers could be counted on to buy a couple of cups, even if it was late in the afternoon. Hearing the water begin to drip through the grounds of the Biff Brand coffee, she perched herself back on the duct-taped vinyl stool behind the counter and went back to her True Confessions magazine.
Out of the corner of her eye Norma Rae noticed a woman coming into the store. The woman was followed by a child. Norma Rae didn’t take much notice because the State Trooper from up at Possum Grape had told her in casual conversation that women and children don’t tend to be convenience store robbers. Men were the ones to watch out for, and if a man came in alone, followed by another man, and neither one parked where she could get a description of the car or the license in case of their quick getaway after a robbery, she should take special notice and ease the handle of the shotgun close to the edge of the shelf underneath the counter.
Popping the top on another Coke Zero Norma Rae turned the page in her True Confessions. “I Was a Teenage Pasta Wrestler” looked to be an interesting article. The picture of a pretty girl with a pouty mouth, who looked for all the world like Rhonda Sue Ellis, the valedictorian of Chigger Hollow’s Class of 1995, just with blonde hair, was inset on top of a black and white photo of two women completely covered in ragu and grappling with each other to the cheers of abnormally handsome young men who hung on the perimeter of the wrestling ring.
The woman came to the counter with a large cup of coffee and a package of chewing tobacco. Without looking up, Norma Rae scanned the two items. “Four eighty-seven,” she said, holding her hand out and sneaking another look at the black and white photo. Was the woman on the left wearing a top? Was that a mushroom in the spaghetti sauce or were her nipples hard from the excitement of the contest? She took the five dollar bill from the customer and handed her a dime and three pennies. Norma Rae was well into the first paragraph of the article when someone cleared his throat.
She looked up. She didn’t remember seeing anyone come in after the woman, and she had been alone in the store. She peered over the display of breath mints and beef jerky but didn’t see anyone. She went back to True Confessions.
This time a cough made her look up. No one was standing at the pay counter, which stood as high as her ample chest when she wasn’t sitting on her stool. Norma Rae remembered everything Danny Kitchens, the State Trooper from Possum Grape, had told her and she eased the butt of the shotgun toward the edge of the shelf below the counter.
“Hello?” she asked uncertainly.
“How much for two drumsticks and half a dozen biscuits?” a man’s voice asked. Norma Rae jumped.
“Drumsticks are eighty-five cents each and biscuits are five for two dollars,” she said. It must be a short guy, because he was apparently hidden behind the tall display of Slim Jims. She moved off her stool and peered around the display. She didn’t see anyone.
“I want six biscuits, not five,” the voice said.
“Six biscuits are, um…” Norma Rae cursed herself for forgetting where the calculator was kept. She was terrible at math.
“Are they the same price whether I buy five or if I buy, say, three?” The voice seemed to be getting impatient, but Norma Rae still couldn’t figure out where its owner was standing.
“Well, no,” she replied, her tone conveying her obvious opinion of such a dumb question. “Five biscuits are two dollars. Three biscuits are less than that.”
“So are three biscuits a dollar twenty?”
“How should I know?” she snapped. She stood on the foot rest rung of her stool and leaned out over the counter, hitting her head on the cigarette display above the cash register. “Damn!”
A cup of coffee appeared at the check out counter. Norma Rae leaned out again. This time she ducked. The voice belonged to the kid. No, to the midget. The kid was a midget.
“I’ll have to ring it up to get you a total,” she said, staring at the man. Despite his stature he was the most perfect specimen of virility Norma Rae had ever seen. Muscular arms reached up to slide a package of Mentos onto the counter next to the coffee. The arms were attached to a wide chest bulging with well-chiseled pectorals, which were clad in a tight navy blue t-shirt.
Norma Rae could not help but let out a breath of amazement. “Oh, wow,” she said eloquently, her eyes wide with awe.
“What, you’ve never seen a dwarf before?” the man asked. His eyes had narrowed and his lips curled into the manliest sneer Norma Rae had seen since Billy Idol’s “White Wedding” video on MTV.
“No! Oh! I mean, I’m just surprised is all,” she managed to babble.
“Are you going to let me buy chicken and biscuits?” the Perfect Specimen demanded.
“Oh! Yeah! Um, do you want spicy or traditional southern?”
“Southern. And I want six biscuits.”
“Do you want any mashed potatoes or turnip greens with it? Bessie Maydar makes the greens and they are to die for. She mixes in just a little mustard greens and some hot sauce while they’re cooking and they come out good enough to make you feel born again without ever going to church.” Norma Rae knew she was babbling but she couldn’t stop. Now why did she tell this Perfect Specimen of Virility Bessie’s secret ingredients? Bessie had sworn her to secrecy on the back porch while they were each into their fifth margarita one night. And “born again?” Where the hell did that come from? Norma Rae was Seventh Day Adventist, and except for the occasional cuss word she was true to her faith.
“How much?” Evidently this Perfect Specimen of Virility was on a budget.
“Ninety nine cents.”
“Not a dollar?”
Norma Rae shook her head. The power of speech was rapidly exiting her brain the longer she gazed on his biceps.
“My name’s Norma Rae,” she said. Then she realized that not only had the Perfect Specimen of Virility not asked, but that he seemed surprised that she would even share the information.
“I’m Willy,” he said.
“So do you want the greens?”
“Okay, fine. Two drumsticks, six biscuits, and a side order of greens,” said Willy the Perfect Specimen of Virility.
“That’s five forty five,” said Norma Rae after punching the order into the cash register.
Willy gave her a ten dollar bill. She gave him change.
“Are you going to get my food?” Willy finally asked, and Norma Rae realized that she was still leaning across the counter staring at him.
“Oh, god!” she exclaimed, hopping down from the stool. Now she was really embarrassed. She had taken the Lord’s name in vain in front of the Perfect Specimen of Virility and she was acting like a dummy. Shit! She hurried to put the chicken and greens in a Styrofoam container, and put six biscuits in a small paper bag. She climbed back up on her stool and leaned out to hand the container and the bag across the counter and down to those wonderful waiting arms, which she could imagine wrapped around her in a bear hug so tight it would make her groan.
“Can I get anything else for you?” She asked hopefully.
“Nope.” Willy reached for the coffee and Mentos, arranged his load, and headed for the door.
“Wait!” cried Norma Rae.
The Perfect Specimen turned around.
“Come back soon,” she murmured weakly.
Willy the Perfect Specimen nodded solemnly and went out the door. Norma Rae didn’t even realize she had failed to charge him for the coffee and Mentos.
to be continued….
Procrastination and Common Sense
I am as the American Colonies were in 1775.
I know you all want to know how I could possibly be like the American Colonies were in 1775. “The simile is a stretch,” you think.
You are wrong.
It will require a bit of a history lesson, so get out your notebooks and pens and pay attention.
Two hundred thirty-two years ago today, a man in Philadelphia began distributing copies of a pamphlet he had published anonymously at his own expense. The man, known as Tom Paine to his friends, had emigrated to the colony in America from England only two years before.
By the time he fortuitously met Benjamin Franklin in 1774, Paine had failed at everything he had ever done in life. He failed out of school at the age of twelve. By 19 he had failed at his apprenticeship to his father, a corset maker, and had gone to sea. He failed at that and returned to land work for the British government as a tax collector. By the time he was 32, he had been fired twice from that job, the second time because he agitated for higher wages, inciting others with his essays and leaflets to demand more money.
Once in Philadelphia, Paine began writing essays and contributing to a local magazine. He was a popular writer, and was widely read. He became a success.
Philadelphia’s air was full of anger and resentment against England when Paine arrived. The colonists in America felt that England was abusive towards them and despaired of Parliament even granting them self-rule. Ten years before Parliament had reined in the quasi-independence that had previously existed for the colonies on the other side of the Atlantic. In repealing the Stamp Act, which was despised by the colonists, Parliament passed the Declaratory Act of 1766, and claimed for itself the “right… power and authority to make laws and statutes of sufficient force and validity to bind the colonies and people of America…in all cases whatsoever.” Successively more restrictive laws were passed, and rebellion was imminent as 1775 turned into 1776.
For some reason, though, there had not been a formal rebellion against England in the colonies. As angry as the colonists were, they didn’t rise up and take arms against their English overlords. There were skirmishes here and there, and demonstrations and the like, but no organized, armed rebellion. We look back on it today and wonder, “What were they waiting for?” It’s hard to see why they wouldn’t take action.
Paine believed he knew how to package the idea of an armed rebellion so it would be more palatable to the colonists who might be sitting of the fence when it came to the issue of separation from England. He thought he had a way of convincing them to get off their dead asses and rebel. He had a way to stop them from procrastinating any longer.
And now we come to how I am like the colonies.
Hello. My name is Aramink. (Hello, Aramink.) I am a procrastinator.
I have lousy time management skills. I let things without deadlines linger on my desk, hoping they will go away. They never do.
I am a procrastinator. Like the American colonies in 1775, I am sitting on my dead ass doing nothing (playing online) when I should be doing something constructive, something like writing, working, paying bills, balancing my checkbook, cleaning out closets, making my bed, taking a nap… well, maybe not taking a nap, but the other things certainly should be done.
The colonists were sitting around, complaining about taxes, about soldiers eating them out of farm and home, and unfair laws, just like I sit around and complain that I’m not getting out and getting things off my desk. Something had to shake up the colonists enough to actually do something about what they enjoyed complaining about so much.
Thomas Paine’s pamphlet, Common Sense, lit the colonies on fire.
The pamphlet appeared on January 10, 1776. Over 150,000 copies were sold almost immediately. Through many reprintings throughout 1776, as many as six million pamphlets reached readers on both sides of the Atlantic.
Not only did Paine write the argument that won support for the rebels among farmers and educated businessmen alike, but he also discussed naval strength and set out a model for the new government of a country called America. He set out a plan of action for the colonies to take so that they could wrest their independence from England. It wasn’t until the third edition of the pamphlet, published February 14, 1776, that he set out this plan, but by the time the plan was proposed, the ideas in the pamphlet had already planted seeds of rebellion in very fertile ground.
Perhaps you’ve never read this famous pamphlet, which is credited with starting the American Revolution. How did Paine stop the colonists’ procrastination and propel them into action? He focused them on the bad guy. He identified King George III as the enemy of the American Colonies and he laid out a plan for getting rid of the yoke the king had clapped on the neck of the colonies with the passage of the Declaratory Act of 1766 and those successively restrictive laws aimed at strangling the autonomy of the colonies in America.
Why did it take ten years, from 1766 to 1776, for the colonists to act?
The same reason it took me a week to go to the doctor when I knew full well that the cranberries I was consuming in mass quantities were only giving me disturbing dreams and not curing my… indisposition.
Procrastination.
What stirred the colonists to action? Thomas Paine giving them a target and a plan.
What stirs me into action? Deadlines. When I don’t have one, I get nothing done whatsoever. I have no Thomas Paine to stir my passions into action.
I am a procrastinator.
Yesterday I was talking to my friend Katie about stuff I want to do but haven’t gotten around to doing. I had a laundry list of things. She laughed at me as I added more and more things to the list. “You’re a procrastinator! She declared. I admitted as much. I’ll deny anything until presented with incontrovertible proof. She had the proof.
Then she gave me an assignment.
“This afternoon, do three of these things on your list,” Katie commanded. She was kind enough to specify which three, and I was grateful. “I’m going to check with you later,” she warned.
It was about 2:30 and my eyelids were getting heavy. I had dealt with Book Club drama for two straight days and I was sleepy. I went to take a nap.
I woke up about 5:00 and returned to my computer. Oh yes, I remembered my assignment. I had to make two phone calls and mail something. Those were my tasks. I yawned and poured myself another glass of cranberry juice. Then I got a message from my friend Shawn.
“I understand you were supposed to accomplish three tasks this afternoon,” he said. He had been talking to Katie!
I stammered. I hemmed and hawed. I did those things at least as much as one can possibly do them in a Messenger conversation.
“Are they done?” Shawn asked. I could tell by the tone of the letters he typed that he was about to get serious with me. (No, the font didn’t change. I could just tell.)
“Ummm…”
I dialed the phone. I made the first phone call.
“I’ve done one,” I told him.
“Only one?”
I hung up and dialed the phone again.
“I’ve done two,” I reported.
“You’re tardy on those two,” he advised me sternly, and then noted that I hadn’t done the third one at all.
“But I took a nap!” I whined, hoping for leniency since Shawn is known to be fond of naps himself.
No luck. He remained stern and even got Katie into a messenger conference with us.
Katie pronounced punishment. “You have to do what you didn’t do, and you have to write a blog post about procrastination,” she decided.
“But I have another post planned for tomorrow,” I protested, thinking about how I hadn’t finished my blog about Thomas Paine and his pamphlet, Common Sense.
“You must post your procrastination blog by 6 p.m. tomorrow,” Katie commanded.
Katie is a formidable mistress. I felt like a naughty kid. Shawn was probably laughing at me, but he was at least pretending to be stern, too.
“Yes, ma’am,” I said meekly.
Guess what happened.
Uh-huh.
I procrastinated.
I didn’t get my Common Sense blog written last night, so it wasn’t ready to be posted this morning. And I had to do this procrastination blog, too. Today is the anniversary of the publication of Common Sense, so I really need to post that blog today, but Mistress Katie says I have to post the procrastination blog today, too.
That’s why I am comparing my procrastination with the inaction of the American colonies prior to the publication of Common Sense.
Thomas Paine set out a plan for rebellion and independence, and Katie told me I have to set out a plan to eliminate procrastination from my life.
These parallels between me and the American colonies are just downright uncanny, aren’t they?
Here’s my plan:
- I will read my email first thing in the morning and respond to it all.
- I will write the rest of the morning unless Jane is here, and in that case, I will write unless Jane has other work for me to do.
- I will break for lunch and actually eat somewhere other than over my keyboard.
- I will check my email immediately after lunch and respond to it all.
- I will run errands and get other things done as my list dictates (see below).
- I will read and write some more, as time permits.
- I will make tomorrow’s list by 5:00 every day.
- I will then allow myself to play online.
It may not be as good a plan as Thomas Paine’s was for rebellion, but it will probably help me to stop procrastinating.
I wonder if I should sign out of Messenger, too. I mean, I’m normally invisible, but I’m always here. If I hadn’t been on Messenger before 5:00, Katie might never have given me that assignment in the first place, and I might not have had to figure out how to combine a blog post on Thomas Paine’s Common Sense and procrastination.
It’s worth considering.
Books and Movies
Last night Jack flipped me his copy of Philip Pullman’s The Golden Compass. “Your Rule, Mom,” he reminded me. “You can’t see the movie until you’ve read the book.”
“It’s a good Rule,” I said defensively. “And I’ve been meaning to read it anyway. You took it from my pile of books, remember?”
My Rule about reading the book before seeing the movie applies to all three boys. (All three? Yes, all three. It applies to my sister’s sons, too. Andrew is four months older than Jack and Austin is two and a half years younger. We call them the “cousin-brothers” because they spend so much time together. Hey, we’re in Arkansas. My sister and I co-parent well.)
The Rule came about because my sister and I knew that if they didn’t read the book first and they saw the movie, they’d never bother with the book because they’d think they knew the story. I bet I can get a few confessions from my friends – perhaps one or two of you saw movies when you were supposed to read a book for school assignments.(To Kill a Mockingbird, maybe? A good movie, yes, but a much better book. Since it’s the only book Harper Lee ever wrote, I think we owe the author the courtesy of reading it. Go ye forth and buy it now, Wench commands thee!)
You see, there’s a sneaky thing Hollywood does. It doesn’t make movies of books. It makes movies based on books. There is a huge difference.
The fact was never presented more clearly to the boys than when the first Harry Potter movie came out. Despite J.K. Rowling’s close supervision of the project and her input, the movie just wasn’t like the book.
“Neville didn’t have much of a part at all,” complained Andrew, the older cousin.
“Hagrid keep changing size,” said Jack, unimpressed by the special effects.
“They found the keys too easily,” Andrew groused.
“That chess game was lame,” agreed Jack.
“I liked it,” offered Austin. He was too young to have read any of the books by the time the first movie came out, so he had no problem with it whatsoever.
My sister and I had taken them to the movie together. We both laughed. “See? This is why we say always to read the book. The book is always better than the movie.”
“But why is that?” The kids were really disappointed.They had read this wonderful book and the three that came after, and were absolutely riveted by the story and the characters. The books had already told them what Harry, Hogwarts, and Diagon Alley looked like.
“Why is that? Because your imaginations are much better than anything a movie can show you,” we answered. “Even the best movie-maker is limited by what he can do with the actors and special effects. Your imagination has no limits at all. Anything can happen when you read.”
When Holes was made into a movie, the same sorts of criticisms occurred. Both older boys had read the book and really enjoyed it. Once again, the movie was a disappointment.
“The lake wasn’t as big as it should have been.”
“The casting was terrible.” (They were a little older and more discerning about such things.)
“The vermin in the pits weren’t as scary as they were supposed to be.”
“The climb up the mountain didn’t have the same significance.”
“I liked it.” Austin, again, wasn’t old enough to have read the book.
When I told Jack that movies were going to be made based on the His Dark Materials trilogy, Jack sighed. “It’s been sitting on my shelf for years. I guess we’ll have to read it.”
“Why haven’t you read it before now?” I asked. I had given him the trilogy for some past Christmas after reading a rave review.
“I tried once. I just couldn’t get into the first book. I put it down and haven’t tried again.”
I do that, too, I must admit. Sometimes I pick up a book and it’s just not the story or the style I’m in the mood for at the time. I put it down meaning to get back to it eventually, but it collects dust for a long time waiting for me to approach it again.
When he returned The Golden Compass to me last night, I asked Jack how he liked it.
“It was good,” he answered. “It’s sort of an anti-Narnia. But it did take me some time to get into it. It was slow at first.”
“Do you think the movie will be good?”
“Sure,” he answered.
“Even though all books are better than the movies made based on them?” I grinned, feeling a little smug and superior, pleased at the chance to drive home my point that books beat celluloid hands down.
“That’s not always true,” Jack said.
“Give me one example of one movie that was better than the book!” I demanded in surprise.
“You’ve got to be kidding me. The movie was better than a book by Robert Heinlein?”
“It was, Mom. I mean, I just don’t like the way Heinlein writes.”
I gaped. Who was this child, this alien being, this life-form from some other planet? He doesn’t like the way Heinlein writes? This… this…. creature… standing in front of me couldn’t be something composed of my DNA.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I managed to gasp.
“No,” he said. “I hated the book Starship Troopers. The movie was good, though. They changed up the plot and the characters so that they were better.”
I’m still dumfounded.
When he was about 10, I gave him a copy of Heinlein’s The Star Beast,assuming that he would fall in love with the Lummox just like I did.
“It’s boring,” he announced halfway through, just as the two kids took off to the hills with the beast to hide her from the hoards of scientists and media.
“You’ve just gotten to the most exciting part of the book!” I objected.
“I’m sick of that book. I’m not reading it any more.”
I backed off. I didn’t want Heinlein to be an assignment, but he had to read him. He just had to.
I gave him The Rolling Stones, knowing that he would be delighted with the twins Castor and Pollux, and that he would even get the mythology reference. He didn’t even open it.
Again, I backed off. Maybe he really wasn’t ready for Heinlein. Maybe when he was older…
Recently he asked to read Stranger in a Strange Land.
“Hell, no!” I said.
“Why not?”
“Are you kidding? That book has tons of sex in it!”
Jack’s face went through several different expressions before he settled on defiance. “But you keep wanting me to read Heinlein.”
“Yes, but you aren’t starting with Valentine Michael Smith and Jubal Harshaw. Nor are you starting with Lazarus Long.”
“Who’re they?”
“Mike Smith is the Man from Mars, and Jubal is his lawyer. Lazarus Long is his own grandfather.”
“No way!”
“Time travel, baby. But at 16 you aren’t yet old enough to grok the Martian version of god or love, and you aren’t yet old enough to find out what Lazarus and his maternal ancestors do for entertainment during long spaceship rides.”
“When will be old enough?”
“Old enough for me to give you Stranger in a Strange Land? About the time you register for the draft,” I retorted. That’s in a couple of years. “About the time you are old enough to order a draft beer legally,” I revised.
I bought a copy of Time Enough for Love and left it conspicuously on a table. It disappeared. I saw it in his bathroom, a bookmark about halfway through it. He started it. I’m not sure if he ever finished it. Hopefully my strategy will work and he’ll swipe Stranger from the bookcase and read it under the covers with a flashlight just because I was so shocked and said he couldn’t. Hopefully he will learn that Heinlein’s place at the apex of the pantheon of science fiction gods is deserved. If he doesn’t, I will know beyond a shadow of a doubt that all of his chromosomes came solely from his father’s side of the family.
I hope Hollywood never makes a movie based on Stranger in a Strange Land.
Not Sure I Should Admit This – Blog May Be Deleted
Sometimes I do things purely to amuse myself, and I don’t even tell other people about it. Let me share something with you that amuses me so much I do it every chance I get.
Since 9/11 we have not been allowed to have sewing scissors when we fly. I used to take embroidery with me on long flights. It passed the time and was something I could do with my hands while I talked with my traveling companions. My hands are rarely still.
Embroidery scissors are tiny but have very sharp points. If a hijacker tried to take over a plane I was on, I planned to reach out with my scissors and get his attention. While he was screaming about his stabbed shoulder the he-man passengers could subdue him and save the plane.
Since 9/11, though, I use a round thingy that has a sharp blade accessible only by a thread. It would be useless against hijackers.
Even a nail file is a no-no on a flight these days. Sandpaper emery boards are all well and good, but a quick-thinking wench with a well-aimed nail file could also get the attention of a dangerous hijacker and help to save the day.
To amuse myself, I take a covert defensive weapon past the TSA checkpoints in airports. Dangerous and ill-advised, you say? Maybe. Then again, the weapons I take are cleverly disguised and if I’m caught I could act innocent and surrender them with guileless charm.
I fly with my hair twisted up in chopsticks.
That’s right. Chopsticks. The things we eat Chinese food with.
Not the kind they give you at the local Chinese takeout, made of soft sandalwood or plastic, no – the cruelly pointed kind that could inflict some damage if applied with enough force.
My first passage through the TSA checkpoint with chopsticks was purely unintentional. It wasn’t until later that I realized that I had been allowed on a plane with lethal weapons.
My favorite chopsticks were actually purchased in China, and they have very sharp points, perfect for picking up that single grain of rice. They are made of very hard wood.
Doesn’t my hair look great in chopsticks?
Aren’t those points sharp?
Since I realized that chopsticks are great devices to ward off hijackers if I should happen to be on a plane with such evil people, I have taken to traveling with my hair twisted up just like in the picture. I could do the same hairstyle with knitting needles like my Italian great-grandmother no doubt wore.
On my recent trip to Dallas, I dug through my purse in the hotel room. To my surprise, I found a second pair of chopsticks. These were made of silver. Yes, metal. My purse went through the x-ray machine and passed quickly. Those silver chopsticks were lying in the depths of my purse. They aren’t as sharp as the wooden ones, but they are still metal stakes.
I think if a hijacker attacked us on a plane, I could muster the courage to loosen my wenchly tresses and attack them with my hair baubles. Heck, it’s me or them up there.
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