Author: maggeh

Unwinding

I decide to watch a little TV, and realize there’s an “Oprah” on Tivo that I haven’t seen. I read the show description:

“Children sold into prostitution, children trained to kill, babies raped by men.”

Yeah. So, if I flip over to VH1 to watch “Behind the Music” with George Michael, I’m definitely going to hell.

By Example

A parenting lesson from Fussy:

“The more stringently you forbid something, the more attractive it becomes to the forbidee, correct? And shameful, because you still want to do it, but you also know you have to hide it, and the situation gets everso charged. And we want to drain all the charge out of things like . . . this! My neighbor’s five-year-old daughter, the other day, she walks in, cocks her hip, puts an imaginary Pall Mall to her lips, and whispers, We must smoke. And my neighbor was like, Wha-huh? Where the Bette Davis did she get that? We only ever watch Animal Planet. But, in alignment with the non-freaking-out philosophy, she replied in her best Marlene Dietrich, Yes, we must smoke, but we must also cough. So they started swanning around the room taking elegant drags off their imaginary cigarettes and then immediately pretending to hack up a lung. This, I thought, was educational roleplaying at its finest.”

Splashin’ and-a Splashin’

We’re in D.C. staying at the gorgeous, velvety, sunlit Hotel Monaco. The rooms come equipped with animal-print bathrobes, they’ll loan you a goldfish for the duration of your stay, and our suite has a cavernous bathtub. It’s the kind of bathtub that makes you hesitate if you don’t know how to swim, the kind of bathtub that makes you think, “We could fit, like, eleven people in here!”

And so, last night, we hosted a Champagne Bubble Bath Roaming Robe Party. Everyone donned their swimsuits and robes in their rooms, then came back to the suite for a bubble bath.

You never know how ludicrously long your friends’ toenails are until you’re in a bath with them. People, cut your toenails.

Insecure

The bathrooms have little “security seal” stickers all over everything. I think they’re supposed to indicate that no one has placed a bomb in the paper-towel rack. By day three, all of the seals are broken. While the absence of security seals wouldn’t concern me, for some reason, the broken security seals are making me think twice about using the soap.

I Need to Sleep

I’ve always known that I tear up when I hear large groups of people singing patriotic songs. So it was no surprise when I had to bust out my hanky for the “Star Spangled Banner.” “This Land is My Land”? Check. “America the Beautiful”? Check. And then “Johnny Be Good” came on.

The Rabbit Hole

I return a rental car about a mile from the Fleet Center, and a bomb-sniffing dog searches my car. As I walk over to the convention space, I’m struck by how many men in dark suits seem to have descended in the last twelve hours. On every street, there are packs of men having a Reservior Dogs moments.

I pass through the barbwire-encased free-speech zone on my way in. It’s the size of a football field, and it’s utterly empty except for four or five people listening to a man with an unusually loud megaphone. He screams, “THIS IS WHAT IT’S LIKE TO LIVE IN A POLICE STATE, PEOPLE!” I can hear him in my teeth.

As I wait to get in, a small group of protesters marches past. They are shirtless, even the women, and are wearing hoods over their heads to mimic the plight of the prisoners at Abu Ghraib. A boy in the front has a whistle that he blows at regular intervals to match their footfalls.

I go through the metal detector, give up my umbrella and my bottled water, and show my credentials to the woman at the door, and then the guy at the escalator, and then the guy at the next door. Near to the boiler room I stop to watch a class of grade-schoolers pass. The union workers offer high fives, and the kids jump to reach their hands. A volunteer pushes past with a huge taiko drum. He thumps it with his thumbs and sings, “I bang my drum for you, a rum-pum-pum-pum!” Larry King is behind him.

Every Four Years

A week before all the action starts, the office is overwhelmed with interns. They’re playing catch in all the open spaces, wandering aimlessly through the hallways, Web surfing in every cubicle.

-Where the hell did all these interns come from?

-I don’t know. They’re everywhere.

-What are they supposed to be doing?

-No one has figured that out yet. We’re calling them the cicadas.

Look, Ma. No Hands!

I returned home for Heather and Derek’s (very touching) wedding, and Bryan and I learned that the Armstrongs were in town for the festivities. Though we’d never met them, we called often enough to guarantee that they would either meet us for breakfast or issue a restraining order. Jon, Heather, and lovely little Leta arrived at the Pork Store that morning, where Jon asked about my new line of work.

How do you like working at the convention?

It’s really fun and interesting, but the pace is terrifying.

Really?

Yeah, I’m used to being a freelancer, you know? I get up at ten, have a cup of tea, write a little, go to lunch with a girlfriend, write a little more. Boston is a different world.

How so?

Well, compared to my old life, it’s like stepping out of a warm bath and being thrown into a vat of ferrets.

Then I ate the baby’s hands. Armstrongs, I am sorry about your handless baby.