My kids’ new favorite song, by Joe Nichols.

Peace Frog
the Doors

“There’s blood in the streets, it’s up to my ankles
She came
There’s blood on the streets, it’s up to my knee
She came
Blood on the streets in the town of Chicago
She came
Blood on the rise, it’s following me
Think about the break of day
She came and then she drove away
Sunlight in her hair
She came
Blood in the streets runs a river of sadness
She came
Blood in the streets it’s up to my thigh
She came
Yeah the river runs down the legs of the city
She came
The women are crying red rivers of weepin’
She came into town and then she drove away
Sunlight in her hair
Indians scattered on dawns highway bleeding
Ghosts crowd the young child’s fragile eggshell mind
Blood in the streets in the town of New Haven
Blood stains the roofs and the palm trees of Venice
Blood in my love in the terrible summer
Bloody red sun of phantastic l.a.
Blood streams her brain as they chop off her fingers
Blood will be born in the birth of a nation
Blood is the rose of mysterious union
There’s blood in the streets, it’s up to my ankles
Blood in the streets, it’s up to my knee
Blood in the streets in the town of Chicago
Blood on the rise, it’s following me”

Oh God said to Abraham, “Kill me a son”
Abe says, “Man, you must be puttin’ me on”
God say, “No.” Abe say, “What?”
God say, “You can do what you want Abe, but
The next time you see me comin’ you better run”
Well Abe says, “Where do you want this killin’ done?”
God says, “Out on Highway 61.”

Highway 61 Revisited
Bob Dylan

That isn’t my God, that God, by the by. My God is a friendlier, more compassionate, Higher Spirit kind of being. I haven’t written much about My Life as a Sunday School Teacher, have I now? You interested? (My sister: “No.” Hangs up phone.) How about school politics? (Picks up the phone, then slams it down.) I like teaching, and I especially liked it this past Sunday when one of my students, who showed up for the first lesson and hasn’t been spotted since (is it something I said?) showed up, smiley, knowing that I would remember him.

(I did.)

We talked about Sophia Fahs. Next week I’m teaching the lesson — it’s about Beatrix Potter. Both Unitarian girls. For snack, we always always always serve tangerines. Always.

And now, from the Q&A bag…

Advice Column for Wacky Mothers & Others
Dear everyone, I am not a trained professional; please seek help from a medical professional if and when you need it. Be well!

Dear Wacky Mommy:

Please help with any ideas you moms might have. My 6 yr. old daughter is the worlds pickiest eater, she only eats bagels, doritos, pizza, vanilla yogurt, pepperidge farm fishies, steak, and just recently discovered Bologna.

Signed,
HELP!!!!

Dear HELP!!!!:
Give the kid some steak. Steak is good food! Unless you’re eating with my three vegetarians, in which case you’d hear, Ew, that’s from a COW? You killed a cow? Did you know you’re eating… Etc. So tiresome. Bologna? Not such a healthy choice, but an okay snack. Doritos? Do not keep Doritos in the house, thus they cease to become an option.

(I’m trying this strategy on fruit leather, cereal bars, candy and cookies, wish me luck.) Vanilla yogurt and pizza are two of our four food groups around here. I would try buying healthy stuff, as healthy as possible, and remembering this: It’s your job to fix the food; it’s her job to eat it.

Don’t worry, she won’t starve to death.

The eating issues drive me nuts, too. You’re not alone.

Love,
WM

Next?

Dear Wacky:
I have a cubicle neighbor who eats lunch at his desk and smacks his lips. It just totally grosses me out. The smell of his cheap microwave food is bad enough, but to hear the smack smack smack that goes with it is just too much. It’s not loud, or anything, and I imagine he’s completely unaware anybody can hear him.

To make matters worse, he always eats early, around 11:30, so I’m almost always at my desk. I’ve taken to putting on headphones and listening to music while he eats, but I don’t like having to do this.

Should I confront him about this? If so, what should I say? Or should I just ignore it and do the headphone thing?

Sincerely,
Grossed-Out by Lip Smackers

Dear Grossed-Out:
It’s always about the food around here, isn’t it? Honestly, I cannot think of a tactful way to tell someone “Stop smacking.” Unless you yell, “Stop smacking!” over the wall, but I would die of embarrassment if someone did that to me, wouldn’t you?

Wear headphones, or take an earlier lunch. Maybe take a break during his mealtime? Is he a fast eater, or a lingerer? Work: All of the same dilemmas and quandaries as home, but you have to obey some invisible code of respect. Even though “We’re family! We’re a work family!” Well, no. Not really. At home we just yell, “Stop smacking!” and call it a day.

Good luck.

Warmly,
WM

Wacky Girl’s song from 5/14/02 (age 2 1/2):

“Mommy says no/
me say YES!/
Mommy says no/
me say YES!”

I’ve like, lost my mind. I know, I know, you’re all, “Again? Or still?”

I bought a KISS CD today. Right. Cuz I’m 12 again, at a KISS show at the Memorial Coliseum, with Cheap Trick opening, and I’m wearing tiny little cut-offs and a baby tee and I’m like SCREAMING AT THE TOP OF MY LUNGS and like, banging my head.

Cuz I was such a little rocker you have no idea. That was my first concert, I’m not kidding you. My poor mother. (She called KISS and Rush “HISS and hush.)

I’m all, “get up! and get your grandma out of here!” Only I’ve listened to Lenny Kravitz’s version of Deuce so many times that listening to KISS, I’m all — “Huh. This is what it sounds like when they do their own song? Huh.”

“…tells me what i’ve got to do/I’ve got to/GET UP!” (Detroit Rock City.)

(KISS is all about getting it up.)

(It would appear.)

(Not that I’m trying to analyze KISS lyrics, for fuck’s sake.)

My teenage boyfriend, Chad, went into a blind rage one day, I don’t know what the hell was up with him. He’d misplaced his retainer again or something. And he smashed all his KISS albums. Then he suggested I smash mine, because, “It felt so good to smash the shit out of those albums.” Me: “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

One of the boys in my seventh-grade class had a big crush on me and he wrote out the lyrics to “Beth” on his desk, only he wrote “Nance” instead of “Beth.” I was like, uh, he’s kind of kooky?

I also bought Hannah Montana 2 for Wacky Girl. Next to KISS? Hannah Montana SUCKS!!!! (Don’t tell my daughter I said that.)

I think I need to get out of the house and into the air-conditioned car for awhile.

“And how in the world can the words that I said/
send somebody so over the edge/
that they’d write me a letter/
Sayin’ that I better shut up and sing/
or my life will be over”

— Not Ready to Make Nice
Dixie Chicks

I’ve loved the Dixie Chicks since the first time I heard “There’s Your Trouble” in 1998. My favorites for country music are… (more…)

My Easter greeting to you all:

“Daddy, what does regret mean?/
Well son, the funny thing about regret is/
it’s better to regret something you have done/
than to regret something you haven’t done/
And by the way, if you see your mom this weekend/
Be sure and tell her/
SATAN, SATAN, SATAN!!!”
— Butthole Surfers

A song, from Wacky Boy (do you think it will scar my kids, the way I follow them around with a notebook? I hope not):

“I’m a little person/
walking and flying/
I’m a little person/
that flies around/
I’m the one/
that is an airplane/
I’m the one/
that is a dog’s belly/
I’m the one/
that is a tomato/
I’m the one/
that likes to turn into a tomato/
a lizard/
on your head…”

I have to give you something here, because Jesus. It’s bad enough I’m miserable, and torturing myself, but I have to do the same to you? Misery loves company, or what? Nothing is making me feel better, not even making the Internet, my husband and my father-in-law cry (usually this would help, but noooooooooooo it’s not helping), but then I came across this. Which made me think of my boyfriend, circa 1989, and how he wanted to look just like Milli Vanilli. (Milli and Vanilli, I used to call them.) He even grew his hair long and had it corn-rowed (I found out later he slept with the hairdresser, a girl I worked with).

He was white. (Probably still is.)

With not that attractive of a face.

It was not such a good look for him.

Oh, what a loser.

“Honey, do you look at him now and say ‘What was I thinking?‘” my cousin asked me, in her Louisiana accent.

Yeah, and then some. He was also gay (or bi, who knows, and needed a pretty girl “cover” such as myself so no one would suspect.) Guess what? Everyone suspected. Or knew. Except me and his mother. And probably the hairdresser. So he didn’t want to just be Milli Vanilli, he wanted to be with Milli Vanilli.

I will not run his name here, but if you send me an e-mail I’ll send you his website. Where he claims to have graduated from Portland State. (He flunked out.)

Goddammit — I think this might make me feel better.

Ed. to say: Don’t get me wrong. I do not give a fig that he was queer. Be gay. Fly free, friend. Don’t worry, be happy. Just don’t be having sex with anonymous men in bathrooms hither and yon, as was the case here, I found out later, and then come home and stick it to me. Because I will not be happy with that. Also? His mother informed me awhile back, “He’s not gay anymore” and told me that he married a girl. Poor thing. Go light a candle for her, would you?

Also, if you’re asking himself, Wacky Mommy, how did the date end? I fell in love with someone else. He was 6’5″ tall (my ex was 5’6″, tops). He was a comfort to me. You know, as I rebounded.