I remember learning in one psych class or another that the human mind insists on things making sense. If we do something that doesn’t make sense to us (we act badly, we act nicely to someone who doesn’t deserve it, we act kind of crazy, we act against our own best interests), our minds will scramble to FORCE it to make sense. Maybe our mind decides that we didn’t actually do it and so we just kind of forget about it, or now we label it “no sense dwelling on the past [because it makes us look bad],” or maybe our mind decides that we did do it but under circumstances we’ve cleverly reinterpreted. Maybe our mind decides that we did do it, but that it wasn’t our fault.

Our mind tells us a story in which the action now fits our view of the world and of ourselves in it—and if it the story doesn’t fit, we don’t feel comfortable until it does.

A classic example is relationships. How do we explain attraction? Definitely it isn’t our genes calling out for reproduction! No, attraction is fate, it is love, it is two people recognizing something special in each other. We aren’t attracted to someone’s appearance but rather to that person’s SELF. The mind tells us a story in which our love-loopy behavior makes sense.

But then the relationship ends, and how can we explain being so wrong? The mind scrambles to fix it. We were deceived. The other person changed. We changed. We were on the rebound. We thought we wanted something it turned out we didn’t want. We were never really in love in the first place. Our upbringing messed us up so we make bad choices in a mate. It’s not that our minds finally won the arm-wrestling contest with our genes; it’s not that our genes had had time to accomplish their goals, and so let us free.

And because humans ARE more complicated than, say, paramecia or butterflies or rabbits, it IS more complicated than just genes. Well…probably it is. We don’t really know yet, but it seems safe to assume that when it’s common for people to meet and fall in love and marry long after their genes have given up the reproductive goal, or to gladly stay partnered long after there is any chance of reproduction, that there is more than one thing going on here.

But here is the thought I had this morning, which is flooring me: if the mind scrambles to force things to make sense (even if it has to lie to us to do it), and if we feel uncomfortable and weird and keep-lookingish if it doesn’t succeed—I wonder if a lot of the struggles we have with parenting are because our minds are trying to force things to make sense. And repeatedly failing, because it’s something that doesn’t entirely make sense on a personal level, and isn’t going to.

What if the only reason to have children is to continue the species—just as it is for rabbits and butterflies and paramecia? But what if our complicated minds can’t leave it at that, especially considering how much more of an investment it is for us to reproduce than it is for rabbits/butterflies/paramecia? And what if natural selection favors the humans who are good at coming up with justifications for things that otherwise don’t make sense, so that they continue to do what is beneficial for the species even though they have the mental ability to see that it doesn’t make sense for them personally? If all those things are the case, what would our minds try to tell us about something as time-consuming and labor-intensive and resource-draining as parenting? What stories would our minds tell us about that?

We already know that baby faces and baby scents and baby cries have evolved to appeal to something ANIMAL in us. We already know about hormones and how they make us panicky and anxious so that we protect the babies who can’t protect themselves. We already know that our bodies want sex because our genes want to reproduce. What if there are MORE THINGS TO KNOW—and pretty much all of them are biological, not logical, and our minds are having trouble figuring out how to resolve that? We like to think we are calling more shots than that.

What if the reason we talk about how FULFILLING and IMPORTANT and MEANINGFUL and WORTH IT parenting is (but then feel like terrible parents for not always liking it or wanting to do it) is that our minds MUST find a way to justify something that is not in our personal best interests at all? Our genes want to reproduce, but all they can do is create a craving; the genes must convince the mind that IT wants that TOO.

But it’s a fragile construction. Our minds are pretty good at convincing us that our biological urges make sense, but they’re also pretty good at seeing flaws in the logic, at sniffing out things that don’t quite fit, at giving us an unsettled feeling until everything clicks naturally into place. When we think we’re in love with someone unsuitable, we might hear something about it: “Is it a little…weird…that he does that?” We brush it away, but we heard it. It could be the same with parenting: the voice speaks up anxiously and this time it says, “Does this…make SENSE to do this? I don’t know that this…WORKS, as a way to ‘live,’ in the modern, non-animal sense of the word.”

But here we are, doing it! It MUST make sense, or we wouldn’t have done it! It HAS to make sense: we’re already no-turning-back invested. And so our minds quickly build up better construction to repair the doubts: Of COURSE it makes sense! It’s fully worth it! We LOVE this! It’s the most important work we’ve ever done! Sure, we don’t ALWAYS love it, but that’s NORMAL! In the long run, this is important and valuable! And if it doesn’t feel that way, we will distract ourselves with new parenting concepts, new parenting methods, anything that seems like it might make everything fall into place and explain to us why we spent a good two decades of a short life doing it.

I wonder if some of us would be happier with a different approach. Instead of driving ourselves crazy trying to force parenting to make sense or feel personally worth it, what if we…DIDN’T do that? What if we shrugged and thought, “Yeah. Well, the species sure does a good job making sure it gets continued, doesn’t it! It sure roped ME in! And I don’t mind playing my part, now that I don’t have much of a choice! Gene continuation is nice, in its way! And this child isn’t half bad, in her way!” And then we could try to take from the experience anything enjoyable we could, but without expecting for it to make sense in a cost/benefits sort of way.

The cost of reproducing and parenting is huge. The benefits to us personally are…uncertain. But it could easily be that the benefits to us personally were never the point of any of this.

My mom has started fumbling with her wallet at the register, counting out exact change and trying to unload half a dollar’s worth of pennies and so forth. We both joke that this is such an “old lady” thing to do. (I laugh more.) It’s not so much the USING of the coins as the FUMBLING with them: “Oh, wait, I think I have another penny somewhere in here…*rummage rummage rummage drop other coins*…Oh dear!…Now how much did you say that was, young man?”

Considering how smoothly and effortlessly I find myself saying and doing “mom things” (those things seem so sensible now, why would I WANT to avoid them?), I don’t see much hope for avoiding an equally smooth and effortless adoption of “old lady things” next. Surely generation after generation has rolled their eyes at “mommish” and “old ladyish” things to say/do, and yet each generation in turn has gone on to do those things. (I’m using the feminine to represent both the female and the male, but of course I mean men JUST AS MUCH. No one will mind that, I hope! Why, when I was a child, we all learned that one gender-specific pronoun can easily be used to clearly represent both sexes, and WE turned out okay!)

At this point, I think most of the people my age are still firmly “mommish” types, but the first signs of the next stage are already appearing: little things that still belong to the mom zone, but that are also the first sprouts of the grandma stage to come. (The other day, I referred to a group of people as “young people.” It begins.) (Next up, I believe, is “young people today.”)

Protocol requires us to joke “And get off my lawn!” after each pre-old-ladyish thing we catch ourselves saying or doing—which doesn’t help, since it only causes the generations below us to roll their eyes and file that expression under “old lady jokes.” And the important thing here is that we may be following each old-ladyish behavior with a self-mocking that shows we know we’re doing it—but we’re also CONTINUING TO DO IT ANYWAY. I say to the kids: “I remember when a candy bar was a QUARTER! Now they’re 79 cents!” and Paul adds “And also, get off my lawn!” And then later he says, “We didn’t even HAVE air-conditioning when I was a child!” and I say “You didn’t need it, since you were still chilled to the bone from having to trudge miles through snowdrifts to get to school!” And then we both tell the children how we didn’t have email until we were in college, and didn’t have color television until late elementary school, and how car phones were a thing, and how computer games were text-only—and the children fail to fully appreciate how comparatively fortunate they are.

Have you noticed that each generation thinks they’ll manage to avoid seeming “old,” as long as they avoid the exact thing their own parents/grandparents did? A woman my age will say she doesn’t want Mom Hair or Mom Jeans—but what she’s thinking of are the current GRANDMOTHER hair/jeans: she’s filed her OWN mom’s style under “mom,” but a generational shift has occurred since then. Angled stacked bobs and cute-messy twisted-up hair with side-swept bangs ARE the Mom Hair! Cute dark-wash boot-cut jeans ARE the Mom Jeans! BECAUSE THAT IS WHAT THE CURRENT MOMS ARE DOING. Our daughters will speak of such styles with distaste, and will specifically avoid them. “Don’t give me Mom Hair,” they’ll tell the stylist, meaning OUR CUTE HAIR.

I wanted to make a list of the things that right NOW seem “old ladyish” to me, but which may soon seem like a baffling list of perfectly sensible things no one would want to try to avoid. But the trouble is, NOTHING correlates perfectly with age. Many a 30-year-old is passionate about getting the lawn perfect, and many a 25-year-old is exasperated about portion sizes, and many a 40-year-old catches herself trying to get rid of some of these COINS *fumble fumble in huge purse*. And of course many a 70-year-old is in favor of funding education, and many a 60-year-old thinks the way teenagers dress is no sillier than the way teenagers have always dressed, and many an 80-year-old is fully aware of how inflation works. And many things DO change with each generation, as issues shift and as each generation tries to avoid seeming like their own parents/grandparents.

But there are a few things that symbolize Being Elderly to me, and I would like to at least try to avoid (or downplay, or maybe HIDE) these things myself:

1. Fumbling with payment at the register, especially counting out coins. Coins go into an overflowing jar on the bureau, and I don’t want to hear any more about it.

2. Complaining about portion sizes.

3. Complaining about how prices have gone up, in a manner that implies I don’t understand how inflation/money works. (Aware-of-it comparison stories are still fine: I liked hearing my dad talk about 15-cent ice cream cones and my grandpa tell about buying a house for $7,000.)

4. Voting against school/education taxes. (It’s not like I have to vote yes on all of them, but I want to avoid the “_I_ don’t have kids in school, why should _I_ pay school taxes??” attitude I have learned to associate with the elderly in my particular district.)

5. Asking people to guess my age, and then gloating when the guesser tactfully subtracts ten years.

6. Complaining that current popular music isn’t even music, or that songs/books/movies USED to be good/quality/art, but NOW are NOT. (This area may require vigilance. I have already caught myself claiming that all the current songs are about nothing but SEX and CLUBBING.) (Well!?! Have you LISTENED to the radio recently??) (Now, now, Swistle, settle back into that rocking chair. Shall I hum you a few bars of the simpler/better songs from your own youth? Perhaps “Pour Some Sugar on Me”? How about “I Love Rock and Roll”? Or “Push It” or “I Want Your Sex”? Or I could go on: remember Samantha Fox? 2 Live Crew? Prince? Madonna? Yes. That’s what I thought. Simmer down there, grandma.)

7. Explaining to frazzled, exhausted, verge-of-emotional-breakdown women with small children that this is the best time of their lives. (I will find another way to more accurately convey what I mean. Maybe something like, “Oh, what adorable children!,” combined with a general policy of not making things harder for the mothers by acting affronted when children exist in public.)

8. Suggesting that things are getting worse and worse with every generation—starting with the one immediately following mine.

9. Complaining about how “weird” baby names are now; why don’t people use NORMAL names like the names WE used for OUR babies?

Do you have things you’re avoiding, either for the mom stage or for the grandma stage? Have you already found any of those ideas….slipping here and there? (Hey! Sometimes “Because I said so” IS a good reason.)

I saw two movies this week. I liked both of them. But in both cases I was, um, doing laundry, so take these reviews with a grain of wine salt.

(photo from Amazon.com)

The Adjustment Bureau (Netflix link)- You know who I love to watch run, and especially in a business suit? Matt Damon. You know who’s basically Zooey Deschanel but not quite so EVERYWHERE, and, bonus, has a name spelled a way I don’t have to look up every time? Emily Blunt.

Perhaps those two tests are not enough to persuade you. Never mind, I have more! Do you love the kind of sci fi where everyone’s suddenly frozen in time except Our Guy, who is turning around alarmed and mystified, giving you a nice long interesting look at the frozen people? And where there’s some other guy who seems to be OUTSIDE REALITY and is consulting a notebook that tells him everything that’s happening and going to happen next, because there are people BEHIND THE SCENES of the universe? And where the stakes might be DEATH but there still isn’t a whole lot of blood or yuck?

But do you ALSO love a cute family-man-type in a suit being all EARNEST and FUNNY to a woman? So, like, you kind of loved The Matrix, but did it have to be so DARK and DEPRESSING and SOOTY and GROSS, and could Neo and Trinity have acted a little more like they were in love rather than having ulcers, and would you have preferred them to smile at the end? Then I think you will like this movie.

(photo from Amazon.com)

Shutter Island (Netflix link)- I’m more hesitant to come right out and recommend this one, because if I had known what it was like BEFORE I watched it, I would never have watched it. And yet I liked it enough that I’m going to read the book. And yet I still wish I hadn’t seen certain images, which are the sort that involve children and/or death camps. So I think what I wish is that I’d read the book instead. But now that I HAVE seen the movie, I’m GLAD I saw it before reading the book, because I’d rather take in the more detailed version of the story when I DO know what’s going on. So. I don’t know what to tell you. Maybe skip the whole thing, maybe get the movie and then read the book like I am.

Netflix recommended this to me after I lost my mind over Inception. Netflix was all, “Oh, WE getcha! You like Leonardo DiCaprio, tons of water symbolism, and crazy dead wife dreams/hallucinations!”—so Shutter Island was the obvious choice. But Inception was about, like, dream travel (and I’m more keen to see Tom Hardy and Joseph Gordon-Levitt), whereas Shutter Island was the old “who’s REALLY crazy here?” plotline with the usual batch of creepy twists, combined with what I THINK was supposed to be a New England accent. (Why DO an accent, when it’s not even needed? DISTRACTING.)

Last time it was school-related; this time it was doctor’s office-related. But both times, I’ll note, it involved EDWARD.

Today he had a check-up. The doctor is a funny guy with a lot of jokes and games to make the exam more fun/comfortable for the kids, and he asked Edward if Edward knew what a “grinder” was. Edward was supposed to say it was a sandwich, and then the doctor would say no, it was THIS!—and “grind” a fist ticklishly on Edward’s torso.

But Edward did not say it was a sandwich. Instead, Edward cupped his entire, er, PRIVATE AREA, with BOTH hands, and said earnestly that THAT was a grinder.

The doctor did an admirable job persevering through this to the conclusion of the joke. I was suffused with embarrassment, awkwardness, and also the fear that somehow this exchange would mean that Bad Things happened in our family. Because a child should not be using words like “grind” with That Area, right? I mean, RIGHT? And I don’t THINK Edward has any reason to associate those things, but if he DID, where did he pick up on that? And where would the DOCTOR think Edward would have picked up on that? Was he adding a note to the file RIGHT NOW??

The rest of the visit went by in a fog of undefined mortification and agitated, fretful brainial-file-cabinet searching.

On the way home I broached the topic. “Er, Edward,” I began. “When the doctor asked you about a grinder, why did you, er? Why did you answer…the way you did?” Edward said because that’s what that area is CALLED. I expressed doubt, and Edward persisted. As evidence, he said that his karate teachers kept referring to that area as “the grind.”

I was baffled, and also now the fretting had expanded to include his karate class/teachers. And then the brain’s office manager found the right file folder at last: “WAIT. Do they call it a GROIN??” Edward: “YES, that’s what I SAID.”

I suppose there’s no way to write a little “Oh by the way, funny story ha ha ha” note to the pediatrician.

A lot of the party invitations we got this year included email addresses, which is GREAT. Let’s have a little appreciative round of applause for this getting more and more widespread.

Some had only phone numbers, but I had the email address from a class list, and used that.

Some had only phone numbers, but I could call while on my way to school pick-up/drop-off, or RIGHT before leaving, knowing the other parent would likely be out of their house at that time. (Note: this plan is dicier now that people put down their cell phone numbers.)

Some only had phone numbers, but I knew the parents from school pick-up/drop-off and could just mention it to them when I saw them.

Some had only phone numbers, but I got lucky and got an answering machine. Or in any case I was RSVP’ing “yes,” which is a positive sort of thing to be calling about and has a good exit line (“Okay, so we’ll see you on the 5th! Okay, bye!”).

This week I had one where there was only a phone number, I didn’t have a class list, I didn’t have the parents’ names—AND, I was RSVP’ing a no. It’s a much more awkward call. There is the potential for accidentally falling into the nervous pitfall of over-explaining the reason for not attending, even though no one cares and the explanation usually makes it worse. And I haven’t yet thought of a good exit line. “Okay, so then…I guess I…won’t be seeing you at any point soon, ha ha nervous laugh. I hope she has a good party…even though we won’t be there…I mean, not that I’m trying to say our presence was essential ha ha nervous laugh.”

Here is the idea I finally thought of and used: the party was a home party, so the home address was on the invitation, so I had the child draw a birthday card and we mailed it. The child included words like “I’m sorry I can’t come to your party, and I hope you have a great birthday” along with all the drawings and glitter glue and stickers.

ALSO, I could totally file this under Life Skills Training: the child wrote the address and the return address, put on the stamp, etc., as well as listening to a mini-lecture about always RSVP’ing. AND, the child was the one to handle the RSVP, which is good training for future independence!

I don’t have a PHONE ISSUE, psh no! I’m just EAGER TO TRAIN MY CHILDREN!

On my friends/family Facebook page, some people were talking about some of the summer chores they had to do as kids, and it made me curious to know what other people had to do.

My mom was a teacher, and in summer she continued in Teacher Mode, but with only two victims students. We came to hate the word “regimen,” because she used it so often and in such a brisk teacherly tone: “Time to do Our Summer Regimen! (*implied clap-clap sound in her voice*)”

Every single weekday all summer long, my brother and I did workbook pages, journal writing, mental math problems, extra chores, AND an exercise routine—plus hateful, hateful swimming lessons, which we had to ride our bikes to so we’d get all hot and sweaty again on the way home.

My mom says it didn’t take long to do the whole regimen; in my childhood memory it took HALF THE DAY and was ALMOST AS BAD AS SCHOOL. I still get the Childhood Despair feeling if I think of it. I’m sure (1) it was good for us and (2) it made us appreciate our free time more and do less whining about boredom—but goodness, I sure hated it! And it felt so UNFAIR: it is SUMMER, we are supposed to be FREE AS BIRDS!

(My mother reports still feeling DEEP SATISFACTION with the regimen.)

(“Regimen”—*shudder*.)

Did you have to Do Stuff in the summer, when you were a kid? Or were you FREE AS A BIRD?

At the used furniture store where I bought the Victorian cat postcards I also bought three pictures, which I will first show all together in a chair so you can get an idea of scale:

Left to right they are: “the street one,” “the bunny one,” “the twins one”

The street one is the first one I chose. It reminded me of the kind of picture my Aunt Debbie would find and then I would covet it and marvel at her ability to find something wonderful that I would have overlooked. Here’s a closer look at one corner, to show the style of drawing, the signature/date (looks like “Ammons 1963”), and the frame:

Here is a closer look at the tiny bunny one, and of the new cat who is attention-seeking and couldn’t stand that these STUPID PICTURES were getting attention when he wasn’t:

It’s tiny, and looks like someone was practicing framing her own art. The bunny might be stamped or might be drawn (or maybe stamped and then hand-colored?), and it’s on a fuzzy fabric (under glass)—like black velvet, but WHITE. (I just looked this up and it might be something called “Theorem Painting.”) The name on it is Jean Henry.

I dithered most over the third one, because I don’t usually acquire sentimental art of children. This one, though, reminded me of my twins: even their relative postures reminded me of Edward and Elizabeth. Here’s a close-up of just the kids in the picture:

And I liked the frame a lot, too. So I took a chance on it, and I’m glad I did. The label on the back says it’s called “Summer Swing”; I looked it up and it’s by Richard Judson Zolan, and it was apparently sold at Meijer, among other places, because that’s the exact frame.

I have found that if I bring home new wall art, I need to put it up immediately or else it will get dusty in a dither pile. The first one to go up was the tiny bunny, which I put on a tiny slice of wall between two doorways:

Next I put up the twins one, next to my desk, between my framed 1940s fairy tale print and my endearingly-tacky decoupaged kitten that William brought home from a yard sale and insisted on having up on the wall. The new picture takes two sets of hung-up stuff and makes them into one set:

And finally the street one, which required a little more thought because I couldn’t find a single place it looked right, except for with some other pictures, where it looked like it was BORN TO LIVE—but there was no room for it in that group. So I took a picture out of the group, and put the new one in instead:

The super satisfying part about this is that the tree picture I took out was a place-holder, put there because the picture that used to be there needs to be repaired. So I replaced the tree picture with the street picture, and I put the TREE picture in an incomplete arrangement ELSEWHERE. This arrangement wasn’t up when I bought the tree picture, and it’s WAY BETTER now that it has it! (It was too vertical before, and I was keeping my eyes out for another black-framed item.) (The round one is a mirror, and usually reflects white wall or light window or my earrings as they’re being put into my ears, so the effect is not usually so dark.)

(Looks even better when not “diagonal to avoid glass-glare”)

I’m so pleased!

Yesterday I got these cute little mini-size paper note cubes at Target, 50% off (so, $2 for a set of two), and I wanted to tell you right away in case they’re a size you needed as much as I did. I often need to jot something down on actual paper, but I don’t need even as much as a regular-size memo sheet. Just enough space for a name and phone number, or for a several-item list, or for writing down the name of a library book I want to remember to look for. I might have paid full price for these if I’d even seen them before they went on clearance, but the clearance sticker sure enhances the prettiness.

Next, I had to deal with a snack-food-related emergency: it came to my attention via pitiful inquiry (“Mommy,” said the child reading a book, “What does a Twinkie taste like?”) that none of the children had tried certain classic cakies. So I got a pack each of four things. Divided five ways (well, six—but only because it’s easier to divide in half and then in thirds, certainly NOT because I WANT a share), they’ll be the perfect Trying It size.

This next item is super boring, but I tell you about it anyway because this is the first time in my life I have purchased invisible socks. In MY day, we wore two pairs of extra-bulk slouch socks and wondered if adding a third might improve the effect. Below-the-ankle socks (often with pom-poms) were for DORKY MOTHERS. (…Wait a minute.)

THEN, we went to a used furniture store. On a table was a packet of Victorian cat notecards, and I said, “Oh, hey! Sure, yeah, I’ll buy these.” Then I took one out…and they were postcards. POSTCARDS.

…I can tell you are not feeling the stunned delight I felt. I was nearly dazzled. You will just have to imagine something similar that would make you feel the same way: you’re in a consignment shop, you see something that you like just enough to buy it. And then you see it’s ACTUALLY something ELSE—something that, had you known it was in the shop, you would have run across the store panting in a way that alarmed other shoppers, instead of casually accidentally almost not even seeing it there. (Afterward I felt uncomfortably as if I needed to carefully go over THE ENTIRE STORE, just in case I’d missed MORE.) Here’s the set, as I first saw it:

Oh, nice. Sure, I’ll buy that for $3!

And here are the postcards laid out (two are missing from the set), and then a closer view of some of them:

OMG!!!

OMG OMG!!!

Anyway. Very exciting. For me.

After yesterday’s post concerning a “fat jar,” there were some questions. And my theory is that for every one person saying, “Er…what are you talking about?” there are a dozen more thinking they would feel so silly if they asked and then it turned out it was something easy. So! Fat Jar clarifications/explanations!

We fry up a package of ground turkey about twice a week. When we do, we need to drain off the resulting fat (and probably water of the sort used to make the package weigh/cost more). That can’t go down the drain, tempting as that option may be, because then the fat solidifies against the insides of the pipes and makes for trouble later. So we spoon the fat into a (typically LIDDED) jar, which we keep in the refrigerator until it’s full, at which point we put it into the trash.

(We used to use an empty metal can. But then there’s no LID. When we’d put it into the trash, the fat would return to room temperature and pour all over the inside of the trash bag, which was not always leak-free. It only took one encounter with maggots to cause a permanent switch to lidded jars.)

We do also have a bacon-fat jar for preserving the delicious kind of fat for later cooking use. But the jar I dropped (which fortunately didn’t break, though it did bounce which may have been worse) was not that jar. It was the turkey-fat jar. Paul and I are waiting for our kitchen to smell like something (a turkey, perhaps) died.

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Now. This is a good place for a question that didn’t seem like it needed its own post and yet I have been wanting to ask it: Do you find that you almost always wear a certain few colors, and almost never wear others?

I noticed the other day that pretty much every shirt I own is in the green-blue-purple range. I also have some pink, but they’re mostly the purpley pinks like magenta. I have about ten different shades of blue, light blue to turquoise to navy. I would have a lot more green, but a bunch of my Old Navy green shirts wore out and Old Navy hasn’t had good greens to replace them with.

I have zero red, zero orange, zero yellow, zero black, zero white, zero brown, zero from the taupe/beige/clay range of neutrals.

Is your closet like this too, everything the same few colors? And if so: WHICH colors?

Keeping crumbs off the counters/floors hasn’t been helping to reduce the ant population, so Paul has a new idea: he’s leaving food out on purpose to give the ants a fatal obesity epidemic. Or even just the FEAR of one! The ants will shun our house completely!

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I’m so discouraged about nutrition. I feel like “legumes and whole grains are good” was the main good solid thing I managed to internalize from my brief first marriage to a pacifist, social-cause-oriented, world-view-inclusive, Mother-Jones-subscribing Christian missionary. And NOW look: legumes and whole grains are bad TOO, so what CAN we believe in? (And I guess my former in-laws must have been thin because of malnutrition rather than Healthy World-View-Based Eating as they supposed. WHAT ELSE MIGHT THEY HAVE BEEN WRONG ABOUT?)

What is left that is righteous enough to eat? Does it look as if “organic raw vegetables and Greek yogurt” are the only things left on the list? (THIS JUST IN: Greek yogurt contains DAIRY and so is also out. You may continue eating the organic raw vegetables. But to be on the safe side, we suggest not eating anything.)

I had thought to try to avoid the old-ladyish “Things aren’t the way they used to be!,” but goodness, I didn’t even make it to 40. THIS TOO IS NUTRITION’S FAULT.

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Spilling the Fat Jar: A Play in One Act, By Which I Probably Mean “Scene”

Swistle: Oh god! Oh no! Oh CRAP!

Paul (from downstairs): …Is everything…okay?

Swistle: I just DROPPED the FAT JAR!

Paul: Oh NO!

Swistle: It didn’t have a LID!

Paul: Oh NO!

Swistle: It BOUNCED!

Paul: Oh NO!

Swistle: The refrigerator was OPEN.

Paul: Oh NO!

Swistle: There is fat EVERYWHERE!

Paul: Oh NO!

Swistle: It’s all up inside the fridge!! It’s on every shelf!! It’s all over the floor! It’s EVERYWHERE!!

Paul: Oh NO!

(Fin)