If I wasn't around the previous evening, I can always tell what kind of nuts Jack was serving during McNeil/Lehrer Happy Hour because I find them whole and undigested in Jackson's diaper the next afternoon. YES, IT MUST BE A SLOW WEEK IF I'M WRITING ABOUT THE SILENT, PAINLESS JOURNEY OF SEVERAL ROASTED PEANUTS THROUGH MY SON'S DIGESTIVE TRACT. So very extra slow, in fact, that I might as well just post another fossil from my parents' basement and go clean something.

I am not obsessed with my memories, but every once in awhile they give me a good haunting. This is a picture of me and Robert at the Columbine High School Homecoming Dance 1979. We met at a speech meet* the winter I turned fourteen (he was fifteen). I gave him my phone number and he called that very night. I think we spent three hours twisting up phone cords and talking about how boring we were, which was, of course, fascinating. Here you see Robert wearing a fashionable Rooster knit tie and Calvin Klein camouflage shirt/jacket combo. I have on a teal velvet skirt and a polyester teal-and-flowers blouse, both made by my mother. (Astonishing, yes, that she actually finished them in time for the dance.) Robert here is thinking, "This is so fucking stupid I can't believe it." I am thinking, "Tilt chin down," because it is two months after having my photo taken by a professional photographer who kept yanking my chin toward my undeveloped chest in order to hide my babyfat under my cheekbones. I still have both copies of this picture because Robert didn't want his. I tried to be cool about it, but come on. This was the guy who for my sixteenth birthday gave me a copy of Never Mind the Bullocks, Here's the Sex Pistols, and two stuffed monkeys hugging each other.

*Ah, the National Forensics League. Robert was in extemp, where the judges gave you a random topic -- oil prices, guinea pigs -- and you had five minutes to come up with a two-minute speech about it. It helps if you're a fantastic bullshitter. I was in the humor division, where you memorized a ten-minute "cutting" -- I used mainly Woody Allen or Dorothy Parker short stories -- and then performed it in three different rounds in front of a judge and five to ten of your competitors who would try to psych you out by not laughing at the jokes.

Robert and I dated, on and off, for about seven years, but it was by no means an exclusive relationship, and we never went all the way. At one point I remember he picked me up for a date in an unfamiliar car that had a pair of pom poms in the back seat. "Oh, I gave a cheerleader a ride home," he said. I later found out that it was the cheerleader's car, and that he was dating her, and that he had the balls to borrow her car to take me out and lie to both of us about it. He also told her that he got me pregnant and I had to have an abortion; he told me pretty much the same story, too, but about a fictional girl at his school. I got it all straightened out when my school played his school in lacrosse and I was on the field defending yet another girl he'd gone out with. It was a slow game so we had a lot of time to talk.

Anyway, I eventually met the cheerleader at a Clash concert and we really hit it off. Robert sat scowling about three rows down from us while we laughed and laughed about all the shit he'd told us. By this time he'd become a blackout drinker, and our dates inevitably ended up in one of several Denver dives -- The Cricket and The Mercury Lounge are two that I remember-- and he was living in the basement of a friend's house. The last time I saw him I was dropping him off at Vassar. He was starting his freshman year as I was beginning my senior year at Connecticut College (he'd had a disastrous year in Boulder before dropping out to lay sod and grow up some), and we'd shared the drive from Denver to New York in my Volkswagen. I got a few fucked up, drunken phone calls in my dorm that year, and then nothing until he tracked me down in Brooklyn a few years later. We yakked for a good twenty minutes as though we'd seen each other only yesterday, and then he asked me to meet him and his friends at the Plaza, but it was already late and a weeknight, and knowing I wouldn't even make it uptown until midnight, and knowing what a disastrous state I'd be in for work the next morning, I said no. I think he went to Seattle after that. Who knows.


On the left is me and Jay, later the same year. My mom made this dress, too. Jay looks like George Hamilton's bastard son in this photo, but I must say I appreciated the effort of getting a tuxedo and all. He took me to dinner at a restaurant owned by his three older brothers. He brought a little flask of brandy and a blanket for after the prom. I was too shy to dance with him, or anything else with him, and I think the evening ended on a politely early note. I wrote a short story about it in college. I ran into Jay about ten years later as I was walking down Broadway carrying sacks of lunch for my Shakespeare & Co. coworkers. I was in a dykey boots-and-crewcut period, and Jay looked like Stephen Seagal on safari, like a Tom of Finland wet dream, and appeared to be "with" a gorgeous blonde woman who gave me kind of a twisty "who the hell are you?" look. We were genuinely shocked to see each other, I think, and he said to call him, he was living in the village, he was in the book. I did try to call him later but got a machine, and didn't leave a message because I didn't really have anything to say besides, "I see you've kept up your tan!"

I don't want to bore you by listing all the stuff we found in my parents' basement (and my old room, which was being used just to hold the overflow), but holy cow, there was some stuff in there. Matchbox cars, slot cars with twenty Earth miles of plastic slotted track, old license plates, car parts, for all I know there's a whole car in there somewhere, we're still not done and now I'm back in California until it's my shift again.

But I just have to say:

19. My uncle Harry's brown leather jacket from the 1970s. Makes everyone who wears it look like Beck. My uncle Harry has Alzheimer's, but he's just at the beginning of sort of losing his way around town, so it's not ugly yet. I talked to him on the phone the other day and he sounds exactly the same as always, with his eye-rollingly bad Henny Youngmanesque jokes. If you saw him you would say, how was it possible that Johnny Carson and Jack Lemmon were able to mate? A picture doesn't do him justice, you have to feel that crazy martinis-and-bowling-shirts vibe he emanates.

27. My uncle Harry's bowling shirts. 100% Polyester, size medium, in colors that would remind you of rusty Camaros with no hubcaps.

51. Tons of fancy art supplies. My dad spent his entire postwar career (that would be World War II) in sales, much of it repping for manufacturers of art stuff. We found boxes of tempra paint, leaky tubes of oil paint in exotic-wood cases, ink-pen nibs for left-handed calligraphers, huge blank sketch pads, and a selection of sample pull-down world maps that he tried to woo the Chicago Public School System into buying. I think he was pretty successful, too, without being too Glengarry Glenross about it. If my father were a David Mamet character, he would be played by Fred Gwynne.

97. My father's sales contest winnings. What's a sales division with a midwestern mindset without sales incentives? We found twelve boxes of glassware that my father had won -- glasses for old fashioneds, manhattans, margaritas, highballs, beer, and wine. Twelve boxes! My father doesn't drink. After gathering dust for twenty or thirty years, those boxes are now sitting in a Goodwill store in Littleton, Colorado, and if you're thinking of opening a bar get on over to Coal Mine Plaza quick and all you'll need after that are some barstools and a dusty jar of pickled onions.

103. Sheherazade's Secret Fabric Boutique. My mother has a sickness, it's called the "I'm going to buy thousands of dollars worth of fancy imported fabrics, thread, buttons, and zippers, and then leave it in the bag with the receipt for thirty years so my children will find it and look at each other and say, Thank God she never finished making that hot pink corduroy pantsuit" disease. I also found at least twenty boxes of yarn, often containing several sweaters knitted up a couple of inches and then abandoned with the needles still in place. I shipped three boxes of fine Italian, Irish, and Welsh wool to myself so that I can start my own spider-infested collection of commitment failures. Maybe it has something to do with her growing up during the Depression. All I know is that my mom now spends most of her day in her recliner reading murder mysteries and driving my oldest brother mad by knocking over her walker, sitting on the TV remote, and then asking him to get her a Fresca. It must be nice to be old enough to become a pain in the ass to the child who gave you the most trouble growing up. Payback is a bitch.

Then there were the boxes and boxes of classic family pictures, dried-up Bic pens, receipts from department stores that closed ten years ago, Bicentennial drinking glasses, outgrown ski clothes, yearbooks, and embarrassing prom pictures. Maybe next time I'll show you those, right now I have to make the most of my finite amount of naptime/alonetime and take out the garbage.

And if you haven't done it already, vote for Matthew and Anil.
UPDATE: SCANDAL!

Life-size Posters from the Basement that Time Forgot

My weekend in five easy-to-digest nuggets
1. I learned how to draw thirty-five units of insulin into a syringe, but so far no one's offered to let me stick it into my dad.
2. Some seven-year-old girls have the big swinging balls to teli you how it was, how it is, and how it's going to be forever and ever so just shut up.
3. Jackson, especially when naked and feeling sassy, is a potent mood elevator for all present.
4. Don't get upset and hang up on your husband and then turn off your cell phone so he can't call back, because you will wake up feeling all crusty on the inside.
5. Atari Super Pong pristine in the box!

Lunch
Sometimes what you need is to do is eat some Cheetos and raisins underneath the dining room table.

Tomorrow I'm taking the Nut back to Denver for several days to check in on my post-bypass father. He sounds great on the phone, but apparently the house is a tangle of oxygen tubing and expensive monitors, and the wind is whispering long-term care faciity. So tomorrow will also mark the beginning of my posting-by-e-mail experiment. My father has a Mailstation that is solely for text e-mail. I have tried to sell him on the advantages of having a real ISP, but he is afraid of worms and he doesn't like the sound of cookies, either. So we will adapt to the available technology.

Jackson's latest words
"Wawa" (water)
"Momo" (motorcycle)
"Chichu" (Cheetos)
"Choochoo" (train)
"Bubble" (bubble)
"Quack quack quack" (duck)
"Cock!" (Triscuit)
"Mao" (new stuffed kitty toy)

My latest words
"What do you mean, my parents aren't going to live forever? What if I need another car loan?"

Jack's latest words
(After work) "God, I'm tired."
(After a few beers) "Howya doin' down there? When ya gonna gimme summa that?"
(After six years of marriage) "God, I love you, you fucking pain in my ass."

Celebrity Sightings from Antiquity
The first in a series
Who: JOHN MALKOVICH
Where: The bag check counter at Shakespeare & Co. on lower Broadway in NYC.
When: After Dangerous Liaisons but before Sheltering Sky.
What'd he do? Surrendered a flaccid suede backpack to me. I gave him a claim check.
What was the vibe? Angst-ridden. I think he was trying to be Unnoticeable Guy, and the fact that I recognized him and was freaking out six different ways on the inside was clearly visible through my frozen, bunny-in-the-headlights expression.
Coworkers' reaction: Only the theater students were impressed.

Who: MICHELLE PFEIFFER
Where: Same place.
When: After Baker Boys but before Batman.
What'd she do? Asked for a copy of Silence of the Lambs during that hopeless period where the hardcover is out of stock and the paperback isn't in print yet, which meant I had to tell her that God himself couldn't get a copy. She asked me to call around anyway. I handed her off to Andy, who clearly was dying to get involved in a lost cause with her.
What was the vibe? Casual. She showed me where she'd lost a snap on her leather jacket, then said she was on her way to the airport.
Coworkers' reaction: Later, in the stock room, Andy asked everyone if her lipstick color didn't remind us of a used tampon.

Who: MEL GIBSON
Where: The lobby below the marketing offices at Paramount.
When: After Jack and I had made our ill-fated move to L.A. but before he asked me to marry him.
What'd he do? He did a double take and then stared as I was going into the elevator.
What was the vibe? Naah, he's too short old Catholic Australian married.
Coworkers' reaction: I got trumped by a sighting of two producers in a limo picking up a prostitute outside of Todd AO and then bringing her back to the exact same spot three minutes later.

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When casting about wildly for Christmas presents, Jack was inspired by his sister's opinion that every girl should be given a bunny on her thirteenth birthday. While searching the Web for a good link for you (because I know you'll want one!), I found more information about vibrating quadrupeds than I'll need in a lifetime, and of course the shopping is too good to be true. I really like the looks of this Hello Kitty vibrator (it's on sale!); Vibo the Clown, though technically a biped, has a certain let's-display-it-on-the-bookshelf appeal (although those little Xs over his eyes can mean nothing but sheer exhaustion); and who wouldn't want a Divine Intervention Jackhammer Jesus Dildo? I aks ya. However, this Dr. Ruth–endorsed Eroscillator looks a little too much like one of those handmade gynecological tools from that David Cronenberg movie. And I'd like to take this opportunity to say, Ahem, Internet Movie Database? If I like that title then you also recommend Basketball Diaries?

It's my birthday today and I'm thirty-nine and everybody can kiss my ass because I rule.

You can tell I went to kindergarten in the Laugh In era because until very recently I thought this song went like so:

I'm a little teapot, short and stout
Here is my handle, here is my spout
When I get all steamed up I will shout
SOCK IT TO ME BABY, LET IT ALL HANG OUT

Not only has Jackson figured out how to switch on Jack's bass amp, he also knows how to plug in a bass, turn up the volume, and pull a string out and let it snap back, often making me jump out of my skin. I think we're only days away from an audition for Van Halen's Smell My Diaper (You Know You Wanna Do It) Tour '03.

Our bedside alarm clock busted, so I bought another one at the drug store. It's a Timex Nature Sounds alarm clock with alarm settings named BIRDS, OCEAN, and BROOK. I chose BROOK and set the alarm last night. This morning at 6:15 Jack rolled over and said, "Are you pissing in a garbage can?"

A conversation we've been having rather a lot of lately

Jackson: "Dada!"
Me: "Where's Daddy?"
Jackson: "Truck!"
Me: "That's right, he's out driving in his truck. He's talking on his phone."
Jackson: "Hello!"
Me: "Then what does he say?"
Jackson: "No!"
Me: "Then what?"
Jackson: "Byee!"

The whole updated-retro car thing works for me. I approve of the new Bugs, that little bud vase is just adorable.* That aside, now that we've finally buried the whole cigars-and-martinis thing, I look forward to seeing what Detroit will remind us of next. Fins? Push-button starters? PT Cruiser: yes, though I wouldn't want to own one; the new T-bird's not bad; and I dig the S-type Jag . . .
*My first car was a '73 Volkswagen Bug, I made it back and forth across the country six times in that tin can without getting killed. The heat worked really well, and after awhile you get kind of nostalgiac about The Smell.


BUT WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS?? Oh, sure, they call it a GTO. Speaking as the wife of a man who gave his eighteen-month-old son a scale model of a wicked sexy black '67 "Goat" for Christmas (Jackson pulled off the wheels and the doors, and then he threw it into the bathtub) (which means he has about as much respect for GTOs as the rash of reëducated Yugo designers they hired to relaunch the line), the 2004 GTO looks like a Pacer crossed with a Gremlin, and that's an insult to Pacers and Gremlins everywhere. I mean, whatever you want to say about Vin Diesel, he knows enough not to flex his ass inside a piece of crap like that.

To recap:

I would rather drive THIS


or THIS


than yet another characterless, committee-designed horror from the people who brought you THIS.
(click that right NOW)

Ten Reasons Why I'm Not Going To The Fancy Ralph's On Carrillo Blvd. Any More

10. Insane Cashiers They are either insane, clinically depressed, insanely clinically rude and stupid, weirdly grumbly, or clinically depressed and medicated into a state of zombielike pseudoefficiency. Also, I think the assistant manager is one step away from suicide.

9. Paper or Plastic? Whatever your response, you'll get the opposite.

8. Bad Bagging Aesthetic And then the bagging guy will put the six-pack, the canned peaches, the gallon of milk, and the prize-winning pumpkin in the same bag, while the other bag gets a roll of paper towels and a baby-size toothbrush. This happens so consistently that last time I actually got down on the floor in front of the bagging guy and repacked everything into two bags of equal weight.

7. Did I Say Stupid Yet? One cashier wouldn't take my hard-earned, bought-$200-worth-of-alcohol, in-store wine coupon because I was trying to buy champagne with a wine coupon. Notwithstanding the fact that I've done it a dozen times before. "They're the same thing!" I shouted. "Grapes! Wine! They're the Same! Fucking! Thing!" I continued in my head. Which would have been better, shouting-wise. Always the editor.

6. They Never Have Basil or Italian Parsley And I either have to drag Jackson through another store to get them, or go home empty-handed and get beaten. Again.

5. Or My Favorite Kind of Salad-in-a-Bag And the tomatoes always suck. But they have acres of eentsy weentsy micro-vegetables that no one north of West Hollywood eats, so the display stays dewy fresh and attractively untouched.

4. No Water Machines To live here is to buy drinking water. I actually once heard a member of the water board describe how to make our tap water "drinkable" by putting it into a jug, leaving it out on the counter for twenty-four hours "to dispel the chlorine taste," and then putting it in the refridgerator (presumably to give it a nice your-box-of-baking-soda-has-expired, hot-doggy flavor). So if your grocery store doesn't have a water machine, that's either another extra trip or another beating. You see what I'm saying.

3. Are You Done Yet? But I haven't mentioned the below-store parking garage and the elevators that you can roll your cart right into! The elevators with two buttons to choose from: "P" and "G." P for Parking? G for Garage? Oh, no! We're trapped for all eternity in Ralph's Elevator of Hell! Oh, wait, maybe G is for ground? Would that be above-ground Ground or below-ground Ground? Either way, you're going to push the wrong button. Trust me.

2. Let's Face It, It's a Parking Nightmare I once saw two cars angling for the same spot. The BMW guy almost got the spot, but then this nasty Suburban-driving bear-rassling bully leaned out his window and said, repeatedly, with different scary I-live-in-a-shack-and-mail-bombs-to-the-university inflections, "Do you wanna die young? Do you. Want. To die young?" Over and over and over and over and over and over again. He got the spot. I think at that point the BMW guy left not just the parking lot but probably the state.

1. They Have Those Teeny Shopping Carts for Kids Which is the one reason I go there. Jackson loves to careen all over the store and fill his cart with things we don't need, like unripened avocados and horrible new kinds of crackers. But he's really learning to steer the thing, and he gets all excited about it, so what can you do? Go home, take your beating, eat your teeny weeny vegetables, and pray.

The Fussy 2002 Year-end Fashion Review