Category: My Life

You Need to Listen

A man up the street is screaming into his cell phone. It is early morning, still grey.

NO! SHUT UP! YOU NEED TO LISTEN. YOU NEED TO LISTEN TO ME.

I push the stroller across the street quickly, and try to figure out where the sound is coming from. He is at least two blocks away, dressed in a red sports jersey and matching track pants.

I DO HAVE SOMETHING TO DO WITH IT! I GOT EVERYTHING TO DO WITH IT. YOU NEED TO SHUT UP RIGHT NOW AND LISTEN TO ME.

He takes a few steps, pauses to scream, takes a few more steps. Hank and I walk to the neighborhood coffee shop and take a seat. A few minutes later, I see the man through the window. The hum of the cafe deadens his words, but he is gesturing in wide sweeps. He holds the phone to his ear for a moment, and then swings it out so he can scowl at it while he yells into the receiver, as though it were a microphone.

His gestures remind me of a hellfire preacher at the pulpit. I can see he isn’t actually angry, not anymore. He’s simply enjoying the gestures that accompany refined rage. He is flawless, infuriated, and somehow harmless. He could be a lovely actor, I think, and then retrieve Hank’s pacifier from the floor.

Dirty Talk

Rachel: The size charts are weird.
Me: I’m usually a B, but I’m probably a C right now.
Bryan: Are you guys talking about boobs?
Me: No. We’re talking about pantyhose.
Bryan: Oh. Talk about boobs instead.
Me: Boobs, boobs, boobs. I love boobs. Boobs.
Rachel: I have two of them.
Bryan: You guys suck at this.
Rachel: Maggie has boobs.
Bryan: Warmer.
Maggie: Rachel also has boobs.
Rachel: Bryan and Ryan do not have boobs.
Me: But what they lack in boobs, they make up for in charm.
Bryan: Forget it.
Ryan: I’m gettin’ hot.

Enduring Interests

I’ve been keeping a word document with blog ideas since I started Mighty Girl in 2000. It’s strange to look at notes I’ve written for myself with ideas I don’t remember. (For example, “wig story” and “healthy penis 2002.”) Anyway, here are three bits of interest. It’s possible I’ve already posted the last one and forgotten to purge it from the doc. Do you remember?

1. Nomura’s jellyfish grow to almost seven feet in diameter and weigh over four hundred pounds. Every once in a while, the population spikes, and fishermen trap hundreds of them in a single fishing net. This slimes and poisons the fish caught with them and ruins the nets, as the gargantuan jellyfish have to be cut out.

2. Small children in Japan make dorodangos, or shiny balls made of dried mud. They kneel in the dirt for hours packing the mud and polishing it until it shines like a marble.

3. There’s a butterfly resting on the car windowsill, Bryan brushes it with his key and it takes flight. He opens the door for me, and as I slide in, a penny falls from my wallet. It lands head side up.

Open Letter

Dear Can of Baby Corn,

The hell? How do you keep ending up in my pantry? I never purchase you. I’ve donated you to the food bank at least three times. And yet here you are, again — stony, steadfast, utterly useless. Baby Corn, you are beginning to stress me out.

Even if I wanted to use you, I wouldn’t know how. Grill you and take little, tiny nibbles? Blend you up in a hideous baby-vegetable smoothie? I am at a loss.

Baby Corn, your persistence is unsettling. The can of Haggis, I married into that. Bryan keeps it in the cupboard as an uproarious pantry joke. The twelve cans of aging garbanzo beans? Those are leftover from the overambitious homemade-hummus fiasco of 2006. But you? You are mute and inexplicable.

Go away, Baby Corn. You’re making everyone uncomfortable.

Sincerely,
Maggie Mason

P.S. Take the can of Mandarin oranges with you.

Theories

I pull into the quiet lot behind the Gymboree, the five and dime, the gourmet grocer. As I lift Hank out into the sunshine, a security guard scowls at us. His stance is wide, his arms crossed. Who is this guy?

I look around the small, peaceful parking lot — I can almost smell the Pablum on the air. Why in the world would they hire a security guard? I picture a herd of soccer dads ramming each others’ minivans in a frenzy to beat the line at the nuevo Cubano coffee shop. Perhaps the stroller meets have turned ugly. The Bugaboo moms are lying in wait for the Orbit moms who have learned to use their ponderous diaper bags as weapons. Maybe there was a standoff at the baby center because one of the parents mentioned that their baby was already beginning to talk “for real,” so they were thinking of dropping the baby sign class. Beneath the mundane exterior of this yuppie commercial complex beats a bloody revolution.

The security guard adjusts his mirrored sunglasses, and strolls past a couple of loiterers on a nearby bench. One of them calls out:

“Heeeeey, dickfaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaace!”

Ah. Or that could be it.

7.5 Months Later

Say. You there. Do you hear that? The sound of revelry in the distance? True, it is faint, but ever growing. There are hundreds, perhaps thousands of people carousing in the streets. They are banging on trashcans, blowing their car horns, startling women with exuberant and unexpected kisses on the mouth. It’s because they know about today. Today is the day when…

I zipped up my pre-pregnancy jeans.

Though I have been exercising, though I have been eating as though I am a candidate for sainthood, I tried these jeans knowing I would not be able to pull them past my kneecaps. But up they crept. Surely, I thought, these jeans cannot cover my bum. But there they are! Clearly I will never be able to button and zip them again in this lifetime. And then? Snap! Zooop!

I. Am. Wearingmyprepregnancyjeans!

Of course, it’s not possible for me to breathe in them, but that didn’t stop me from tearing into the living room to do an elaborate burlesque for Bryan.

“How do you like that, baby? Uh! You remember these jeans? Oh yeah you do. These jeans have missed you, baby. Can you hear this zipper screaming for mercy? That’s niiiiiiiice. You like this muffin top? It’s all yours. Uh! Awwwwwwww yeaaaaaaah.”

And though I am currently standing as I type this because it is impossible to sit down without inviting a medical emergency, I think we can safely say that I look hot.