Secret Stuff, Awesome Stuff

You guys. Good stuff is happening for Mighty Mighty Media, otherwise known as the Publishing Empire Run from Our Living Room Couch. We’re making something new — exciting and new! — and next week I’m totally going to show you what it is. You cannot even wait.

In the meantime, Mighty Goods has been nominated for a Blogger’s Choice Award for Best Shopping Blog. (Woot!) Will you please go vote to help Mighty Goods reign supreme? There’s only one day of voting left, but it appears that we still have a shot at it.

Mighty Girl was nominated for Best Blog About Stuff, Best Humor Blog, and (awkwardly) Hottest Mommy Blogger. I’ve gotten exactly two votes for yummy mummy, but I am sure this is only because I didn’t actually post photos of my muffin top after just barely fitting into my pre-preggo jeans. Heather Armstrong is among those in the lead for Hot Mama, and I encourage you to vote for her. Because? Her cheek bones could cut glass. And? I’d like to mock her.

Also, it’s really nice to be nominated for stuff like this. Thanks you guys.

Baby Bullet Wound Tee

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Wha?, originally uploaded by MaggieMason.

Unfortunate design choice. I’m guessing the person who made this didn’t consider how much it looked like a blood spatter when printed in these colors.

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.