geekbabypalooza

First, a few words on a few words.

1. This article by Marlene Arpe in the Sunday Star was pure brilliance. My parents get the weekend papers, but with one thing and another I never get to read anything more than the headlines before they're recycled. Today I had a moment while Blake was destroying something, and I was sucked in by the teaser: "ladies, it's time to put your money where your fantasies are and save Leonard Cohen."

I have had a crush on Leonard Cohen since I was 14 & found his first album in my mother's collection. I don't crush on older men - LC is just about it - but who couldn't love someone who compared your hair to a "sleepy golden storm"? Arpe sums it up perfectly:

Is there a straight woman in this land (and abroad for that matter, and probably some lesbians, too) who hasn't at some point looked across the breakfast table, the bed, the La-Z-Boy with the TV Guide/remote-control caddy, the tool shed, the cheap golf bag, the unsightly family car, the supermarket aisle, the Thanksgiving dinner where the turkey is dry and the cranberry sauce isn't made from scratch, the laundry basket, and closed her eyes really hard for just a moment and wished, wished, wished that the man she saw there was Leonard Cohen?

Imagined that the hands she felt were Leonard Cohen's, which would surely never be clumsy, that the voice (especially the voice) she heard reciting the lists of the things the family needed at the store was Leonard Cohen's. That if Leonard Cohen were there, he would indeed take the trouble from her eyes. That if her idea of the man that is Leonard Cohen were to just ring her doorbell once and take her to exotic places and write poems about her that only she knew were about her, and which made the world wonder whom they were about, then her life could be poetry, too.

We're especially short on money this year, but I would donate to this cause. She's right - Leonard Cohen shouldn't have to struggle with coupon clipping.

2. "I like conservatives. They're opposed to all questionable adventures abroad and for fiscal prudence and responsibility. It's right-wing nuts I can't stand." - Molly Ivins, the current Utne Reader

She has managed to tell me why I like Preacher & Martha so much.

3. "Buy this magazine for TWO DOLLARS and I'm still 3 bucks shy of fighting off a teenager for the front seat of the Cyclone."

Synchronicity: the latest East Village Inky is all about Coney Island. I heart Ariel Gore.

Yesterday we made it out to Orion's first birthday party. It was geekbabypalooza...the place was crawling with second- and third-generation gamerbabies, mushed into a big sweaty whole. As is his wont, Blake tore the place apart, dazzling audiences with his mimicry, recitation & numerical knowledge, not to mention his wild freaky Dorian Grey/Jim Morrison curls. I think that this was the first party in months when I've felt utterly normal, running after my child and telling crazy mom stories. Noizangel did her whole zen-babychasing thing again, engaging Blake in many of his adventures and marveling at his in-depth knowledge of lyrics ("rocks are slowlife...") At one point the three of us were in the toy zone, sitting in the sun and playing with books. Blake got to his feet and took off for parts unknown; Noizangel & I looked at each other and, without a word, got to our feet before our friends could notice that we were ass-deep in toddler toys with nary a toddler to be seen.

My hat didn't really go over, mostly because they didn't get right away that I'd knit it, and were thus left to grapple with the idea that I would purchase a very warm, oversize wool hat for a kid born on the first of September. Looked at it dispassionately, it don't make that much sense. But I guarantee they'll like it come winter - it ties on, fer chrissake, and that's worth gold on the head of a restless toddler. Gold!

Eh. I'm cranky...I just found out that Camp Trebuchet had a big ol' party in the city last weekend for St. Stephen's engagement. Guess how I found out about it? Through Ophelia's LiveJournal! It's like 1997 again. Ah, they all can eat a big burlap bag. Each.

I called Palaver and ripped into him a little for not telling me, but he managed to dodge the snakebites until I calmed down. He also buttered me up by thanking me profusely for making him come to NYC with us. Appreciation, in lieu of a big chocolate apology cake from the burlap-eating parties, is all I really wanted in the first place.

And Scherezade, I don't want to hear you say "get over it." The place where my emotions lie has not sense of passing time. As far as my heart's concerned, I was living in Ferg yesterday.

- 0 comments/hedgehogs -

- Rocketbride's adventure of 8/29/2005 02:02:00 p.m.