nina turns 40

god, I love Spanish break-up songs

Cuando ya no me quieras
No me finjas cariño
No me tengas piedad, compassión, ni temor

Si me diste tu olvido,
No te culpo, ni riño,
Ni te doy el disgusto de mirar mi dolor.

Roughly translated as:

When you don't love me anymore
Don't pretend affection,
Don't give me pity, compassion, or fear.

If you have forgotten me,
I won't blame you, nor fight it,
Nor will I give you the displeasure
Of seeing my pain

ladies and gentlemen, do not panic

Has typepad got its shit together?  Can it be?  I think they have.  Man, that was awful.  I felt like I'd been kidnapped.  Anyway, back to some real posting soon, I just wanted to make sure it was really going to work again.  I'm glad I'm not Mena Trott today.

who, me guilty?

I feel like it's becoming "all kidlet, all the time" around here, but you must realize that he is the only other human being that I spend any significant amount of time with (except for my co-workers, of whom, trust me, it's better not to speak).  Here, then, is your kidlet related story of the day.

We were waiting at the corner for the school bus, as usual, with the nice mommy from down the street and her adorable kindergardener.  The school bus pulled up with a great whoosh and the yellow doors swung out, and we kissed our little ones and up the stairs they went.  And the nice mommy gives the bus driver a Christmas card.  A Christmas card personally handmade by the adorable kindergardener.  The bus driver's face lit up.  He was pleased.  He was touched.  How nice!  How thoughtful!  I, on the other hand, was not so pleased. 

Do we have a lovingly handmade card for the bus driver?  Oh no, we do not.  Do we even have a cheesy store-bought card?  Again, no.  We don't even have cards for our beloved friends and family, why would anyone think that I could get my act together enough to be thinking of the school bus driver?  People, I wish I could tell you that I was at least planning on getting the bus driver a card, but the truth is, it never even crossed my mind.  And for this, I at least have the decency to feel guilty.  I mean, this bus driver has waited at the corner a good long while as the kidlet and I came huffing and puffing up, backpacks flouncing behind us.  This bus driver has stopped, mid-block, in order to pick us up when we've come rushing late out of the house.  He is always extra-nice and courteous.  He deserves a thoughtful gesture.  Yet, I'm afraid that I will fail him.

I am going to have to pull the single mom card on this one.  Not only does the nice mommy down the street have a partner to help her with stuff like buying groceries and scrubbing toilets and earning the money, but she is also a SAHM.  Which, we all know, is damn hard work.  That is not my point.  My point is that she has many more hours at home with her little one during which they may make beautiful, thoughtful, handmade cards for school bus drivers.  I am lucky if I can get the kidlet fed, his homework done, and his pajamas on before it is bedtime, much less trying to do any sort of fun or educational or socially obligatory activity together.  If you recall, we did hand make our Valentines last year and we were up until about eleven o'clock doing it.  I'm still finding bits of doily in the corners of the house.  So all you people who have had your Christmas shopping done since October can just kiss my overwhelmed ass.  And Mr. Bus Driver, if you happen to pretend to not see us the next time we don't quite make it to the bus stop on time, I completely understand.

reasons why we still need feminism

Since I'm getting sick now (thanks, mijo), here are just some off-the-top-of-my-head reasons why we still need feminism:

Natalee Holloway and all the resulting blame the victim crap.
The hatred of powerful women, from Hillary Clinton, to Condoleezza Rice, to Martha Stewart.
"Where are all the women bloggers?"
Sex tourism.
Lawrence Summers
Pharmacists that won't fill birth control prescriptions.
Or, to put it all more succinctly: it's the patriarchy, stupid.

Update:  In my fever-induced delirium last night I came up with a couple more.
Abstinence only sex education
The Disney princesses

monday miscellania

I'm home with a sick kidlet today, thereby missing our company holiday lunch.  As I don't think we were going to get to drink during this little party, I'm not too bummed about it.  What good is a company party if you can't get a little buzzed and say all that stuff you hold back on during the rest of the year?

Lauren at Feministe repeats a question asked in a comment thread over at Protein Wisdom: Do we need feminism anymore in America?  She breifly gives her reasons for saying yes, and goes on to ask for more elaborate answers in her comments.  The best I can do at this point in the morning is a resounding, fuck yes!  I will try to compose something a little more thoughtful before too much longer.

After having a crappy, hormonally-influenced bummer of a day yesterday, I realized that many, if not most, of my friends--both on- and offline--are taking happy pills.  Although a fan of better living through chemisty (she says, sipping her coffee), I'll admit that anti-depressants scare the hell out of me.

In the spirit of family harmony and seasonal commercialization, the kidlet, his dad, and I went for the world's most expensive brunch on top of the Space Needle on Saturday.  It was a surprisingly pleasant experience, framed by stunningly clear mountain views, crab eggs benedict, and no wait at all to see Santa.

don't you need some christmas cute cool?

the golden chair

The kidlet and I don't have a lot of furniture.  We have always had small living spaces, so it's worked out just fine for us.  We have one old ratty small easy chair that due to the color of its upholstery we call the golden chair.  This chair is at least twenty years old and looks every day of that.  This is where the kidlet sits when he watches TV or DVDs.  On the rare occasion that there is something on TV that we both want to watch (like NOVA), we wrestle for the rights to sit in the golden chair.  What usually ends up happening is that I sit down, and the kidlet clambers up onto my lap, and we try to get comfortable.  The kidlet is skinny, all elbows and knees and sharp chin, so this is never easy.  As we shift and rearrange I am struck by how big he is now.  Finally, we settle down into some sort of mutually agreeable arrangement and watch the show.  The kidlet is not very affectionate, he wants to be tickled far more than he wants to be hugged, so I hoarde these uncomfortable moments knowing that soon even this much will be impossible.  I hope that his size will prevent him from it long before his already growing need to see himself as cool keeps him from the attempt.  I was lamenting the fact that the kidlet never tells me he loves me to Scott, and he had a most lovely reply.  "When you're six," he told me, "just about every fiber of your being is filled up with loving your mom.  Saying it is rather superfluous." 

Of course I know this.  I see it especially after he's been at my mom's for a couple of days, and I go up to meet him like I did over Thanksgiving.  The excitement in his face as he runs to the door to greet me, the way that every game must now be played with mom, that grandma and grandpa's attention is no longer wanted, make it obvious.  It's not that I need reassurance, it's more that I feel so keenly how limited our time is, how quickly he is becoming a really big kid.  And I know that when he is older, he won't remember this time now, just as now he doesn't remember being a baby.  Which leaves me in charge of remembering it all: the stains on the fabric of the golden chair, his green glow-in-the-dark dinosaur pajamas, the way, after I tuck him into bed he still insists on ALL the kisses, butterfly, eskimo, fishy, gobbly, and of course, regular, right on the lips, four times.

no me digas

Roxanne is currently soliciting words, phrases and acronyms that should be forbidden for 2006.  I know one tired phrase that I'll be happy to never hear again, and that's "bitch slap".  I find it really discouraging how acceptable it is to bandy about a phrase which is essentially about beating the crap out of a woman.  The whole glorification of the pimp lifestyle is usually merely amusing in a rather annoying way, but the fact that "bitch slap" is considered OK to use on prime-time TV just pisses me off.  Bitch slapping is about controlling women, keeping them in their place, and I'll have none of it. 

I'm certainly not going to disagree

Upon getting out of the bathtub this evening, the kidlet declared, "This is the world's greatest penis, right here!"

sometimes a cigar is just Herbie's last name

There's been a huge debate raging over at Pandagon about whether or not it's cool to point out a blogger's typos to them, and if so, what's the proper etiquette for it.  Most people really hate having their spelling or grammar or typing errors pointed out to them, and so I usually quell my own grammar policing tendencies.  For myself, and for nina turns 40, however, I am always horrified when I discover a typo on a post that has been sitting for a few days and nobody bothers to let me know.  Sometimes, however, the mistake is almost too funny to correct.  Take my iPod random ten list for example.  Check out item number two:  Herbie Handcock featuring Annie Lennox~Hush, Hush, Hush.  Yes, Dr. Freud, I really do need to start getting out more.  Thanks to Chris for letting me know.