(Photo by Steve Rawley.)

Misc. everything, by me, Wacky Mommy:

1) No one told me Will Smith and Jada Pinkett (soon to be not) Smith were divorcing. Explain yourselves, prettiest couple in the world next to President and Mrs. Obama.

2) Is it really necessary to make one movie, much less two, about the poor, sweet, late Linda Lovelace? Do all oppressed women everywhere a favor and skip the soon-to-be-released movies. Skip Deep Throat, too, if anyone happens to suggest that you view it together, for a little “fun.” Go read her autobiography/biography by Mike McGrady instead. Seriously. She was one of my heroes growing up, because she lived through her past. Rest in peace, hon.

3) The wild tom, Baby, is back at the vet. There goes another several hundred dollars that I don’t have. Love you, fluffy boy. Please stay healthy.

4) Tired today. Gardened and planted all weekend. It’s looking nice out there… Maybe Stevie will take some pictures this week for me to post.

5) My kid is getting some dental work done soon. Not so much fun. Send some good thoughts his way, would ya? Thanks.

6) Off to read now, and possibly write. No word from the vet about when Baby gets to come home. Soon, we hope. Well, our grouchy old-lady cat is glad he’s gone, but the other cat and I miss him.

7) I was thinking about this Goldschmidt situation a little more. How I feel about this can be best explained by Andrew McCarthy, telling off James Spader’s douchebag character, Stef, at the end of “Pretty in Pink.” (Somehow I never saw the movie — watched it with my daughter this weekend. It’s awfully good.) The douchebag has convinced his BFF, Blaine (played by McCarthy) that Molly Ringwald’s character is a poor, ugly, worthless slut, and that he shouldn’t date her. And like the big idiot that he is, Blaine listens to him. Then he wises up.

Blaine, to Stef: “You couldn’t buy her, though, that’s what’s killing you, isn’t it? Stef? That’s it, Stef. She thinks you’re shit. And deep down, you know she’s right.”

That’s what I’m saying. That’s what we all want, am I right here? For people to not think that we’re pieces of shit. For Goldschmidt, he can atone forever, but there is no hope for him. He is upset because he knows that Steve and I can’t stand him, and are calling him out for the child rapist asshole from hell that he is. So he needs to go climb back under his rock and stop re-traumatizing the rest of us by trying to crawl out again. Give up, already. Done.

For the rest of us? We all need to be a little more like Duckie, and a little less like James Spader. Or Charlie Sheen, as the case may be.

8) Just heard from the vet: The cat has cystitis. They’ll shoot him up with antibiotics and send him home with pain meds. Three hundred dollars, please. (Edited to say: Total was $353.13, and that included pain meds for him only, not me.)

all for now,

yours, as always,

wm

Man, I loved Tori Spelling’s memoir, “sTORI Telling.” Yes, she had a writer help her with it, but it’s her voice, her stories, all Tori, all the time. I love that girl. Yes, I was a big 90210 and Melrose Place fan, back in the olden days before there was high-def TV. Her dad was just a crazy writing, producing, Hollywood machine gun of a guy, and her mom is named Candy and loves to buy shit and… The Spellings are as close as we have to royalty in this country we call the U.S. of A., no? Steve and I think her husband, Dean McDermott, is funny as hell, too, cuz he played Stan Ryckman in one of our favorite TV shows ever, The Tournament. (It’s a Canadian show about hockey, it’s as if they designed it just for us.) I love those two, and their kids, and their other kids (their goats) and that’s all. xoxoxoxoxox to you and your family, Tori. Next?

Oh, yes. Next is the bad news. I tried to read Jeffrey Eugenides’s (“The Virgin Suicides”) latest, “The Marriage Plot.” Made it through the first 71 pages. Yeah, you “take a pee.” “One takes a pee.” “One uses the bathroom.” Whatever. (This is an “adult” book.) You do not “pee with taurine force” (p. 59.) (Yeah, your guess is correct. “Like a bull.”) You have breasts. You may even have pale breasts. But a “pale, quiet, Episcopalian breast”? (p. 71.) Now you’re just trying to show off wif your writing, boy. Eh.

Next? “Wildwood,” by Colin Meloy (from the band the Decemberists, and that one episode of the TV show “Portlandia”) and his lovely wolf, Carson Ellis. Was it named for Wildwood restaurant, the fancy-shmancy place in Northwest Portland? Maybe they like to eat there or something. I do not know. Oh! It’s named for the Wildwood Trail in Forest Park, no doubt. There you go.

I do love Ellis’s art — she has done illustrations for Lemony Snicket and Florence Parry Heide and (one of my favorites) Trenton Lee Stewart (“The Mysterious Benedict Society”). She, Meloy and their kid, who is, I’m sure, adorable, as kids usually are, live in Portland, Ore. They are referred to as “hipsters.” (Ellis-Meloy, that is.) Their young adult novel has been getting rave reviews and lots o’ press and wow, what a book, etc. Babies, all I could think about was “Portlandia,” and a ways into the book, I became convinced that Carrie Brownstein and Fred Armisen, who I know, I know, a lot of you find as adorable as the Ellis-Meloy kid is, no doubt… I started thinking that they wrote the book, even though of course they didn’t, it’s Mr. Meloy and Ms. Ellis’s book and chicken people, no, crows, crow people and St. Johns in North Portland oh-my-gawd it’s so hip I could die, and gah…

I’m telling you. Hell hath no fury like a native-born and -grown Portland girl who can’t live there anymore cuz it’s not her people anymore and…

Where was I? Oh, yeah. “What right do you have to even review books? Who are you, anyway, Little Miss Astor Butt?” That’s what my granny would say. Lotta nerve, you, thinking you’re a writer and book reviewer. I. Love. Books. I have a B.A. in English, I write and edit, my kids and husband are all big readers, I come from a family of big readers on both sides, mom’s and dad’s, and… right. I’m a librarian, too, in my free time. You know what a book needs to do? Move me. And these last two just didn’t, fancy words, gushing accolades, pretty covers, what have you. So gimme Tori Spelling. She’s funny, she’s real, and she’s not trying to impress me. She’s self-deprecating as hell. She does something kooky, things don’t turn out well, and she says, Surprise, surprise…

You can keep your hip references and wordy-wordiness, alright? Please, for the love of Mike, don’t be pretentious.

(PS — I purchased “Wildwood” for my kids. They do like Portlandia, but refuse to read this book that I plunked down $17.99 for. The other two I checked out from the library. No disclaimer needed. Although I did get hungry for apple pie, reading “The Marriage Plot.” Two of the characters are discussing when pie used to arrive with a slice of cheddar on top, yeah, I remember that, one of the characters says, followed by no, actually I don’t. So I put the books aside and baked a pie. It was delicious. So there’s my disclaimer.)

all for now,

wm

http://youtu.be/NpC-dZpD7eI

http://youtu.be/CH2KGboA35c

http://youtu.be/kTQrNQm3yZQ

i’m glad for music.

“I’m glad to be back in Folsom!” — June Carter Cash, on “Folsom Prison Blues.” And she meant it.

http://youtu.be/nzhzCF77GDo

i’ve been in better moods. my friend is gone — he was killed in a house fire on Sunday. his wife and their dog made it out okay. i am relieved for this, but still so messed up.

i don’t know why bad things happen to good people, but that just seems to be the way it goes.

miss you, Frank Morgan. you were a loyal friend and a gentleman, and you and your wife stood by me when I most needed a friend. thank you for that. i won’t say goodbye but I will say, I’ll see you, okay? OK.

— nancy

“To laugh often and much; To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; To earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; To appreciate beauty, to find the best in others; To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.”

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

edited on Sunday 10/9/11 to say, i cannot believe that my friend Frank M. is gone. what the hell??? what the fucking fuck, as my mom and my cat would say.