- Brushes with Fame, no. 1: Sen. Chris Dodd, D-CT. I met Senator Dodd at a fundraiser several years ago. A family friend introduced us. He said to me – this is absolutely true, and I remember it well -- “where's the bar?”
- Brushes with Fame, no. 2: Henry Rollins. I met HR during my halcyon days as a college radio dj. He and I had an extended, and quite pleasant, conversation in which we discussed our mutual love of Miles Davis' Theme from Jack Johnson. He also told me about a time John Lee Hooker tried to pick up his girlfriend.
- Quoth The Girl, beaming proudly: “I wipe mine boogers with mine sock!”
- Every girlfriend I ever had for long enough to use the term 'girlfriend' was left-handed. The Wife, too, is left-handed. I attribute this to a semi-conscious desire for my future male progeny to be left-handed, since left-handed pitchers don't even have to be good to make the big bucks. The Boy is right-handed. God has a sense of humor.
- I'm thinking of starting an internet petition to the companies that make clothes for toddlers and young children. “We, the undersigned, beseech you to please, for the love of all that is good, make the neckholes big enough that you can take the shirt off the kid without inflicting major cranial trauma.” Kids' heads are proportionately larger, relative to their bodies, than adults'. You'd think shirtmakers would have figured that out by now. We don't even try turtlenecks anymore.
Although I've never seen a study specifically on this, I bet that Midwestern Scandinavians make lousy therapists. “Have you considered whining less, and perhaps walking it off?”
My simple, two-part plan to improve 24:
Teach Chloe a second facial expression.
More Nadia. Much more Nadia. Much, much more Nadia.
I recently reread Straight Man, by Richard Russo. The money quote, from page 357 : “A liberal arts dean in a good mood is a potentially dangerous thing. It suggests a world different from the one we know.” I laughed out loud.
The Boy didn't believe me when I told him that when I was growing up, we only got four channels on the tv. Once I finally convinced him it was true, which it was, he responded: “You must have used the computer a lot, then.” I am now officially old.
