Hockey players wear numbers because you can't always identify the body with dental records.

Dudes! This sucks!

THIS is why I try not to get involved. Why I try not to let myself CARE.
Because every time I let myself care, THIS is what happens.

The Pens broke my heart in ‘96 when they got rid of Sergei Zubov (allegedly because the great Mario Lemieux did not get along with him); again in ‘98 when Ron Francis left in free agency for Carolina; and now – now – they have traded my Colby, he of the boyish smile and twinkly eyes – oh, and, you know, his hockey skills are important, too...

Primo came home from school crying about the trade (although he may have been more upset about the loss of Christensen), and I tried to explain that being a hockey fan can be traumatic and heartbreaking sometimes…hollow words. I was ready to cry, too.

:Cabbage as a food has problems." *

Primo attended a birthday party yesterday at a glow-in-the-dark mini-golf course. (I KNOW. MY birthday parties were all held at my distinctly NOT glow-in-the-dark backyard…)

The place was positively migraine-inducing, so I dropped off Primo, made sure the birthday girl and her parents knew he was there, and ventured out to the soulless mall. I did some desultory birthday shopping for Seg (6 weeks away), and bought floor mats for the new minivan, and after walking what felt like three miles from one end of the mall to the other (why are the two stores you need to go to at opposite ends of the mall, ALWAYS?), settled down on a bench to read and drink some coffee. I was finishing up Chris Bojhalian’s Double Bind; it ended better than it had begun, and the ending was well worth slogging through the slower middle – in fact, as I read what I have just written, I realize that the book was actually sort of slow throughout, and awkwardly written in places, but ultimately a good read.

I can say no more.

What was a good, fast – almost breathless – read was Amanda Eyre Ward’s How To Be Lost. I am sad that she has only one more book for me to read, Forgive Me, but I am requesting it from the library this morning.

John Elder Robison’s Look Me in the Eye just never grabbed me – I made it through a couple chapters before he just annoyed the shit out of me. I found the parts where he talked about his Asperger’s and how it affected his interactions very interesting, but I also felt that he blamed some major asshole-like behavior on his Asperger’s. In a “Ha ha, aren’t I clever?” sort of way that smacked of arrogance – and falsehood (heck, he is Augusten Burroughs’ brother…) - to me.

In other not nearly so exciting (to YOU) news – I am pissed off as hell that first my grocery store and now the drugstore has stopped carrying the world’s best soap – SoftSoap’s Milk & Honey body wash. I am assuming it’s still made; I just can’t seem to get my dry little hands on the stuff. Badger, it’s all your fault – just like a smack habit, you got me hooked on the stuff in the first place. Enabler!

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* Jane Grigson

"That would be so God."*

I was raised Baptist, of the “Footloose” sort, in the little-known South Jersey Bible Belt of fundamentalism. I survived a childhood fraught with the emotion of altar calls, and worries that the Rapture would take my parents and leave me behind. But I went to a secular college and left my strict upbringing as far behind me as I could.

I attribute years of therapy to my relative mental health regarding religion. Shalom Auslander mentions his therapist early in Foreskin’s Lament, but it’s possible that he needs even more therapy…he is a funny, sarcastic, insightful, and EXTREMELY bitter writer.

I almost didn’t start the book last night – I have three others I am halfway through – but it’s a seven-day library book and I really REALLY wanted to read it (because Jessa loves Auslander, so I want to, too). Once I started it, I had a very tough time putting it down. If it’s possible for my kindred spirit to be a lapsed Orthodox Jewish author, then Auslander is mine. He GETS how fucked up religion in its extreme form can be, and what havoc it can wreak on impressionable young minds, and like me, he also questions why any sane, caring adult would subject their child to the mindfuck that is fundamentalism in any form.

He and his wife refer to his childhood religious experiences as “theological abuse.” I know EXACTLY what he means. I want to email him and say, “Yes! Yes, I get it, and you are so right, and oh my fucking God, ME TOO!”

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*Shalom Auslander, Foreskin's Lament

"We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.”*

We have an electric cooktop at this house; I am used to cooking with gas. But it really doesn't matter - I am notoriously horrible at cooking rice: I scorch it, boil it, leave it crunchy...

I just had a rice disaster. My house still reeks of scorched rice, and the only good thing that came out of the whole experience is that I know my smoke detector needs new batteries.

Do I need a rice cooker, or no? Discuss.

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*Condeleezza Rice

“It is very, very easy not to be offended by a book. You just have to shut it.”*

Tuesday random:


I don't want to forget what they look like at this age - since this is my LAST baby.

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The lovely and erudite (and pregnant - not that that's here or there...) Doppelganger is plugging the Dewey Donation System. Help a library in need get books. Go on, you know you want to. I had a good time picking out board books for the preschoolers that I know *my* guys liked. I Love You, Stinky Face, given to us by my friend D, is a particularly huge hit.

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I like lasagna. But I would be happy not to see another piece of it for a few weeks. Don't mean to sound ungrateful as a lot of friends have been bringing us meals - and some have brought yummy lasagna - but three lasagnas (lasagni?) in the space of a week is plenty. I froze a lot of it, and will be very thankful for it later. Meantime, I am plowing through my friend L's delicious dessert of strawberries, blueberries, and raspberries in some sort of whipped cream/sour cream sauce-y stuff. YUM.

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Gina just asked me to go hear Salman Rushdie speak next week. I am so very psyched. Satanic Verses is one of my favorite books ever, and I loved Midnight's Children as well. Gina said I should come prepared with a question written down to ask him; would it be incredibly rude to ask when in the hell he is going to write another decent book? Because the last couple? Dreck. Redundant and derivative. Or actually, self-derivative, which being Salman Rushdie, could be worse, but still...

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*Salman Rushdie