hilarious.

i like her style, even though her mother insists on dressing her in wal-mart clothing.

what does patti like to wear, you ask?

j. crew.

anna baby, when you want to be emancipated at 18, come to me and i'll give you some good dish on your mom.

Nobody knows you...

I'm sick, I need to stop listening to this band. So you start listening to them. Canadians unite. http://www.newmusiccanada.com/genres/artist.cfm?Band_Id=11211

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ANNA!

Two months, and you finally look like your mom...I know you're going to be beautiful but try not to talk at any great length about the perfection of your nose; it tends to foster resentment (loving) in others. . .

Ephemeralization vs. CNN morning news

I woke up this morning and felt like watching the news instead of the Weather Channel, so I turned on CNN. Guess what? Jon Stewart isn't a comic genius, he's just an astute observer of the car crash that is the American media. I know, why beat a rotting, liquefied, already-reincarnated horse to death? Because it's fun. Here's what I learned this morning.

Ben Bernanke:

1. scored 1590 on his SATs (so did Bill Gates, but Paul Allen scored 1600)
2. skipped classes at M.I.T. in 1975 to watch the world series (CNN commentator: "I guess that makes him a Red Sox fan; a man can't be perfect)
3. used to work at South of the Border
4. did well in English classes
5. won the South Carolina state spelling bee, missed the word 'edelweiss' (dumb fuck, I wouldn't have missed that one)

Nothing about his background, his politics, his economic world view. Then, in a very natural segue, the idiot anchorpeople started talking about VH1. It might have been a slow news morning, but if Bruce Springsteen is releasing a remastered Born to Run boxset today so how slow could it have been? They could have just played that song for 30 minutes with stills of Bruce punching the air and it would have had more social relevance than CNN news stories. Sickening.

At least Bernanke is smart. Academic credentials never impress me (some of the biggest assholes I've ever met have been Harvard, Cambridge and Oxford grads) but MIT grads do. I just imagine superconductors and compression machines and giant magnets and lasers...hoorah! I'm sure that in another life, when I was born with an real attention span and an abstract-problem-solving capability, I was a mediocre computer programmer who ended up marrying someone who was an MIT professor and we had a long unhappy marriage filled with inadequacy, emasculation, eyeglass prescriptions for our children and mathematical sex. Hence my geek fetish.

Interesting fact. Wikipedia has a list of polymaths through time (don't anyone steal that book title, something like Pigs in Space... Polymaths through Time...) Nat Hentoff and Nick Cave made it on the list!!! So did Condoleezza Rice (she plays the piano and brokers fake peace treaties in the Middle East--genius.) and Danica McKellar (that chick from the wonder years that every guy my age inexplicably adored. She had a huge moon face. ) , who apparently is a mathematician.

But my genius pinup is Richard Buckminster Fuller. My favourite molecule (actually, most people's favorite molecule C60), Buckminsterfullerene, is named after his geodesic dome design. But he should have more things named after him, he was a true genius, philosopher and crazy as shit. He was also expelled from Harvard for dancing and lack of motivation. Any enemy of Harvard is a friend of mine...

Another reason to hate the wedding. I lost my lipgloss there. I know that sounds really Heathers, but come on. I really loved that lipgloss. I bite my lips a lot and thus ingest a lot of lip gloss, balm and lipstick, and for my money, this stuff was the best going down.

I know that you all are dying to hear about my cousin wedding. First, I tried on one of my mom's saris. To her credit she did pick a beautiful black one out for me; she is my mother after all. Well, the blouse was too big (big hooters mom) and since a sari really depends upon the fittedness of the blouse (the rest having a drapey curtain-like effect), I looked pretty silly. So I ended up wearing my Michael Kors shirt and a tiered skirt and 3-inch heels, same old coconut girl. Brown on the outside, white...I hate that, I shouldn't perpetuate that racist shit. Total of three 'so, when are you getting married?' inquisitions (not including my own parents). By the end of the night I decided to have fun with it . One 'auntie' said, "I'll get you married" and tried to drag me out to the dancefloor for the dance part of my wife audition, I assume. Actually, I had already had a few watered-down drinks by that point (not enough, not nearly enough. I don't blame them for watering down the drinks, I saw that pitiful tip jar) and of course, alcohol+yasmin's blood+any music other than house music=painful urge to dance, so I ended up dancing for about 45 seconds to...Runaround Sue. Sigh. Another 'uncle' asked me when I was going to get married and I told him I was already married and walked away. He was a pervert, he deserved it. The worst/best moment was this horrible drunk Indian woman (Ever been to a wedding with a deserted open bar? To avoid the shame of actually getting a drink from the bar and having every woman in the room counting your drinks, some of the men went for the flask of Chivas in their jacket pocket option. Smart. But Indian women aren't supposed to drink at all, she was an anomaly...) accosting Liz' (bride) mom in the bathroom...here's how it went:


Dramatis Personae
Setting: Sheraton hotel bathroom
Drunk auntie (millionaire, so can act however she wants, D.A.M)
Bride''s mother, (blond-bobbed unwitting victim (B.B.U.V), she was actually wearing a powder-blue suit, poor dear)
Two women in the background, dressed in black, laughing hysterically, playing the role of the Chorus, manically washing cigarrette stink off their hands)

DAM: So, you finally got your daughter married. But she's the oldest, isn't she?
Chorus: (whispering) Oh no she didn't...
BBUV: Yes, she has two younger sisters. They're very happy for Liz. (trying to leave, DAM is holding on to her sleeve to continue the conversation)
DAM: Now you just have to get them married too. I have been married for 35 years with two grown children who are both doctors and they're both happily married with children. At least Liz finally got married. You better get Liz and Angus to give you a grandchild soon.
Chorus: (whispering) Her carrot-red dye job and sweet disposition must be the reason for the longevity of her marriage, she's absolutely irresistible...
BBUV: Well, they did just get married, we should give them some time.
DAM: Of course, of course. But they shouldn't wait too long.

Exeunt BBUV (running) and DAM (stumbling)

Chorus: (addressing the audience) Even though this was funny, it was also tragic. A good person/Chorus would have stepped in and tried to change the subject or lighten the mood. But knowing the nature of Indian mother on the prowl for an audience for a recitation of her children's accomplishments, whose joy is only ever fully realized when she can simultaneously inflate her own ego (has married doctor children) and deflate yours (unmarried, aging smoky girl with bare legs and no sari), the Chorus chose not to engage the predator for fear of bringing the full force of her velociraptor gaze upon themselves. It's every woman for herself in the land of the emasculated man and the determined mother. And you wonder why Indians almost had the world's first female prime minister (damn you, Siramavo Bandaranaike) ?


Scene

P.S.

Anna is so freaking cute. I asked for a baby bath picture of her, because those are the the cutest and babies look like little tadpoles or little worms. Judge for yourself. I love obese babies the best, with the rolls on their arms and on their knees, and Anna is fairly skinny (damn you, Patti), but there are a few budding rolls on her arms. Good girl, keep up the relentless breast-feeding, Patti can take it.

I'm going home to Toronto for a few days for my cousin's wedding. Should be okay. I don't think I'll wear a sari because I'm pmsing and feel like the Michelin man, but I do have something nice to wear. Too bad, mom, all black is very chic. I miss my friends back home so it will be nice to see them, and I hear my sister has a paper she needs help writing.