Happy T-Giving

Clean, Warm Laundry

Friday Nostalgia

1969-1974. This show saved me from the 20th century Powder Springs mentality.

Daily Lola

Lo: Oh-my-gah, have I gotta story to tell you. Today at lunch, we had soup. Guess what happened?

TR: Someone threw up.

Lo: Of course. So everybody in the lunchroom was staring over at it, and Miss B was walking toward it and didn't see, and all together--I mean the WHOLE room--went, "NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!! ...ooooohhhhhhh.......EEEEEEEEWWWW!!!!"

TR: She didn't...

Lo: Stepped RIGHT in it. It was awesome!

TR: Sick.

Lo: The lunch room is the BEST. Something always happens in there. Like those two kindergarteners making out last week. I LOVE the lunch room. AND I love kindergarteners. They're like tiny people but giant teddy bears. They are SO cute! All the kindergarteners know me. They're always, "Heeeeeeey Lolaaaaaaa!!!" I get in trouble in the hall because they make so much noise about it. It's terrible. It's awesome. Anyway, I love kindergarteners and I love the lunch room. I really love school lately.

Friday Nostalgia

Classic Lyle from 1995.

Last Night, In the Car

Lola: I need thirty dollars for the book fair on Monday.

TR: THIRTY DOLLARS?! You're wack.

Lola: C'mon, it's a great deal. You can give me 15 and Dad can give me 15.

TR: Dad can give you 15, and I can give you 0. I bought you those books at the Y.

Lola: That has nothing to do with this. Anyway, why do you think they let the fourth and fifth graders bring the money and buy their own books, but they make everybody else's parents come?

TR: I guess because they're afraid the younger kids will buy stupid books or books they can't read.

Lola: Once you get to a certain point, you can read anything. I could have read anything in third grade. I was on a 6.2 level. Now I don't even know how high I am.

TR: Yes, you're a prodigy reader and potholder maker.

Lola: I want to get that book, Sheep. I've read part of it, but not all of it. It's really sad. It's about a Guten Ta man.

TR: Huh?

Lola: A Guten Ta man.

TR: What's a Guten Ta man?

Lola: What language is Guten Ta?

TR: German?

Lola: Right. He's a German man then. He lives with goats.

David Wroblewski at the East Cobb Borders

David was my running buddy in grad school. I haven't seen him in 12 years. He's reading tonight at 7. I've got to get me some bells.

Upon Waking, In Bed This Morning:

TR: I can't WAIT to get my French Bulldog puppy for Christmas!

Biggy: I'll drive it around in my new Porsche!

Best-Ever Article on Sex

When I was growing up, we learned about sex from nasty graffiti on railroad bridges and sewer drains. If we were really lucky, we might find a stash of mildewed rain-soaked Playboys by the creek in the woods, where the teenaged boys snuck off to drink their father's beer. Our education was limited to crude drawings with arrows pointing to "pussy," which was always a large scribbled triangle indicative of the natural bush stylish in the day.

And if the characters and diagrams prompted questions, we'd sit with our older neighbors in the doghouse and they'd answer them for us from their vast encyclopedic knowledge gathered from fifth-grade Health class. Later, there was Cinemax, but it was cryptic and bugged with first-generation cable static. We were forced to fill in the blanks, and we relied on love scenes from Dark Shadows and General Hospital for reference. There was romance in that.

My kids, however, have grown up in the era of RealWorld hot-tub threesomes and streaming porn. Even their cartoons contain pornographic references. As hard as I have tried to limit their access to inappropriate stuff online, I know they're smart and resourceful and that kids will look diligently for anything they can find on the subject of sex. And these days, what they can find is prolific, explicit, and hyperbolic. It is polished, plastic, and scripted. It lacks heart, soul, and imagination, not to mention pubic hair. 

I worry that my girls will feel pressure to "perform" and that my boy will expect every girl he's intimate with to have a pierced clitoris and breasts like Jenna Jameson. I worry that they might not experience the honest, clumsy contact of making love and true intimacy. 

This article I came across in Salon today spoke to my fears. Mary Elizabeth Williams said everything I've been thinking for the past few years. Click here if you're interested.

The Definition of Audacity

Beautiful Creatures in my House

My oldest, Sadie; her boyfriend, Barrett; and the love of her life, Juggernaut.



Then, of course, there are the not-so-beautiful creatures: Darkness, and her father.

I've Been in Therapy for 23 Years

This is my mother, my mother's dog Madonna, and my mother's new tattoo of her dog Madonna.