Suburban Kamikaze

Indiana lawmaker stands up to powerful Thin Mint lobby

I laughed so hard when I read about the state representative from Indiana who believes Girl Scouts are part of a radical agenda to destroy America that I nearly choked on the lemony goodness of my Savannah Smiles cookies, which are delicious. I don't know what made me think three boxes would be enough.

Then I remembered: there are people who actually have to live in Indiana where Rep. Bob Morris, (R-Clueless) spends their money on projects like the "Web-based research" that led him to conclude that the Girl Scouts are insufficiently homophobic and operating as a secret subsidiary of Planned Parenthood.  

The freshman lawmaker believes cookie sales, camping, hiking and the development of leadership skills are a path to promiscuity and communism among the state's population of third-grade girls. But it's probably not as funny to the people this guy actually "represents."   

I have to admit, I never asked any of the 9-year-olds whose cookies I bought what their feelings were about gay marriage, Karl Marx or contraception. And the organization itself is dangerously fair-minded in its views on things like friendship and campfires. That is enough right there to cause people like Rep. Bob Morris to conclude that they probably harbor anti-American views.

Many of them, in fact, could grow up to become the kind of women who find people like Rep. Bob Morris and his brand of politics repellent. People like most people.

There is no law against stupidity in this country. If there were I probably would not have left five boxes of Thin Mints out in the open where the teenagers would find them. But there's no badge for it either. 

If there were, Bob Morris would need a bigger sash.

The war on Christmas begins in the living room

from the archives: War on Christmas brought to successful end

The Year In Questions: Because if you came here for answers you may need to rethink your strategy

1. Is there a right and a wrong way to explain sexual practices to other people's children?

2. Why would you buy waffle ingredients if you're not going to make waffles?

3. How do you say that in dirty French?

4. Why has no one asked me to help run the space program?

5. How many Post-It notes can dance on the head of a pin?

6. If there is one thing I've learned about parenting in the middle school years, what is it?

7. Why are the permission slips all wet?

8.  Men?

9.  Is the History Channel ushering in a new age of vibrator technology? 

10. What would Jesus drink?    

Select the best answer from the following suggestions: Probably. Come again? Definitely not. A lot. Have you seen my glasses?  Yes. Depends on the dance. Please. Do I have to do everything? Don't say I didn't warn you. All of the above. 

Undone in 2011

I did not get a tattoo. But not because I am not cool enough. Because I am. No matter what Mr. Kamikaze says. He doesn't even have a twitter account, so he's not exactly an authority.

I did not get a tattoo because while flirting with the idea over more than a decade, I could not commit to a single design. I guess I am kind of like Madonna - or possibly some more current style icon whose name escapes me because I only pretend to keep up with pop culture - in that I tend to reinvent myself quite a bit.

For example, ten years ago, I was a freelance writer with two children and an interest in wine drinking. Today, I am a freelance writer with two teenagers and an interest in drinking  slightly better wine. How do you design a tattoo that can keep up with that?

Still it would have looked awesome, possibly.

I did not write a novel. But not because I can't. But because I have been unable to break my addiction to reading other people's novels. In between reading other people's non-fiction, memoirs and plays. It was an especially good year for plays. The more I think about it, the more I feel like Tom Stoppard bears a lot of the blame for the novel that I didn't write. There's really no telling how good it might have been. Although, I think we can all agree it would have been better than anything I have written so far. 

I did not advance in the world of adult figure skating. But not because I did not spend a ridiculous amount of time on the ice when I should have been finishing my novel. But also because the figure skating authorities have ignored my petition to remove the &^%$-foot spin from the list of required elements, where it serves to thwart the dreams of many an aspiring novelist.

I went unrecognized for my contributions to the blogging world. But not just because I refused to get a puppy, develop some sort of dramatic personal problem or put up video of myself getting a bikini wax, because I totally would if there was real money in it and not just laundry detergent coupons, but also because I made no actual contributions to the blogging world, which apparently does not even have an award category for punctuation. Which is disappointing because I feel like I would own it.  

I went unrecognized for my contributions to the Kamikaze family. But not because they do not recognize the breathtaking skill with which I juggle their many needs while simultaneously not finishing a novel, advancing in the world of figure skating or getting a tattoo. It's just that they don't appreciate it.

Of course, I did not do many of these things in some pretty charming places in 2011, and as always, they went undone among the most amazing collection of people, who are represented below as bananas and bottles of wine.  I couldn't have done it without all of you. 

Cheers, -SK  

Photo, top: Not learning to speak better French in Paris. Photo by Rick McCawley. 

Excerpted from Men: Not 100 percent replaceable

More deep thoughts from Blogtations can be found here. 

Christmas shopping is easy, non-toxic

Please. Stop your whining.

There is plenty of time to find something for everyone on your list. At Suburban Kamikaze we have already done the hard part for you. Okay, maybe not the hardest part, but we do want to help. 

We spent the weekend drinking wine and scouting retail outlets with our very good friend and Suburban Kamikaze board member, Dr. Liz - an honest to god mental health expert here to certify that the best gift you can give your loved ones at Christmas is the gift of good mental health - your own.  

With that in mind, we offer the following sanity-preservation tips and gift ideas.   

Tip #1: Limit the amount of time you spend worrying about gifts for your family. Pace yourself. Have your nails done. Have a glass of wine. Buy yourself an overpriced accessory. Now you are ready to shop for your mother-in-law.

It's easy. Because who doesn't love a mango?  From Williams-Sonoma comes the perfect mango splitter.  She will wonder how she ever got along without one. $13

Tip #2:  Nothing wastes more time than second-guessing your selections for appropriateness. They're not your kids are they? The teenagers on your list (your brother's kids maybe?) will think you are the coolest when they open their cell phone flask. $16.95 

Tip #3:  Don't try too hard. Sometimes the best gift is the one that says WTF? "Monkey Portraits" by Jill Greenberg is about as good as it gets in the ambiguous message gift department. $16.49

Tip#4: Search out seasonal bargains. We found this styrofoam Halloween morgue sign reduced 70 percent. Think of how much they will appreciate your thoughtfulness when the price shoots up to $5.95 ten months from now!

Tip #5:  Give in to your impulses. Put too much thought into it and you will miss out on one-of-a-kind objets d'art like this lifelike (it even sheds) replica of a common backyard pest. We could not pass it up. $2.99  

Likewise, how many $16.95 motion-activated fake parakeets do you think they would sell if everyone went around putting thought into their Christmas purchases?  Nobody needs a fake parakeet. Nobody ever asks for one. But somebody has to buy them, if for no other reason than to encourage the kind of out-of-the-box thinking that led someone, somewhere to conclude that a walking, dinosaur-shaped pencil sharpener was a good idea. $7.95

Still, there are limits. Crate&Barrel is a good example of what can happen when people give their impulses too much rein.  Which brings us to Tip #6: Never,  ever spend $14.95 on a collection of sticks and leaves. Just. Walk. Away.

Tip #7: Nothing says Happy Holidays quite like an intervention. There is no better time to let someone know that their social skills could use a little ... well, skill. Nothing we've found delivers the message like a set of "Table Topics" conversation starters.  Table Topics provides a box of Post-It sized slips with promising topics like "Why Do You Think People Try to Kill Themselves at Your Dinner Parties?" $24.95

At $14 "The Complete Manual of Things that Might Kill You" is a conversation starter in itself. You have no idea how many fatal conditions that nagging little mole/cough/ache could signify. 

Our favorite self-help gift this season is a slim little volume of wisdom called "How to Traumatize Your Children."  With sections on "Setting Your Child Up for Failure" and "Killing Self Esteem," this book contains proven, practical advice for parents determined to do it properly. $9.95 

But enough with the children. Tip #8: Nothing says Christmas like sex toys. Surely, there is someone on your list who would appreciate a box of Christmas ornaments shaped like tiny penises? $3.99   Tip #9: Not everyone appreciates a tiny penis joke.

 Or, "maybe you're looking for something under the heading of non-toxic?"  That is the kind of come-on only a seasoned, professional copywriter can produce. The pitch is for EdenFantasys' museum quality "Hera," a piece of glass attractive enough to leave out on your coffee table. $89.99   

Tip #10: Nobody likes a toxic sex toy.

 

-Christmas 2008

The Girl Who Very Nearly Got a Tattoo

So sorry to have kept you waiting but I have been very busy putting the final touches on my latest literary effort – a work of Swedish crime fiction that has every sign of becoming a huge commercial success.

Not to mention a följa instruktionerna för laddning av elektronisk utrustning!

Seriously. All the elements are here: gruesome crime, easy-to-assemble furniture with unpronounceable Scandinavian names, a spunky heroine with hidden talents, two teenagers and multiple piercings, and - most importantly – a great many references to tattoos.

It takes place in an Ikea superstore in the American Midwest, where the suburbanites gather on weekends to eat meatballs and purchase brightly colored kitchen gadgets in the mistaken belief that they can control their destinies. But of course, there is a dark side to the fantasy, which unfolds in a mouth-shattering arrangement of consonants.

When our heroine, who once very seriously considered getting a tattoo, happens upon a decades-old family secret in the strömtillförseln section, she finds herself teamed up with a handsome investigative reporter on an assignment that will provide many opportunities for the reporter to have sex with his editors, his colleagues and the subject of his story, which apparently is actively encouraged in Swedish newsrooms. 

Photo: Swedish newsroom

The Ring of Truth and other tales of so-called domestic bliss

Sure, it's a nice story. But I'm not hearing a really good answer to the question of why Brian McGuinn - if that is even his real name - threw out his wife's diamond engagement ring in the first place. 

As any good marriage counselor will tell you: There is no such thing as an accident. First he "accidentally" throws away the ring, next he "accidentally" says the name of his ex-girlfriend in his sleep. And finally, he "accidentally" puts the car in reverse while she is behind it. It is the oldest story in the world. 

Not that those crazy romantics at the Miami Herald seem to have recognized it. This is what comes of having too many kids in the newsroom.

Photo: Those crazy kids in the newsroom are suckers for romance. 

from the Romance archives: 237 Reasons You Did Not Get Laid Last Night

Men: Not 100 percent replaceable

Look, guys: So maybe you're in a bit of a slump, but please - no one is talking about replacing you yet, no matter what the data says. 

Sure, we're better drivers. Especially when going forward. We didn't need some insurance industry study to tell us that!

And yes, it turns out that we are just as funny as you are, possibly better with money, probably make better world leaders, and may offer a better return on investment in the corporate suite. (Man Down: Proof Beyond a Reasonable Doubt That Women Are Better Cops, Drivers, Gamblers, Spies, World Leaders, Beer Tasters, Hedge Fund Managers and Just About Everything Else, by Dan Abrams)

We also smell good and aren't afraid to ask for directions, but that doesn't mean we wouldn't be lost without you. It just means we wouldn't be lost as often.

But that is hardly reason to conclude that men are becoming obsolete.

What would even be the point of being better if there were no men around to make us seem better by being worse?

You complete us. 

Besides, we depend on you for everything!  so many things!!  some really important things. 

So before you go putting any stock into the latest bit of scholarship describing the "end of men," ask yourselves: Will a vibrator get out of bed in the middle of the night to check out a scary noise?  It will not. That technology is still years away!

Will our girlfriends show up with red wine and naked Daniel Craig movies when we are suffering from PMS and you are being an asshole? Of course they will. But that's still a two-man minimum, right there, not even acccounting for help with operating the remote control. 

Call me sexist, but I don't think there is a woman alive who could convincingly fill the role of naked Daniel Craig. Meryl Streep, possibly, but I don't think you'd get more than an academic argument about putting that one in the "men are better" column.

And I don't care how far we've come, baby; you will never get me to admit that a woman is just as capable as a man when it comes to unclogging toilets.

Ditto for spider killing, grocery carrying, chest hair growing, floorboard painting and anything involving shovels. And while I don't have any hard numbers to back this up, I'm convinced men make superior superheroes, look better in tuxedos and make razor stubble sexy. I have never met the woman who can pull that off.

New Hallmark sympathy cards to offer solace to people whose friends are lame enough to actually send one of Hallmark's job loss sympathy cards.

Other ideas for specialty sympathy cards being batted around Hallmark Inc. headquarters:

Pending Indictment - Thinking of You, But In No Way is the Enclosed Cash Intended to Influence Your Decision Re: naming of co-conspirators

Your Nude Photos Just Went Viral - Cheer Up: It's Nothing that 10 Years and a Pricey Public Relations Firm Can't Mitigate Somewhat

Caught cheating on your wife - We Never Really Liked that Bitch! Best of Luck in the Property Settlement.

Rejected College Application - Acceptance Coming to terms is the first step toward moving on.    

Lab results indicate a STD -  Stay Positive. Just Kidding! But seriously, laughter is the best medicine.

Foreclosure -  Hope this Card Reaches You in Time to Extend Our Condolences! 

I know how she does it. She signs permission slips in the shower.

Multitasking Like a Mother

1. Get up, shower and get dressed during last stages of REM sleep.   

2. Finish last minute paperwork while showering. 

3. Check e-mails while you brush your teeth.  

4. Call to wish Mother-in-law happy birthday while answering work-related e-mails. Answer personal e-mails while making work-related phone calls.

5. Fold laundry while exercising.

6. Skip exercise while allowing laundry to pile up.

7. Make mental to-do lists while having sex. Have sex while making dinner.

8. Synchronize orgasm with oven timer.    

9. Get a head start on last minute homework assignments by losing your cool now.

10. Deliver the "Now you tell me?" speech in the car on the way to Office Depot.

 

from the Multitasking archives: I only make it look easy.

Coach: Babies on track to somersault in 2011

I know, I should have sent a postcard or brought you back a t-shirt or something, but lower north Florida is a little short on gift shops. Also, I didn't know your size.    

And there were so many, many people who needed my attention. Not to mention my expertise.

As the only adult member of my family who can make a margarita and do a perfect cartwheel,  I am in constant demand from the minute my plane lands.

Here I am leading one of my happy hour gymnastic classes.

Somebody, usually one of the children, is always having a little problem with their handstands, while somebody else, generally one of the adults, has a batch of ripe mangoes and a bottle of tequila that they cannot figure out what to do with. 

Mangoes! Children! Florida is overrun with them.

 

The littlest ones cannot even manage a somersault on their own. And they are years aways from being old enough to use the blender. 

It is a lot to take on.

But as the family's only gymnast-bartender, it falls to me. 

And little wonder. More than 30 years since my Nadia Comaneci obsession spawned a competitive gymnastics career that netted me one shining yellow moment on the third place podium, I've still got it.

The ribbon, I mean.

The babies never quite managed to complete a somersault, but it was not for lack of mangoes coaching.

She also has no idea where the liquor came from and she's going to clean her room right after the next commercial.

More than 1,500 partiers showed up to help a German girl celebrate her 16th birthday after she posted an open invitation on Facebook in what news reports describe as an "accident."  As in, it was accidentally the most awesome party ever.

Phoning-It-In Friday

So yeah. I've got nothing. I'm not going to make any excuses. 

But if I were, I'd make them in the form of a top 10 list, like this:

Top Ten Excuses for Lack of Fresh Laundry Writing

10. I've been really sort of busy. Kind of.

9. You have no idea how many times a day I am interrupted by teenagers who just-this-minute realized they are in urgent need of a haircut. Why the hell are you in my office at 11:30 a.m.? Didn't high school used to last all day?

8.  New Daniel Craig movie trailer has me rethinking my short-term goals.

7.  Effort to master all 854 French verb tenses has left me, how do you say? - struggling, with the English.

6.  New editor expects all of my sentences to make sense, read forward and backward. 

5.  Opening of margarita season has people dropping by at all hours expecting restaurant quality cocktails. Hello? Do you people think limes just grow on trees?

4.   Last week of school + first week of sun = last chance to read Hemingway on the deck before it snows again.

3.   New issue of Scientific American Mind: What was I thinking? I haven't even finished old New Yorker.

2.   Discovery of Finnish consulate in my neighborhood reminds me that I have not yet finnished my novel. Or the laundry.   

1.   Last day of school only 15 minutes long. House filling up with teenagers. Must explore Finnish asylum opportunities. 

Seven things I like about you

Now I have to share the limelight. 

So, you know who else is versatile? That guy over at Ducks Mahal. He cooks, he writes music and he hatches ducklings from scratch. If he were married to a cowboy, he'd be the Pioneer Woman.   

As for Style, this woman has more than her fair share. And she is already kind of a celebrity so she doesn't really need any more limelight. Also, I kind of resent her and not just because she has more nail polish than I do. She also has way better hair.

Still, there's style there, no question. She is also very funny, but happily, I am not required to acknowledge that with an award. I am not that big a person.   

You know who else has style?  Jess. Seriously. You can tell just by looking at her that her house is ready to be photographed for the Crate & Barrel catalog, no matter when the photographer shows up. How she does it with all the kids, dogs, hamsters, birds and in-laws roaming around, I do not know. She wears opera gloves in the kitchen. 

For versatility with nouns and verbs, you can't go wrong with Mommy's Martini, Anne Nahm, Whiskey in My Sippy Cup and the inimitable Bossy, whose expertise goes from A to Zumba, with about a million stops in between.

I must remember to ask her where the idea of  "limelight" even comes from. It doesn't sound like it would be all that flattering.

I am also supposed to tell you seven things about me. But I am not good at following directions. So there's one.  -SK

Style. Versatility. Laundry. It's all here. Except that nobody has ever given me an award for laundry.

What to make of this? The author of the "worst blog ever" has given me an award for blogging style and versatility. I don't know exactly what it means, but it's hard to argue with her. I am all over versatility. And style? I don't know anyone else who spends as much time in heels doing other people's laundry and dirty dishes.

It is the product of an overly optimistic sense of how the day will unfold. It is the product of other people's failure to do their own fucking laundry and wash their own goddamn dishes. It is a message to those other people: Mommy's delusional going places.

It's just a PTA meeting, but still. 

  Related: I get to bestow the honors:  Seven Things I Like About You

Celebrity baby trends we can't get enough of:

10 Reasons Celebrity Kids are Cuter than Yours

10. Advances in in-utero cosmetic surgery

9.   Nannies recruited from high-end makeup counters.

8.   South Beach Diet infant formula

7.   Christian Dior diapers

6.   Celebrity breeding program carefully managed to block character actor gene. 

5.   Baby spa treatments take all the stress out of teething, terrible twos, preschool. 

4.   All-over tanning salons eliminate unsightly diaper lines. 

3.   Luxury strollers equipped with professional lighting.

2.   Photoshopping done by Lucasfilms Ltd.'s Industrial Light & Magic.  

1.   Sperm and egg required to audition. No exceptions.

Photo: No such thing as a bad hair day at Celebrity Elementary School.

 

from the Reasons Why archives: 25 Reasons You May Not Reach Silver Anniversary

Like you have a better system

People are always asking me, "SK, how do you manage to do it all?" 

As if I have time to answer questions like that!  But what choice do I have? (Which coincidentally, is also the answer.)

Even so, you've got to have a system.

If you are a man, or a teenager, this can be as simple as manipulating the biological impulses of your closest female relatives, whose genetic makeup predisposes them to do it all for you.

But for me, this means Post-It notes. By which I mean any rectangularly-shaped scrap of paper that can be adhered to every surface in my range of vision.

The best thing about this system is the way in which reminders can be used to trigger other reminders in an Inception-like layer of redundancy; a yellow Post-It above my desk reminds me to find some notes that would not even be missing right now if I had remembered to tape them to my desk. If that is not proof of the beauty of this system I don't know what it is!

I'm not saying it's perfect. As with any system, there are occasional breakdowns.

The small purple reminder I left to remind myself  "March 17" is, I'll admit, something of a mystery, but at least I know when it is due. In my line of work that is really the important thing.

The point is, I have made myself a note to take it down by next week, when whatever it was won't matter anyway. Which works out perfectly because next week is going to be five different colors of impossible.  

 

from the Mother of Invention archives: Patent pending, Einstein's Mommy

Sh*t your Ken doll says

It took them half a century but the people at Mattel finally figured out that a plastic six-pack and a pair of shiny plastic biceps could not make up for the fact that when it came to talking to women, Ken was in way over his plastic head.

It wasn't entirely his fault. Ken was cast in the role of a character actor; built to disappear into whatever story line generations of girls could project onto him.

On his own, however, Ken fell into the same plastic traps over and over again.

"Does this dress make me look fat?" asked College Barbie. "Do you think my friends are pretty?"

"Have you given any thought to where this is going?" asked Late Twenties Barbie. "Do you see yourself ever having children?"

"Is that what you're wearing?" Early Thirties Barbie wanted to know. "Are those really your friends?"

Late Thirties Barbie was relentless: "Where are the fucking juiceboxes? Did you remember to buy diapers? Did you have a good sleep?"

Decade by decade, Ken made the mistake of taking each query at face value.  Sadly, just when Ken had started to pick up on the existence of subtext, Over-40 Barbie had pretty much stopped talking to him to altogether.

But thanks to a little microphone near his heart, three buttons on his back and the ability to play back a recorded message, the newest Ken on the shelf can look forward to a lifetime of doll-wooing in which all of his lines will be fed to him in 5-second bursts of exactly what she wants to hear.

"Sweet Talking Ken" can't lose! He will always know the right thing to say: "Instead of badgering you for sex this morning, Late Thirties Barbie, I'm taking the kids to the park. Why don't you sleep in a little?"

All of which has got to feel a little unfair to Old Ken, not that we will ever know. He doesn't really like to talk about his feelings.

 

From The Secret Life of the Suburban Man Archives:   Home Improvement Television

The Complaint Department, Oscar Edition

I wake up to find this in my inbox:

"The SK has nothing to say about the Oscars? Tap tap tap....just waiting for the SK to tell me what I should wear, what party to attend, with whom, and which movies make the cut...You can’t just leave green jello up all week.  People get bored.  They topple governments."

Can you believe it? It's now my fault that people are rioting against the government in the Middle East and Wisconsin.

I may have stirred things up a little bit in the cheese state, but honestly, I have never even been to Tunisia.

Just because I have a lot of shoes doesn't mean you can lay everything at my feet.

On the other hand, I suppose the Jell-O cup is getting a little stale. Not literally. Literally, it looks completely unchanged. In any civilized place, like the Greater Miami-Fort Lauderdale Area, that cup would be an ant planet by now, complete with its own Dolce & Gabbana and a walk-in plastic surgery center.

My point is, I welcome your complaints and I admit I have left you hanging a little bit on the whole Oscars thing.  So just to clear that up:  I will be wearing Gap. Corduroy, of course, but with lots of chunky jewelry and my rhinestone-adorned Infinity Scarf. Because otherwise, what the hell did I buy that thing for?

Honestly, sometimes I look in my closet and I think, whose life is this? Because I spent pretty much the entire week wearing the same pair of gray corduroys and a black t-shirt.  And there are at least three Oscar-caliber dresses hanging in there.

Then I remember, it's aspirational. If Ari Emanuel calls with an invitation, I won't even have to think about what I'm going to wear.  

As for the movies themselves, I will be booing loudly at any mention of the word "Inception," because an endless series of car chases and explosions taking place inside a dream, inside a movie, is just as boring as an endless series of car chases and explosions taking place anywhere else inside a movie.  The correct answer is Winter's Bone. 

But while we're on the subject of complaints can I just say that I have been really, really busy?  No?

The truth is, there are weeks where I just don't have enough time for you. But it's not because I don't care. It's because I do.

Every single SK post goes through a rigorous process of quality assurance. You would not believe how much time I spend on things like hyphens. That is how I know that the trademarked brand of gelatin dessert has one. There is also fact-finding followed by fact checking.  That is how I know that the gelatin dessert on the window sill in my daughter's room is not actually Jell-O at all. Then there is the process by which I decide to call it Jell-O anyway, because "gelatin dessert" sounds like something some asshole in the Kraft public relations department would write. 

There are also, sadly, stretches during which I am not in the least bit funny. I swear. You can ask my family!  Sometimes I use this time to write stories for other less funny publications. Then, exactly at the point at which these stories are due, I return to SK with a vengeance that is known as "procrastination." 

I could write an entire screenplay in one sitting with a deadline for something else hanging over me.  And it would still be better than Inception.

 
Photo: Oscar night at the Kamikaze house.

Prose and eros

I would like to be able to show you the slutty new tattoo* I am sporting as a Valentine's Day surprise for Mr. Kamikaze, but I can't.

And not just because I didn't get one.

I also didn't get one in a place you can't show on public radio, if you know what I mean.

But seriously. I am actually here to talk about books. 

Not here. Here.

I only used that whole slutty tattoo business to rope you in. It's an old trick and I take no credit for it. But I'm not going to apologize for something that you fall for every single time! You are practically asking for it.

But wait!  Not just any books. These are sexy books. Books to read between the sheets even.

And if there is anything better than getting into bed with a fresh stack of books, then I am not the Internet's foremost authority on sex and/or laundry.

*As for the tattoo, I had envisioned something guaranteed to make Mr. Kamikaze's heart pound with excitement. Upon further reflection, and with a writer's keen instincts for unintentional irony, I decided against having "Antiques Roadshow" emblazoned across my collectibles.

Happy Valentine's Day.

-SK

From the Valentine archives: Sex in the Suburbs

The backup plan

Mr. Kamikaze and I have an ongoing debate on the subject of driving in reverse.

He is of the opinion that I am doing it all wrong. I am of the opinion that passengers being chauffeured to the train station should walk keep their opinions to themselves.

But it is more than academic now that Boy, Esq. is learning to drive.

This is a stage of parenting in which unresolved marital issues tend to resurrect themselves like zombie pedestrians in the crosswalk.

Leaving aside his refusal to acknowledge the number of times over the years in which I have saved our lives by pointing out his errors from the passenger seat, the bottom line is this:

I spend as much time backing out of the driveway in a day as certain train-riding people spend behind the wheel all month.

It begins at 5:30 a.m. and continues throughout the day, under conditions certain train-riding people could not imagine. I back up in good weather and bad - a distinction so marginal as to be practically meaningless in Chicago.  I back up before I have brushed my teeth or my hair and again afterward. I back up while reciting the daily schedule, arguing about chores and handing out lunch money. Some days I back up in the process of discovering I have no money. Then I have to back up while writing a check. 

I back up by myself and I back up with a passenger load of middle school girls so loud you can almost hear them over the blaring Justin Bieber soundtrack. I back up while turning the radio down; I back up threatening to turn it off.     

So when Mr. Kamikaze tells me I am doing it wrong because my head is turned over my left shoulder instead of over my right, I laugh so hard I nearly back up into the garbage cans.  

 

From the Other Stuff I am Right About archives: "Missing" soy sauce discovered in refrigerator exactly where wife said it would be, A palm tree means never having to say you're sorry

The first cut is the D list

I am prepared to swallow my pride and accept that a part-time career as a journalist and shallow humor writer does not qualify me as a literary critic. Still it stings when the Macbeth paper I edit for my son's 10th grade English class is returned with a D.

In my defense, it was honors English and I've never read Macbeth, so probably that works out to more like a C+ when you factor that in. Or rather, when in you factor that.  (Or is it "whom?" I can never keep those straight.)

My point is, I'd like to see his English teacher try to write a coherent story in 15 minutes with an editor standing over his shoulder screaming "15 minutes ago, lame ass," and the ballots are not even all counted! and the phone is ringing with a call he has to take or he won't be able to finish his other story which is due seven minutes after the first one and the only thing he's had to eat all day is Cheez-Its.

Whatever. I am prepared to cede the point when it comes to Shakespeare.

But the next assignment? A parody of a news story. And  I don't like to brag, but I have been writing news parodies for decades, sir. Sometimes even on purpose.

I pass on to my son a bit of the craft, the word play, the deft substitution of the ridiculous for the absurd. His piece, in which House Republicans draft a proposal to repel health care, makes me laugh. It's good, I tell him. But what do I know? 

It comes back with the word "repel" repeatedly crossed out. Above the first one, the teacher has written "repeal" in red ink.

Now my son is convinced that his mother could not even pass tenth grade English.

"Honors English," I say.  Because how hard could the other class be?

 

From the literary archives: A Stapler of One's Own, All's well that ends mostly well, Portrait of the agent as a young man

"Worthless Blather" would be a great name for a cocktail

Ever since I read the letter that  hangs outside the theater door at The Second City in Chicago, I have pined for a heckler of his caliber.

Michael J. Morris of Minneapolis was so peeved after seeing a Second City show" (the quotation marks are his) in 2009, that he immediately typed out the five paragraph letter of complaint that sits behind glass near the upstairs bar, where Kevin makes a very nice Margarita. Not too sweet.

Morris' rant is one of the most passionate works of scolding you will ever read. You can almost see the little beads of indignation-inspired sweat hanging just above his upper lip as he types.

"Your humor is stupid, childish and without any reason for being," Morris fumes. "I found about five percent of your material only slightly humorous. The rest of it was worthless blather, filled with cheap profanity and tasteless sexual slurs."

Morris is no fool. He knows that cheap profanity and tasteless sexual slurs are comedy gold, even in Minnesota. But he is drawing a line in the hard, frozen, earth.

"You people will go on making your crappie little money with your crass, ridiculous, asinine excuse for humor. I'll stay the way I am," he vows. "Second City; I'd call you Second Pity. Because you are pitiful."

Morris could have left it right there. As an expression of contempt, you can't do much better than "pitiful." That "pity" rhymes with city was just a stroke of luck.

But Morris knew that no self-righteous rant would be complete without an answer to the question: Why the fuck should I care what Michael J. Morris finds offensive?

Why should you care? Michael J. Morris will tell you why: "Because of sick, morally unconscious people like you this country is headed for collapse."

It's not just unfunny. It's unfunny enough to bring down a country.

So when D. "Ballbuster" Bennett referred to my work recently as "inane bullshit", it was a little disappointing. It's accurate as far as it goes, but it just feels like the effort isn't there. Especially from someone who wants us to believe that people call him "Ballbuster."

John Smug-something goes a little further, but still falls short of the Michael J. Morris Gold Standard. "Why is NPR posting this drivel?" he writes. "I suggest you leave the purveying of "humor" to people that are funny."

I give you "credit" for the ironic quotation marks John, but still.

Michael J. Morris does the math.

Photo: Michael J. Morris is just getting warmed up, by Rick McCawley

State of the Laundry

The state of the laundry is a disgrace frankly.

But something in the Constitution I believe, requires us to address this from time to time. Or possibly I am thinking of the Health Code.

Either way, it's not like anyone else is going to do it. Please don't even pretend that is not your wet towel on the floor.

Trust me, a bipartisan crackdown is coming. Left or right, there is no excuse for our failure to get both socks into the washing machine at the same time.  

We are serious. The days of sternly worded Post-it notes in rainbow colors are over.  From now on, they will all be yellow.

Mark my words. Or read the full text of my address to the nation at NPR.org

Because vajazzling is so 2010

If there is one complaint I hear everywhere in the Midwest these days it is this: it is so hard to keep up with the latest in vaginal grooming trends.  

By the time Garfield's co-star is sporting the latest in lower deck ornamentation youv'e got to figure things have pretty much run their course.   

No one wants to be the last one at the pool party to figure out that, Hello? We're all growing our hair out now.  

Which is why I have developed my own System for Keeping Up With the Latest in Fashion, Cultural and Grooming Trends:  I make them up.

It's true. In fact, the next Big Thing in Waxing, coming soon to a salon near you, just came to me in the course of a brief, but awkward conversation with a man who answered the phone at my salon.

SK:  I'd like to make an appointment with Lenore next week for a bikini wax.

Strange Man:  Is that a Brazilian or a regular?

SK:  In between.

Strange Man: (Awkward Pause #1) I don't know what that means.

SK: (Awkward Pause #2) Yes, but she does.

Strange man: Uh. Well...

SK:  It's not quite a Brazilian. It's like halfway. What would that be, Venezuela? I'm not very good at geography.

Strange man: Um.

SK:  Maybe Puerto Rico? Although when I think of the Brazilian, I always think Rio, which is a lot further south ... so Barbados maybe? Trinidad?

Strange man:  Uh. How does next Wednesday sound?

 

Photo: The Venezuelan. Duh.

From the Beauty archives: The underachiever's guide to beauty

The Naked Book Club, by S. Kamikaze

It is no secret to those of us who have never had a life-changing relationship with a dog, or whose parents did not accomodate our literary ambitions with dramatic forms of abuse, that the road to writing success runs straight through the bedroom.     

Which is as it should be, certainly. You don't have any business as a novelist if you can't write between the sheets.         

Happily it's a proposition that can be reduced to a simple formula.

I learn this in a Chicago Tribune story about playwright Laura Eason, whose play "Sex With Strangers" both incorporates and unfolds by this contrivance, as expressed by the following equation:

Sexy Title + Hot Characters + Topical Subject + Literary References + Big Twist = Your Name on A Book Jacket and/or Theater Marquee  

Could this be any easier?

I have sketched out three novels before I even finish the story: 

Sex With Delivery Men:  Merry Getlucky is a bored 32-old housewife with Facebook friends in two cities, perfect breasts and a Charles Dickens crush no living man can compete with.  Then along comes a mysteriously seductive UPS guy with her latest Amazon package and a big brown truck full of Expectations. Now she's ordering books she has no intention of reading, trapped in a box of her own making.    

Hard Drive:  Holly Bytes is a 24-year-old computer hacker whose perfect breasts mask a heart hardened by hard luck and hard men until the day she stumbles over a power cord in the library computer room, erasing all traces of a handsome literature student's graduate thesis. But when she offers to help him recover his files, she stumbles upon a shocking secret: Ulysses is unreadable.   

The Naked Book Club: The members of Hollywood High School's Jane Austen Book Club have a terrible secret and it's not just that they're vampires who look like Abercrombie & Fitch models.  They haven't read a single book all year. So how is it they know so much about Persuasion?  

The Naked Book Club Part II: Still Naked: What has happened to all the cheerleaders?

Lightly scented ginger rebuke

It is nothing really.

A few bars of seasonally scented soaps and body lotions.  A guest robe. Which is really soft and matches the decor, but still, it's just a bathrobe.

It is more than the Suburban Executive can take. Even as she massages ginger hand cream into her skin, its lightly-fragranced emollience feels like a rebuke.

"There must be five kinds of soap in here," she says, sliding her arms into the cloud of a robe.

"I can't help but feel that this is some kind of rebuke."

"Don't be silly," I tell her. Just having toilet paper would be a rebuke.

It is true that bathrooms at the Executive's house are sometimes lacking in "amenities." But that is part of the adventure charm bathroom. One of the first things I do after arriving there is make phone calls from the guest bathroom to other friends.

"Oh my god," I say. "All the towels are on the floor. Also? I am pretty sure these are the beach towels we left here last summer."

Housekeeping is a very low priority for the Executive. You don't get to where she is in the high-powered world of not-yet-bankrupt news publications by impressing people with the grade of toilet paper in your guest bathroom. What's weird is that she seems to have passed the same priorities on to her housekeeper.  

But these are the things that make her house as familiar to me as my collection of too many opened cereal boxes in the pantry is to her. She spends hours trying to impose a little order in my kitchen only to return to find that I have somehow accumulated 15 jars of dijon mustard. Again.

The point is, there is comfort in familiarity even if there is too much mustard and no towels. I am not talking about literal comfort, of course. There is nothing comfortable about trying to dry yourself off after a shower with the little pack of Kleenex from your purse.  Now that I think about it, that is not the point at all.     

But I can't imagine staying at her house and finding things like soap, towels, toilet paper or a working light fixture in the bathroom. It would feel like I didn't really know her anymore.  Which, sure, would probably feel okay for a minute or two, especially right after a shower, but later on, certainly, it would feel bad. 

My point is, friendship is not about the number of kinds of soap in your bathroom or the softness of your towels.  But it doesn't hurt to have a couple of extra jars of dijon mustard on hand.   

Oh 2010, we were just getting used to you

Worst Celebrity Baby Trend of 2010: All of them.

Most Annoying Justin Bieber song of 2010: All of them.

Decorating Trend That Totally Fucked Us Over:  The Return of Pink Bathrooms. 

Shoe Trend We Totally Fell For: All of Them, but especially, all of them.

Fashion Trend We Totally Rocked No Matter What Our Husband Said: Corduroy, but also, all of them.

Fashion Trend We Were Convinced We Rocked Even Though We Were Really About 10 Years Too Old to Pull it Off:  I'm sorry? 

Best Red Wine of 2010: All of them.

Song We Danced to Way Too Much Even When We Heard it In the Grocery Store: All of them.

2010 Date Nights That Included a Stop At Home Depot:  All of them.  

Most Appalling Thing We Did This Year According to Our Teenagers:  All of the above. 

Number of 2011 Resolutions Aimed at Defending "Most Embarrassing Mom Ever" Title:  All of them. Duh.

 

Photo: Ringing in the New Year with an Authentic Midwestern Hamball

Just don't care now available in family size box

From the just-don't-care archives: The secret is pretending to care

As to rumors that I will spend Halloween sitting on the front steps dressed as Pussy Galore and handing out candy cigarettes to the neighborhood children...

That is ridiculous. It has always been my practice to walk around. I will leave the cigarettes in a bowl outside.

 

There is only one rule in our house. As soon as I remember what it is, someone is going to be in a lot of trouble.

Nothing. It's what's for dinner.

More recipes from the Not Cooking archives: Like "Julie and Julia" only with bigger pots

The Secret Ingredient is Spite, Having a Ball in the Midwest

This week in Cheese

I haven't even shaken the sand out of my suitcase when the invitation comes to pack it up again.

The South Side girl is headed to Lake Geneva with a trio of 12-year-old girls and wants some drinking age company to offset the Justin Bieber soundtrack.

I really should get back to work but I have never been to Switzerland, so how can I say no?

It turns out that Lake Geneva is actually in Wisconsin, which is way closer. And full of cheese. I am a fan of cheese, so there is one more obvious reason to put off my return to bra-wearing the non-vacation life.

Besides, short notice cheese tourism is one of the few benefits of earning your living as a secret agent figure skater sketch comedy writer and freelance journalist. And by "earning a living" I mean making enough money to buy truck stop cheese in the shape of Wisconsin. Because that is how cheese tourism is done.

There is also a cheese wine, but the South Side girl shakes her head so violently when I pick it up that I have to return the bottle to the shelf.  Now, as you can imagine, I am kicking myself.  It would have made a nice entry in the wine log next to Key Lime and Mango Mama - two sentimental favorites.

She makes it up to me later by taking me out for better wine and coaching me on the art of picking up sailors.  I get one on my first try. He is just a cartoon sailor, but it's a start. 

Saving the earth, one load of teenage laundry at a time

Trust me, there is nothing in artist Alma Loveland's interpretation of laundry know-how that is going to get my teenager to do his own laundry from start to finish.

For one thing, it's way too complicated.  Lint removal?  The pretreating of stains? You may as well include the instructions for launching the space shuttle. Or loading the dishwasher.

But it's an inspired piece of artwork, commissioned as part of Blogher's Voices of the Year project, that captures perfectly the aspirations of parenthood:  One day he will have his own children and they will leave wet towels all over his floors.    

It could also help clean up a much bigger mess than the one in the laundry room. It's up for auction with all proceeds going to the The Nature Conservancy for the benefit of the Gulf of Mexico.   

 
 An Open Letter of Apology to My Future Daughter-in-Law

Our pursuit of unshaven men takes a harrowing turn

It may have been my idea. Who can pinpoint the exact moment an idea takes shape?

But if I am going down for the crime of having dragged everyone into the theater that evening, I am taking A.O. Scott down with me. It was Mr. Scott who wrote the New York Times review that led me to believe that Eat, Pray, Love, the movie, was more than the sum of its verbs.

Here is the excerpt from his review that stayed with me: "... insouciant, unshaven charm"  Also: "Javier Bardem"

Which pretty much sums up this movie except for the other 135 minutes from which all charm has been completely exfoliated.

The result is a movie-going experience so numbingly awful that I begin to see literary potential in the two hours and 10 minutes I spent waiting for my luggage to arrive. 

We are a few days into the South Florida leg of Margarita Tour 2010 when we are brought low by our faith in New York Times movie reviews and a weakness for unshaven men.  

All my friends and I can do is exchange stares of disbelief as we shamble toward the theater exits like shipwreck survivors.  

As is so often the case, the first thought that pops into my head is a selfless one: We must warn the others.

"Oh my god," I say. "We are about to do the Executive the biggest favor ever."  

This stops the Litigator in her tracks. "No," she says firmly. "We are not."

She is right of course.  If there is one ironclad rule of Girls Night Out, other than the two-drink minimum, it is this: conspiracies against absent posse members are to be encouraged.  

And so we feel compelled to convince the Executive that Eat, Pray, Love is not a two hour and 20 minute Hallmark card read aloud over a lunch of cafeteria spaghetti.  

It might have worked if not for the fact that the first opportunity falls to The Psychologist, who is prone to bouts of empathy and cannot bring herself to follow through.   

Also, the Executive is no fool. If it is so good, she counters, why not see it again with her? 

But no vacation is long enough for that. 

Photo: At 2 hours and 10 minutes running time, Sit, Wait, Trudge explores one woman's quest for the perfect carry-on.

Am I the only one who hated this movie?

I am my mother's daughter

She would really like it if I got into the habit of making my bed and stopped swearing so much.

She doesn't like the way I drive. And would it kill me to wear a little lipstick once in a while?

She has tried to impress upon me the power of positive thinking. "If you believe that a 15-year-old is going to be good company, he will be..." and other stuff like that.

This makes me laugh so hard I almost spill my margarita.

But laughing so hard I almost spill my margarita? I get that from her.

Photo: Not your grandma's grandma.

More questions than answers in my refrigerator