The Salvador Dali Power Nap

I'm not sure if I dreamed this or read it a long time ago, that Salvador Dali would nap with a bunch of keys in his hand. And when the keys fell to the floor and made a noise, he would wake up and that was his power nap. I don't know why I always think of that whenever I feel like taking a nap in the afternoon. Maybe because I feel guilty for taking such long naps that leave my cotton mouthed and catatonic. I can’t just “nap.” I fall unconscious. And dream that I'm a car thief. But I only steal very small cars, Fiat Unos, Smart Cars and Austin Minis.

Note from the editor: Dali napped in his armchair, holding not keys but a spoon over a metal pan on the floor below. When he hit REM and lost muscle tonus, the spoon would fall from his grip, bang the metal pan and awaken him.

In / Out

Lugging around a Klean Kanteen / Fiji Water et al

Sausages / Sashimi

Optimism / Common Sense

Dropping the F Bomb / Dropping Bon Mots

Conformity / Idiosyncrasy

Passive Aggressiveness / Sarcasm

How Much Do I Tip for a Pap Smear?

First off, for full disclosure, I should say that I hate tipping. I hate that people in his country don't make a living wage and have to rely on tips. It's just fucked up. I do tip at restaurants, the valet, the poor guy at the car wash, the hair stylist. Whatever. But after reading the post of a mom who was wondering how much she should tip her babysitter and then reading the respones (of course you tip. we always tip, we always round up blahblah. aren't we generous fuckwits...) I have to say, I've had it. Next we'll start tipping our dentists. And our OB-GYNs. How much do I tip for a pap smear? 25 percent I assume.

The Yield of Magical Thinking

I think I've been indulging in magical thinking as a coping mechanism. Not the Didion kind of magical thinking but the other kind, where you think angels or fairies are coming to your aid and just by thinking something you can make things happen, like bringing down a Boeing 747. When Milan and I were both very sick last week and I couldn't survive without a steady influx of Xanax, S. was saying that I was "being cleared" for something better. Now that is Abraham Hicks speak and I didn't really buy it. But, in retrospect, I feel lighter somehow (maybe it's the seven pounds lost due to heavy-duty vomiting) in my body, the way I felt after Obama won, like not just me but everyone had a spring in their step. I feel lighter still and I feel also like there's been a major shift of consciousness, like now there's actually the possibility of ever being skinny again. And yes, the spirit guides have been helping. They come in my dreams and they open doors in my heart and sweep them out, and I cry when I hear music, and not just Beethoven's Ninth, but almost any music, like Where is Thumbkin. And now that Milan has a fever of 104.3 and there’s the possibility of pneumonia, I feel, no I trust, that spirit will make it all OK somehow.

Note: magical thinking is nonscientific causal reasoning that often includes such ideas as the ability of the mind to affect the physical world, correlation equaling causation, the law of contagion, the power of symbols, and the meaningfulness of synchronicity.

Can You Spare Some Change?

I have just one word. HOPE. That, and my German family driving me crazy by constantly saying that Barack is going to be assassinated. It's the parlay du jour if you want to sound tuned in. What if it's true, though? More likely, the Mac will suffer a fatal heart attack when he loses.

Fucking MDs (not as in "they are fucking" but "they suck ass")

I'm pretty sure it was bile, I say to the nice youngish female doctor at Urgent Care. It probably wasn't, she says. It was bright green, I say. It probably was something else. Something he's eaten. But he hasn't eaten for three days and the last thing was spaghetti! And then I ask her about homeopathy, because I have these pellets called Nux Vomica, and she says: I know in Europe they work a lot with probiotics, but here they just aren't standardized. (note from the editor: Nux Vomica is Strychnine, as related to probiotics as arsenic and butter). And finally I say, so there's nothing you can prescribe for him? And she says, no, just try to get him to drink an ounce of pedialyte every 15 minutes. And just wondering, why did you refuse the Hep B vaccination? Because he isn't going to have sex anytime soon? I offer. Fuck the American medical system. Fuck Fuck Fuck.

Conventional Old Me

Why is it that epiphanies are always about something really profane? It would have taken Sherlock Holmes mere seconds (Dr. S. and I took our time, 12 months or so) to deduce that my real self is very unconventional whereas my ego is buried under heavily embedded Conventions (capital C). That other miserable me has very suburban notions of what connotes a good person, a good enough mother, a reasonable person, a sane person, a NORMAL person. I'm an unconventional self taken hostage by a daytime soap-watching, J.C. Penney-shopping (IWallmart? Food 4 Less? Fred Segal’s?), mousy hair colored (no highlights in 8 months) conventional schlock. And it's keeping a sistah down, man!