Oh, man, what I would GIVE to have The Good Wife banned.  After it’s published, I mean.  Because now, a few miles from here (30), a high school mother has stolen The Book of Bunny Suicides from her daughter’s school and she won’t give it back.  She wants it banned.  And you know you’re buying a copy now, and I am, too, and Andy Riley’s checking his Amazon Sales Rank.  Luck-y!

I’ll pay you $13 when The Good Wife comes out, to steal it from your library and demand to have it banned.  There’s a lot of sordid material in it, it’s offensive to everyone.     

Breaking News
Buy the book!

Steven Pinker’s got a new article out in The Atlantic, and I wrote about it.  It’s about cursing, and long-time readers know I love to write about that. 

Me — “A word is a word,” Open Salon
Stephen – ”Freedom’s Curse,” The Atlantic

M. is redoing his basement, which makes me want to get a basement.  Maybe for Christmas.  Last year I got socks, I think I’m due for a basement. 

I have been having a giant urge this past week to either:  A) move to Thailand for six months (or maybe Croatia).  B) move to Bend.  C) spend next week in New York. 

I can make a case for each one, but I won’t.  I’m making coffee instead.

Generally, I want out.  I feel trapped.  Maybe that’s why I went and got that new blog, which has trapped some of you into getting blogs you didn’t want, and I’m sorry about that.  For as progressive as they act, Salon is not about choice when it comes to blogs.  M. is unexpectedly faced with an unwanted blog and there doesn’t appear to be a way to delete it.  It’s a private and personal decision for M. and not only does Salon not respect his right to choose, they’re forcing him to be public.  Or something.  All I know is that he doesn’t want the damn blog, Salon, let him go!

I’m sorry, M., I am.  RSG got one, too, but she’s friending people, she’s in a different place.

All that and I still want to go somewhere.  Right now.  Maybe pad thai for lunch will do the trick, though I’d rather have soup.

I’m reading Crane Flies and Other … out loud again, today, so don’t sneak up on me.  If you’d like to read, I’ll assign chapters.  I’m tired, a little, so if you could take over now, at chapter four, that’d be great.

Did anyone make cassoulet?  Will someone please make Roated Parsnip Soup?  Maybe Joe Biden can so he won’t have time to chat.  (Dammit, Joe!)  By the way, I’m voting today.  Come have soup and watch me vote!

I’m cheating on you, I started a blog somewhere else.  It’s on a trial basis, it may not last.  I’m still not sure what I think.  (It’s here.)

Paula came over yesterday, and today it rained.  Steve and Dana were over before that, on Saturday.  That’s when I made the cassoulet, did we talk about that?  I made a shortcut one, you can make it, too; here.  I say shortcut because when Jean-Jacques makes his, it takes three days and this one didn’t.  Also this one lets you use canned stock, JJ would frown.  Oh, and also also, I didn’t have duck.  I could have had duck; Deborah called Saturday, she had duck.  I just wasn’t organized and by the time I asked her, I’d already stuck in chicken.  It all turned out okay, though.  No one got sick. 

I saw a suicide spider last night.  These are big ratty spiders who creep out at night, in the fall, and jump in the pool.  They do it for about a month.  And when you look in the pool, they look like kittens at the bottom.  They’re big and furry and when they’re dead they curl all up.  Anyway, last night when I walked outside one was racing from a bush straight to the water.  I’ll set up a webcam and you can all stay up and watch.

Melissa Lion is running on rocket power. 

Um.  That’s all.

Last night I smelled something in my dream.  I woke up and googled “dreams smell Freud” to find out out what it meant, but there was just a guy who snorted stuff and dreamt of Cairo.   

There were acutally lots of smells in my dream but one stood out:  mojos.  Mojos from Izzy’s.  Mojos are greasy deep-fried potatoes you dip in Ranch dressing.  I smelled mojos in my dream.  And now I’m all Proust-y this morning, thinking of college and Comparative Western Lit, and beer, because at one time all those things went together.  (It was Corvallis.  Okay?) 

But Izzy’s wasn’t in my dream.  I was at a diner with a guy I didn’t know and we ordered mojos at the counter.  Everyone was ordering mojos.  The point is, I smelled them and it’s the first time I’ve had a dream with a smell, I think it’s important.    There’s an Izzy’s a mile from here but they don’t open until noon. 

Yesterday I ate spinach salad with two other writers — well, they both ate hamburgers, but that’s irrelevant.  I ate spinach salad and there was salmon in it, too, and it was good.  And we talked about writing and how more people should give us money and how more characters should be called Jane.  There was a fire, and we sat by it, but there was no tomato soup. 

Today will be something else altogether.

A. is full of Mario Puzo quotes today.  (See #4.) 

[Back Fence PDX]

Oh, dear.   Well, we had a meeting last night and now I’m tired.  Annette talked when she wasn’t supposed to and M-III missed his game.  We kicked a balloon around the room and Very Tall M. saved a dog and S. grabbed a bottle with her toe.  I’m sure other things happened, but like I said, Annette was talking. 

Madonna is leaving Guy.  Nothing is sacred. 

I have six more days, according to what I said yesterday, to wrap up my book.  Laura Claridge wrote a book about Emily Post that has nothing to do with mine, but it looks fun.  Maybe H. and I will Kindle it.  To “kindle” something means to have a really slick little book gadget that your mother-in-law gave you that other people don’t have.  That’s what it means when one says they’re going to “kindle.”

Yesterday was Mr. and Mrs. Bozarth’s anniversary: 41 years.  Today is Italo Calvino’s birthday.  I don’t know how many years, though, he’s dead.  I stop counting when they die.  But he did write great books and If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler is one of them if you’re looking for something to read.  Oh, and it’s Mario Puzo’s birthday, too.  He’s also dead but he wrote a book they made a movie out of.  Something about guns and cannoli.  And if that’s not enough for you, then Nietzsche.  Nietzsche was born today too, a long time ago in a place far away.  He was cuckoo the last 10 years of his life, you know. 

I’m planning on broccoli-cheese soup for lunch, call if you have something better. 

[Birthday news from Writer's Almanac.]

I am a week away, assuming I get seven straight days of work — so let’s say I’m seven-straight-days-of-work away — from sending Crane Flies and Other Domestic Terrors to New York.  To one of the Avenues, I guess, maybe 5th.  I’ll fly there with a stack of them and drop them off.  M. will see they get to nice homes. 

I also have a new favorite fly!  No, my title won’t change, but I’ve been cruising bug blogs, and now I’m smitten with the bot.  Yes, the bot fly, do you know it?   Later I’ll link to a video.  It’s gruesome and I’ve been sitting on it for days wondering whether you’re up for it, but I think you are.  It’s just a little larva burrowed down in some skin, we’ve all seen that at one time or another.

I like Eric Alterman’s playlist, did I tell you that?  There are some interesting covers of good songs.   

I’ll show you the video later, my coffee cup’s empty and I’ve suddenly got to run. 

I hope A. has a great day, loaded with small unexpected delights. 

Chiquita is sweet.  She was starting to barf on the chair and then quickly jumped to the floor. 

I want to move, I feel like moving.  Not forever, maybe six months, I want to go somewhere for six months.  A. and I aren’t good at staying put, I’m getting antsy.  Ugh, I can’t believe I just said “antsy” when stinky little ants are amok in my kitchen and freaking me out, right now!  Thanks, me.  Way to help me not think about it.  There are, though; there’s three million of them.  And I torch them and spray and A. lined the whole kitchen with traps and so far they are just laughing their crunchy little heads off.  They have no manners, ants.  Their mothers raised them poorly. 

Ugh, flies, too.  I’ll get back to the move, but flies are really proliferate, I’m unnerved.  Not just crane flies, there are a lot of damn houseflies, and fruit flies, and other creepy things with wings, it’s like an exhibit.  I’m hosting the Creepy Things With Wings exhibit this month, come and see it, it’s $2.

Tomorrow some people are coming over and I won’t charge them for the exhibit, but I encourage them, if they read this, to wear long sleeves and maybe masks. 

Okay, so moving, I want to move.  I’m mired in routine, I want out.  Let’s get silly jobs, A., we’ll work in a market somewhere, we’ll be street vendors, we can sell crunchy bugs!  France or Italy would be fine, I can remember enough language, I think, to get us by.  Or Croatia, why not Croatia?  We’ll listen to Berlitz tapes on the plane, we’ll be swell. 

The point is we’re not getting younger and our adventures are thinning out.  And I want one, an adventure.  I want to jump off a cliff.  I don’t want to chase ants and clean kitchens and put dinner in the crockpot, I want to do something else.  We could find stuff to do, we’re smaht.  Jr. could sing on the corner with a change jar.  Gianna could jump rope.  You could juggle, and I could make up silly poems, we could be a troupe!  I already know three silly poems, we should rehearse right away, tonight!  A troupe, yes, a troupe, we could move to the midwest.  We’d make it big in the Dakotas, I’ll bet, they can’t have that many troupes.   

Anyway.  Send your life ideas for me here.  I’m going to send M-III a pancreas. 

Oh, and Hey – did you watch Mad Men?  That whole Sandstone-y thing with Don, and Roger weirding out, reminded me of the time Tony dreamt he was a sales guy with no accent who lost his briefcase.  When I buy the complete Mad Men on DVD, I’ll probably skip over the one last night.  Plus I didn’t like Peggy’s haircut.