Raise your hand if you want to hear about how little progress I have made on finishing my thesis which is due at the latest by May 21st? Raise 'em high...
No. Higher. I'm 4'10" and nearsighted.
Okay. Let me grab my abacus. Erright. So...Carry the one, let's see that's...
Yeahhhhh so how about we cut right to the picture portion of our post!
*** If you look closely, you can see Baby Girl's mama being a total nutbar.
Mmmm...NITRATES!
Sweet....Tart! SweetTart!
One of my classmates, the one I suddenly discovered is actually kind of hilarious to tease, was telling me yestereve that he was going to spend his summer "finishing my novel." And my impulse at that moment was to pull all his hair out from his nostrils and rub his sternum with sand paper and bark in his ears THAT'S WHAT I'M SUPPOSED TO GET TO DO WITH MY SUMMER! I SAID MY SUMMER! DO YOU HEAR ME? MY NOVEL MY SUMMER MY TURRRRRRRRRRRRRNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN. But instead I just gave him a high-five, like a white girl does, meaning I kind of missed his hand.
***
I've been getting up at 6 a.m. to write my thesis. Meaning I've done it once, on Monday, and it was beautiful. The birds were twittering their motivational thesis fight song, and my head was so clear I could write a symphony with my eyes closed and I can't wait to do it again tomorrow.
***
After I put this thesis to bed, I'm dying to work on my novel. Meaning the one in my head, about all those multi-faceted characters that I've been inventing throughout my life who are going to intersect in a way that is masterfully orchestrated by my brilliant machinations. I can practically read the acclaims that will cascade across the hardcover stock: "Stanton Lee writes with sensitivity and charm; her words are like nymphs alighting their scattered flight in a deep rich forest of plot...she is the Frank McCourt of her generation...." ***
But for the rest of the day, what I really want to do stock my freezer with Fla-vor-ICE and find some girlish flip flops and summer skirts online. Hang with my two favorite people and pursue literary narcissism another day.
I passed the following note to my classmate last night: Dear Nemat, I'm sorry you have to sit next to me tonight. I haven't showered today.
I punctuated it with a frown face. He took his pen and turned it into a smiling face.
***
We assessed Baby Girl's hesitation to walk as part psychological and part efficiency. She does not want to let go of our finger when doing her walk (which, by the way, is very stiff and slow and she looks like she is a character on stilts in a parade). She obviously wants and deeply needs to get to that tube of Nystatin ointment faster than the speed of light in order to shove it down her throat, and crawling totally beats walking with a stick, yo.
So we tried on some heavy Big Girl shoes in the hopes that she'd be striding right.
This is how thrilled she was with the big kicks:
The first few times we put them on her, her face warped into the angry mushroom head, ahh those srunched up eyes, that quivering lower lip, the anguish of those round, red little cheeks. She looked at us as if to say, Why must you wrestle my innocence right out of my little chubby digits? Why must you replace it with the cruel reality of girlhood? I said I WASN'T READY.
But the next day she accepted her fate as a member of the hard-soled shoe rocking club...
...and she has already found a pair that she fancies.
Baby Cons as purchased by Lovey Loverpants before we had even met Baby Girl.
