Making it Up As I Go

It is 4:30 pm. It’s 90 degrees out, but Yahoo tells me that it feels like 102 and I’m not disputing that. It is HOT. Humidity is only (only!) 66%, so it’s not gross, just hot.

I am listening to Bruno Mars. I adore Bruno Mars. My affection for him began kind of sarcastically, because I thought his song Grenade was so bombastically emotionally over the top that it made me laugh. (“If my body was on fire, ooh You would watch me burn down in flames” – you gotta respect that kind of commitment to angst!) But then I started to legitimately enjoy the song, and I love his album Unorthodox Jukebox because of the complete variety of the songs, and, fittingly, his tendency to exaggerate a good thing until it just goes over the edge of being ridiculous. His song “Gorilla”  is a perfect example- it’s like he did a Prince song but kicked it up a notch into aaaaaaaalmost a parody. It’s hard to explain, but I enjoy it so much. And “Natalie“, goodness knows I love a good over the top revenge song.  (I remembered writing a post about my enjoyment of over the top murder songs, and when I found it I discovered that most of it is missing! I’m so sad! Here’s the part that I could find. Perhaps I will have to reconstruct the rest.)

His song “Young Girls” is my absolute favorite though, and it’s not ridiculous at all. Every now and then I hear a song and it hits me perfectly and I get completely obsessed and listen to it over and over and over again, and this is one of those songs. And did you know that he wrote the song “Forget You” that CeeLo did? It didn’t fit with the rest of his album so he gave/sold/however that works it to CeeLo.

We took a bus this morning to meet our friends at a pool to go swimming. The whole experience went quite smoothly, we found the right bus and I was able to keep track of where we were using google maps. Then I was able to compare the kanji for where we needed to get off to the kanji on the scrolling screen on the bus, and we ended up where we needed to be. We had a great time- there was a little pool for the littles and a big pool and a big waterslide for the bigs. I got to hang out with some of my mom friends and we discussed helicopter parenting vs. being acutely aware of your child’s abilities/limitations. I saw my friends act in exactly the same way my beloved friends at home do with my kids (stepping in and helping in situations when it’s better for an outside party to do so, giving comfort, reaching out) and I’m so grateful that my girls have wonderful women in their lives.

We had a nice school session this afternoon which included a sno-cone break. More school sessions need to include a sno-cone break in my opinion.

I finished A Tale for the Time Being and while I loved it, I’d have trouble flat out recommending it to others. It would be a good read for the appropriate book club, because it definitely has a lot to discuss, but it also has quite a bit of swearing, and some very disturbing bullying scenes (Japanese school girls take things to an insane extreme, and I don’t know that it’s exaggerated in the book). But it also has some fascinating ideas regarding Japanese culture, and how the culture of Japan influences how people think about suicide, time, life, etc.  I also read Unclean Jobs for Women and Girls by Alissa Nutting, which is currently $1.99 on Amazon (for the month of August). It’s a collection of short stories about women in odd and unsettling professions/situations, and – ok, here’s the thing. Earlier this week I read a piece on Flavorwire about “If you miss this show, read this book” and I would have bet money that this book was paired up with Twin Peaks and that’s how I heard about it. It’s David Lynch weird, and David Lynch awesome. The stories are totally diverse but cohesive in their disturbingness. This is another one I would have a hard time recommending, because a lot of it is really uncomfortable and there’s some graphicness. But it’s really really good.

It’s dinner time, so I should go figure out what we’re going to eat that isn’t going to demolish us with heat. I leave you with Tiny meditating, cause there’s nothing like a zen Tiny.