Quiet, you nattering nit-wits...

In which your humble narrator listens to some drivel on the radio and condemns self-help speak to the deepest pits of Hell.

On a recent edition of the Middle-aged Liberal Ladies' Lifestyle Hour on public radio, I was brutally assaulted by an obnoxious cliche that won't seem to die the death it so richly deserves. While I only listened to the show for about seven minutes (on Lexington Avenue, between I-94 and Trader Joe's) I managed to get a full-fledged fume on by the time I pulled in to buy groceries.

The guest prattled on about her near-divorce and kept returning to the "lessons" she learned about "living in the moment." I loathe the constant drumbeat of "living in the moment." Here are some moments I prefer not to live in:

• When the dentist is busy drilling bits of tooth out of my head
• Any moment in which Jay Leno is present (live or via video)
• Black Friday at Wal-Mart
• August in the northern hemisphere
• A 14 hour plane ride where I'm sitting between Susan Sarandon and Bill O'Reilly

The pathological need to believe that everything happens for a reason may be an effective short term strategy in the face of adversity, but it cannot long endure. One rarely hears lottery winners stressing the need to learn from their sudden windfalls. We don't have any problem living in the moment if it's fun. It's the random crap that happens in a normal life that we struggle with. Trying to wring meaning from every lousy thing that happens to you is an invitation to an existence of self-involved navel gazing. Life isn't a curriculum with a syllabus full of triumphs and tragedies all custom tailored teach us important life lessons. It just is. And that ought to be enough.

It's Saturday, so I hate stuff

In which your humble narrator tallies five vexations.

1. Turning the furnace back on in May when I didn't run it for all of April.
2. The fact that Child #2 predictably sleeps until 7:00 a.m. on weekdays, but just as predictably only sleeps until 6:00 a.m. on weekends. 
3. The term "game changer." Seriously, people. Enough with the sports metaphors. They're a cancer on public discourse.
4. The stock market. It is stupid. How can my broadly diversified (and tiny) IRA dip by $800 and then rebound by $550, in the same day, without a massive amount of stupidity being involved?
5. A-Rod.

Happy Birthday, Baby! And now for some violent purges...

In which your humble narrator celebrates his daughter's existence and spills his guts.

As of last Friday, Child #2 has made the complete circuit around the sun. Feeling ever pressured by society's expectations that we celebrate these sort of milestones by "doing" "something" (other than our regular routine of keeping the children alive and then collapsing into the forgiving, oaky arms of a mid-priced Kentucky Bourbon once they're finally in bed), we organized an extremely modest festival in honor of Child #2's first year.

We invited two sets of friends with children near the same ages as ours (our only local friends with similarly aged children), plus my mother and sister. The children (all falling between 1 and 4 years) played as a group, mostly independently. Food was eaten. Cake was mashed into faces. Fun was had by all until everyone had to go home to take a nap. Child #1, currently suffering from bad pollen allergies, was watery-eyed and full of snot at the end of the party. I trotted out to the local chain apothecary to purchase some antihistamines for his sad looking little self.

Walking back to the car, I thought to myself, "Hrmmm, I feel a little bit queasy. Must have been the cake" (not usually partaking in rich, butter-creamed sugar-bombs). And I went back home.

The next 6 hours are a bit foggy. I know that I completely purged my entire digestive track with a violence best described as "Stalinist." I remember sitting on the potty thinking, "I am going to have a terrible funeral. The Rabbi is going to have to tell everyone that I died from pooping out all of my internal organs. Everyone will be embarrassed."

Child #1 got it and puked all over my house... but I was sick so I didn't have to clean it up. He was so ill that rather than running around as a maniac as per usual, he actually spent most of Sunday in my bed watching Curious George cartoons, at least while we weren't sleeping or he wasn't leaning over to vomit on my pillow.

Needless to say, we survived. It was yet another vile virus brought home courtesy of Wife-a-roo who apparently works in an open sewer staffed by lepers militantly opposed to hand-washing. We're thinking about putting up a decontamination tent in the yard.

In better news, it's the last week of term. By this time next week, I should be free and unencumbered by undergraduate papers for at least 4 weeks. Now about writing that dissertation...