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January 01, 2005
Jeepers creepers
Yesterday a book made me throw up! Well, it might also had something to do with the beer I found myself drinking Thursday night, in an unwise pre-New Year's eve spent with a trio of work cronies. Even still. The book was the much-written about, long-ass waiting list at the library Stiff that caused me to rise from my comfortably prone position on the couch and sprint to the bathroom. The thought "This is quite a surprising turn of events!" rang in my head as it was happening, since never before has the written word had that effect on me, and I have read many books in my time, well over a hundred.
I've always been, um, curious about things. My dad was an emergency doctor long before Noah Wiley made it brooding and fashionable, and when I was little I used to grill him: what was the grossest thing that you saw today? He was kind and/or disturbed enough to usually share a few cases with me, although in retrospect I think he must have toned it down. I mean, as a parent, who wouldn't?
As much as I am committed to my love for things science and scientific, when it comes right down to it I think I prefer theoretical science to reality. Put it this way: were it that you were my high school lab partner, you would be the one dissecting the fetal pig my friend. I'll watch 10,000 documentaries about medical mysteries but when I am actually standing before the glass cases at the Mutter Museum, I can pretty much guarantee that I will get light-headed, panicky and weird. Because there are skulls! Where brains used to be! And the people that had them used to think things and be creative and love people and get crabby etc. etc., just like I do now! What does that mean?! Aaaahhhh, no!!!
But as a card-carrying organ donor, I was curious to see just where I might end up. Truthfully I care not a whit, if someone wants to make Slim Jims out of me and feed them to gorillas, I say sounds good. My review for Stiff would read something like "This book might make you throw up and you'll feel generally creepy even if you don't throw up, plus you'll have violent emotionally disturbing dreams yet you will not be able to put it down and read your other crappy book which you checked out on accident thinking the author was someone else."
Son of Max. Do not visit for the book reviews.
Despite the previous night's beers and the whoops-a-daisy, we did manage to pull off Parentpalooza 2005 whereby infant and toddler beds were set up in various parts of the house, infants and toddlers tucked into them, and parental merriment ensued. The best part was when my neighbor, who is some sort of official pyrotechnical city dude wizard, set off these amazing fireworks in the school parking lot across the street and my drunken husband yelled "I'm going outside to pee and watch the fireworks!" He lurched back into the house about fifteen minutes later having stood around chatting with some of our neighbors and he had forgotten to ZIP UP HIS BUSINESS. Hi, neighbors! We are already somewhat infamous in the neighborhood because of the Bean and his colic (born in August, open windows, with the waaa-waaa-waa), our overgrown, not charming to others garden and the fact that our car got stolen from in front of our house. Why not add public nudity to the mix?
Posted by Max at January 1, 2005 12:39 AM