Oh no! Gang violence in Uptown!

I am so very sick of the whining class complaining about gangs in Uptown. Like it’s new. Frikkin’ morons. Gangs are not new to Uptown.

Young, affluent, white people are new in Uptown. People of color being out-numbered by comparatively rich people of Western-European heritage is pretty new in Uptown. White people with college educations whose sense of entitlement burns hot enough to power up their videocameras and blogs—they’re new in Uptown. I moved from Bucktown years ago to get away from the Children of Privilege. Now they’re making serious inroads in whitening up and riching up Uptown, and they’re not about to put up with the signs of social decay and violence that accompanies affordable housing in a capitalist society.

Nope. They want a good deal on a two-bedroom condo and ready access to cheap weed. But they don’t want the angry young black men on the corner who ensure real estate values stay low and the weed stays accessible.

Whom exactly did you think would be roaming the streets of your new neighborhood in the middle of the night? French investment bankers?

Did you not see the fairly pervasive tags spray-painted on the dumpsters behind your building when you were looking at apartments? Or did it never occur to you to look around those alleys? Or did you think that French investment bankers were tagging your garbage too?

(A moment of clairvoyance: Next year they just might discover that Uptown has rats too! And the local news shows will scramble to get footage of the rats shot by some concerned non-rat citizen.)

No, gangs are not new in Uptown and neither is Alderman Helen Schiller. She came in on the Harold Washington wave in 1987, during that brief period when Chicago was not a feifdom ruled by the Daley family. I am not particularly fond of Helen Schiller. As I am not fond of most of what passes for elected representatives in Chicago. But I have lived in this city long enough to know her legacy. She exhibits a lot less evidence of having been bought and paid for than most of those weasels in city government. She spent the 1990's as one of the few hold-outs among the city council representatives from the Northside against gentrification. This was not easy in the 1990's. She has represented the only remaining ward on the Red Line where the poor have not been entirely pushed out in favor of new, high-end residential development.

If you make under $80,000 per annum and live someplace that isn't a complete rat-hole in or near the 46th Ward, you pretty much have Helen to thank.

And the gang violence is not her fault. It’s yours. I mean, unless you’re doing something with your money and time besides shoveling it, respectively, into Starbucks and videotaping street-fights among people who don’t look very much like you at all. If you’re not doing something to invest in a more plausible future for boys who are not born into white privilege, then the gang violence is probably way more your fault than Helen’s.

Who do you not have to thank for the housing you can afford in Uptown? You could start with not thanking James Cappleman and Sandra Reed, two individuals who have been at the fore of recent media hoopla about all that nasty Reality keeps encroaching on the dream of making Uptown another Rich White Lakefront Neighborhood. (They also both happened to have run against Helen for her seat on the city council. But I'm sure this is not about politics. Right? Of course not.)

Helen brokered a deal for a new Aldi’s to open up in a neighborhood where affordable and nutritious food was becoming scarce. What’d you do last summer?

In point of fact, the crime rate is down in Uptown this summer. It’s the White rate that’s up. Enjoy your cheap weed.

Thank God for the Internet.

Linking random Family Circus cartoon panels with random Nietzsche quotes.

The Nietzsche Family Circus

"It is always consoling to think of suicide; in that way one gets through many a bad night."

Are we done yet?

Is it safe to watch the news again yet? Are we still poring over every scrap of effluvium spun from the life, career and death of Michael Jackson? Have we finished the post mortem that wouldn't die? Can we talk about something else now?

No?

Okay. I'll check back later then.

Pride.

Today was (Gay) Pride Day, a day I have to admit I enjoy because I like the feeling of being honored for, essentially, nothing. All I have to do is stay gay for this 24 hour period—not a particularly difficult task—and I get a day of my very own. Like St. Joseph or The Harlem Globetrotters or tweed.

And this year, Pride Day has the special distinction of being the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots. In the early morning hours of June 28, 1969, the massively corrupt New York City Police Department conducted yet another of their routine spurious raids on bars that served People Like Us. They typically justified themselves with trumped up claims of liquor license violations. Then they arrested the patrons (disproportionately hauling away and humiliating women and people of color-- whomever was less likely to have the resources to do anything about it). This time, though, they fought back in the streets of Greenwich Village.

Oddly, although this used to be mentioned a lot, I have heard nothing this year about the back story: It wasn’t just another ordinary summer of degradation for the gay boys and girls of Lower Manhattan. Judy Garland had just died earlier in the week. Her funeral was on June 27, 1969, a massive event that some consider to be, unofficially, to be the first real Gay Pride parade. And then, everyone retired to their bars after the funeral, to numb their pain with alcohol, as is only right.

When the police busted in, the Stonewall kids were noble in their decision to fight back, to be sure. They were fed up. But they were also really depressed. And really drunk. They summoned the courage to fight back—the courage that only comes from a combination of grief-fueled existential angst and a pitcher of Singapore slings.

So in a way, we might also call it Reckless, Drunk, and Belligerent Pride Day. Another day just for me!

That being said, I haven’t really participated in the Pride festivities for a few years. Somewhere along the line, I got it in my head that pride is a notion bound up with self-respect. And that there are probably other ways for me to manifest that quality besides public intoxication and having sex with strangers. Which, I’m told, not everyone does when they go to the Pride parade. But really, why else would you waste a Sunday morning watching a stupid parade unless public intoxication and the promise of sex with a stranger were involved? For brunch? I think not. This day might just as well be called Three Hour Wait for a Table Day.

There was a time when I wouldn’t have missed the parade for anything. When the partying started early and didn’t end until—well, I’m not sure exactly when it usually ended. I know how it usually ended though: Waking up on my bathroom floor around 10:00pm or so, the cat licking little dried bits of pride out of my hair, peering at me with a vague sense of disgust in his eyes.

Even today, disinterested as I was in the parade, I had an alienated feeling as I walked back from the grocery store. Like I was blowing off Christmas. It made me wonder what the lesbian equivalent of Jewish is. Probably Baptist. I wondered if I should go to church instead today.

But no. The only church I know where the services are short enough for me to tolerate is also a really gay church. They are, in fact, so gay, so proud, so relentlessly empowering and supportive that I’m almost embarrassed for them. Like I’m not doing enough with my newfound spiritual liberation. I mean, here they are, throwing open the gates of heaven for me, fighting to give me rights that I’m not even sure I’m mature enough to handle, and am I out changing the world? No. I can't be bothered.

At least not until Liza Minelli dies.

Some Rules for Text Messaging

I only sent my first text message a few weeks ago. I am far from comfortable with it. I am still a little frightened by the sudden intrusion of someone else’s words on something I take out of my pocket, without any real warning. I suspect the feeling is akin to taking a Kleenex out of your pocket and suddenly discovering an image of the Virgin Mary. And you’re all, How’d that get there?

It takes me hours to compose a text message. Partially because I can’t convince myself that using overtly sloppy grammar, spelling shortcuts, or inadequate punctuation is anything but a slippery slope to hell itself. If, in fact, I could figure out how to integrate the judicious use of italics or footnotes in the text message format, I would probably do it.

Truly, I’m a novice. Far be it from me to expound on rules that should apply to the text messaging universe. And yet…

I received a text message tonight. (Or a text as the abbreviation-obsessed kids would say. And see how I employed that judicious use of italics right there? Ya can’t put a price on that kind of judiciousness.)

The text I received was of a reasonably serious nature concerning how my behavior adversely affects the emotional well being of the texter. Or at least that’s the best I can gather.

This sort of text should not be allowed.

Text messages should only involve one of the three following themes:
1. I just thought of something funny. (Hahahaha.)

2. I’m drunk. (Hahahaha.)

3. Let’s coordinate our plans. (Hahahaha.)

To text a serious message seems to me to be the communications equivalent of—say— trying to construct the Pentagon with a mound of damp tea cakes.

If you really have something to say, why would you choose such a frivolous medium?

That’s what I intend to ask Lola. Whenever I get up the energy to deal with someone who would so grievously misuse this woefully inadequate medium.

Last year, I was briefly romantically involved with Lola. This year, I am not. We used to work together at the Venerable Aerosol Cheese Factory. But we worked in wholly different departments and this should count toward lessening the degree to which I can be accused of being an idiot for violating the age old rule: Never slather your Triscuits with company cheese.

Whereas I was in the aerosol cheese production and distribution department, Lola was in aerosol cheese production system maintenance—a considerably less prestigious position, but as is typical of low prestige positions—much, much harder work.

Then she quit. Which was good for me but very bad for the operating efficiency of the aerosol cheese factory. So they finally got her to come back. Which is awkward for me. As my baseline behavior is awkward to begin with, additional degrees awkwardness taxes my functioning to its outer limits. I could not now be anymore awkward at work unless I also happened to be a newborn pony.

None of this story, incidentally, would not be appropriate for a text message. (“Incidentally” = “btw” for you texting kids out there.)

I have tried to maintain a warm but professional, friendly but not creepy, cheerful but not manic, demeanor with her. Apparently I am even less good at this than I am at texting.

At least that’s what I gather from her text message of: U dnt have to b like that 2 me.

Now how am I supposed to pick up on the nuances of this message in the incredibly nuance-free medium of the text message? There is no tone. No elaboration. In a medium where vowels are optional, subtext isn’t even a fleeting shadow.

So there ya go: I don’t have to be like that 2 her.

Like what? you ask. Why, like that, of course. Presumably, like me. And I would argue: Do so.

That would be, I think, a fine riposte via text message. But we both know if I do that there’ll be hell to pay. No doubt it will be further evidence for her that I’m being like that s’more. She won’t be able to gather from my response the implication that I’m more or less stuck with being me, despite her disapproval of that way that I am apparently being. And the reason she won’t be able to pick up on the implication of my response is because, of course, it would have been delivered via a text message. (Although to be honest, Lola and I could have re-enacted the Lincoln-Douglas debates and still been mostly unable to adequately convey our points to each other without burying ourselves in misinterpretions. Communication was never our strong suit.)

And now, God forbid, she should just dial the phone. (Which, I would note, takes way less time than composing a text message.)

So I'm stuck with either responding through a text message or telephoning her, thus elevating the medium and escalating the importance of the whole exchange. Does this exchange really deserve a promotion? What would it mean if I were the one to advance to a more direct medium? Would that imply that I remain invested in whatever is (or isn’t) going on between us? Should I just recklessly hop in a car and drive to her home? Stand outside her window with a boombox held high over my head, all John Hughes movie-style?

Ummm…no. It looks like rain.

Instead I’ll draw upon another of my new rules for text messaging: If she doesn't actually ask a question, I don’t have to answer. (Hahahaha.)

Goodbye, Mr. Coffee

Stupid, lousy, stupid, stupid, red coffee-maker...


It’s been a difficult few weeks.

No. I mean more difficult than usual. My coffee-maker broke. It just stopped working. No evidence of an obvious malfunction. The water spouty-thing, without warning, stopped delivering water from the water tank over the grounds and into the carafe. The heating element stopped radiating heat. The clock still worked, but that was it.

I have been through the stages of grief and have now settled on the stage that Ms. Kubler Ross neglected: Delight.

I have come to realize that my life can be divided into eras defined by the coffee-maker. I’ll be honest here, the Braun Era was something of a golden age for me. It had the expanse of England’s grand Victorian Era. That is to say, there were some truly awful moments, but it lasted so freaking long that it also encompassed some of my most glorious escapades. And as with the Victorian Era, I am wont to remember it for the good stuff. Victoria, I’m sure, would prefer her Era to be associated not with the poverty, disease, and squalor, but for those adorable houses in Cape May, New Jersey with the eaves and the parlors and the lattice-work and what-not.

Just so with my Braun Era. It lasted for the actual majority of my life, and comprised as it was by a host of ups and downs, I seem now to recall primarily the adorable lattice-work. My Braun coffee-maker, purchased at a ridiculous mark-up at the fabulous, old Robinson’s Department Store in Beverly Hills when I was really young and would have been willing to buy anything that put me that close to women who smelled really good, lasted for nearly twenty years. Even then, the coffee-maker only broke when the dog knocked it off the counter-top one fateful day in 2006. (There was, I think, an errant piece of cheese nearby.)

The Braun Era rocked. Oh sure, it had its horrors. But it beat the hell out of the brief but miserable Mr. Coffee Era.

I did not choose to begin the Mr. Coffee Era; it was foisted upon me. Someone gave me the Mr. Coffee. Of course, I was grateful because I didn’t have a lot of (any) money then. But even so. It was red. And I was stuck with it.

Who buys a red coffee-maker? A red coffee-maker, I can only imagine, is best suited for a brothel. Is there really much demand for brothel decor coffee-makers? And if so, surely one should not expect that it would be produced by a brand whose cache was at its zenith when Joe Dimaggio was hawking it. Yes, Mr. Coffee has been around forever, but clearly that does not translate to being a product of legendary quality. After all, it broke all on its own well inside the three year mark, whereas it took an act of dog to finally take down my Braun.

When I consider why they tried to make such a stodgy, underperforming product all sporty with red, I think of how Chrysler tried to produce convertibles. Truly, this is the Chrysler Sebring of coffee-makers.

I might add, nothing has gone particularly well in my life during the Mr. Coffee Era. It may be a coincidence, but maybe not. Why risk it?

So today I have begun a new era. And suddenly my whole future feels full of possibility. It’s like how England felt when that smattering of Edwards and Georges quit flitting about for their gnatlike and unimpressive eras and finally made room for Elizabeth II to settle in for a good, long (substantially irrelevant but carving an indelible groove into history, nonetheless) reign.

Now I might have purchased another Braun. But I’m not even sure they make them anymore. If they do, I can tell you that they sure don’t sell ‘em in most of the coffee-maker selling outlets in Chicago. (Granted I didn’t go the really high end stores. Because now I find that if I want to, I can smell really good-smelling women without having to pay exorbitant prices.) And it stands to reason that when you make a small appliance that lasts for twenty years or more, you may well go out of business before people get around to buying s’more of your product.

And God knows I wasn’t going to get a Mr. Coffee II. If we have learned nothing else from the English, we should have learned not to keep repeating the names of our eras. Just consider that yawner of micro-eras spanning across Edward VII, George V, Edward VIII, and George VI. In 51 years there was one interesting moment in 1936 when Edward VIII flaked out.

No. What I need is a good solid new beginning. Something reliable and indefatigable. The Brits instinctively knew they had this when Elizabeth II cozied into the throne, and they celebrated with blissful relief. That’s what I need: An Elizabeth II Era. I.e., a kitchen dominated by a stoic and dutiful small appliance that is, strictly speaking, unnecessary, but in whose absence I would be lost.

I thought very seriously about declaring the Cuisinart Era. I have a few other Cuisinart products that are holding up quite nicely. (My now vintage food processer finally broke recently after being handed down over a span of something like 30 years.)

But when I went to look at the Cuisinart coffee-makers, I found that the one that most suited my needs came with what they called “retro” styling. Which means they designed it to be cleverly ironic with old fashioned toggle switches. Sadly, this violates a crucial rule for me: I must resist all urges to be sucked in by clothing or interior design elements that are primarily amusing. Because they ultimately look stupid. Neither clothes nor home furnishings should be funny. Whimsy has no place in decorating. This rule has saved me from purchasing a wide array of regrettable shirts with slogans and furniture with now painfully dated prints. This is why, unlike you, I have almost no picture frames made with distressed metals from the early 1990’s and have never had to ditch a futon. It’s a good rule, and so I obey it faithfully.

Then I saw the Krups. A fine coffee-maker with a fine reputation. Back when I bought the Braun, I remember that Krups was the only serious competitor to Braun, poised among the gloriously scented women at Robinson’s department store. And they had it in stainless. Which is good, because I don’t care how much you paid for that Kitchen-Aid mixer of yours, if your small appliances are not generally white or stainless steel, you probably have no business being in a kitchen. And a grown-up should probably start authorizing any of your purchases over $100.00.

The Krups (Model KM1000 if your curious) has everything I was looking for: A good brand track record. An easily accessible water tank that doesn’t require the precision water-pouring technique of a Cirque De Soleil performer. Easily visable cup measures for those bleary-eyed mornings. Fully programmable with a pause function during brewing. (A feature I did not fully appreciate until I was without it during the Era We Shall Never Speak of Again.). I also was able to save several bucks by getting the 10 cup machine instead of the 12-cup machine. (I have never, ever, ever, ever needed 12 actual cups of coffee in one brewing. We should admit this: No one does.) And, importantly, it had no design elements that inspire one to comment on how cleverly whimsical it is. I would have gotten it in plain white so as to be certain I'm not being too hoity-toity about it, but the ideal model was only available in stainless steel. Good enough.

The Krups Era promises to be a bright shining era, indeed. I have nothing but hope and a couple pounds of Seattle’s Best French Roast in the freezer. The world is my Falklands for the repatriating.



The Coffee-maker is dead. Long live the Coffee-maker!

This might mean my moral compass is de-magnetized.

Is it wrong that I'm kind of hoping for a pernicious return of the Swine Flu in the fall so I can spend more time gazing at Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius on C-Span?




She's just so... so... so... sigh

Jenny McCarthy is coming, and she's bringing killer bees!

Bah! I knew it!

In February I said this would happen. What I didn't do was establish incontrovertable proof that I said this in February. And why didn't I do that? Because that's how I roll: Swathed in layers of regret and backpeddling.

Here's what I wrote down, but did not document in a public forum, on February 13, 2009: Jenny McCarthy wil get her own daytime talk show, and it will be excruciating.

It's a gift I have, seeing the future. I saw the return of the goatee in men's facial hair fashion during the early nineties. (It was the Van Dyke actually. And I saw it coming.) I saw the election of George W. Bush in 2000 when others still laughed him off during the early primaries. (It was Laura. She made him seem more likable.) I saw the evil that lurked in Mel Gibson when everyone else still thought he was buckets of fun. I knew Rod Blagojevich was going to jail before he even got elected to congress.

Yes, It's a gift. And the ironic twist of that gift is that I never quite get around to advising others of my uncannily accurate predictions. In this way, you see, I am burdened. Burdened both by my eerie ability to foresee the future and burdened by profound laziness that prevents me from doing anything about it. I am like a superhero who keeps forgetting to get my superhero outfit back from the dry-cleaner.

Here's what else I wrote but did not think to have notarized more than three full months ago: Today I saw yet another story on the news about how strenuously the FDA is saying that vaccines don't cause autism. And I got to thinking about how much Jenny McCarthy has become the voice of alternative conceptualizations of autism. And then I got to thinking how she was recently on Oprah. And how she's been on Oprah a lot in the past year or so. And how Oprah seems to like her a lot. And how she seems more and more expertacious every time she's on. That's when the vision came upon me: Liked by Oprah. Sliding into the expert role. Being the face of a newsy issue. It all adds up, doesn't it?

Oprah is going to hand Jenny McCarthy her own show and there's nothing we can do about it.

Jenny has an ideal set up by going up against the FDA. Sure, with ordinary opponents, she might just seem like a moderately successful entertainer insinuating herself into a discipline well outside her skill-set. But against the FDA, she might as well be Marie Curie. I wasn't particularly buying the whole vaccination etiology theory of autism, until I heard how stridently the FDA opposes it. Now I can only assume that vaccines are, like most of what the FDA oversees, some source of kickbacks and pay-offs for the FDA, a department entirely dedicated to whoring for the pharmaceutical industry. If it's Jenny against the FDA, I'm with Jenny.

But what I don't want, (and didn't want on 2/13/09, mind you) is to watch her talk show, squarely slotted between Rachael Ray and Dr. Phil.

But it's coming. I knew it on Valentine's Day Eve. It's official now. Get beneath your desk with your head between your knees and brace for it.

And while we're at it, we should brace for a few other things that I will now detail in a rambling fashion, lest they come to pass before I document it, and I will be unable to enjoy the position of smug superiority that suits me so well. Please note: I have a bad feeling that Valerie Bertinelli is moving into the talk show host orbit. . . If Chicago does win the 2016 Olympics, it will more than likely be withdrawn when Rich Daley is finally indicted for a generation's worth of corruption based on depositions by John Harris in the course of Rod Blagojevich's trial. (Either that or U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald will die mysteriously.). . . Pope Benedict (who is essentially a rebound girl for the Catholic Church that still closes its eyes and pictures John Paul II during genuflection) is going to make a few more winking gestures to welcome Nazi sympathizers back into the fold and say a few more crazy things about condoms spreading HIV, all the while stroking his furry Prada muffler, and there will be an open movement to dump him. . . He will forestall this by speeding up the fast track to declare his predecessor a saint and the Church will forget what it was saying, sigh softly, and pretend they’re not still thinking of JPII when they’re looking at whats-his-name.

I’m not saying I can predict everything. For instance, I definitely missed the psychic boat about that week when the news was dominated by pirates. Nor did I anticipate the trip down memory lane with Swine Flu. (Although both of these events lead me to suspect that we may soon be at the mercy of killer bees and Legionnaire’s Disease.) But this I will never yield on: I totally called the Jenny McCarthy thing.

Wine-boxing.

You know as well as I do that eventually, you’re going to start buying your wine by the box. Don’t pretend you haven’t occasionally slowed down as you passed the boxes just adjacent to those giant bottles of wine in the back of liquor section of the grocery store. Don’t act like you haven’t noticed the absurdly low cost. Don’t try to deny that you haven’t noticed those articles that show up in respectable publications or heard Alpana Singh suggest that more and more often, they’re putting decent wine in boxes. And don’t go feigning surprise at the implication that you’ve been considering buying some of the stuff just as soon as you can figure out how to do it without sacrificing your self-respect. Fortunately for you, I am here to soften the blow, my self-respect having slipped into the shadows of retreat somewhere around the same time as the last significant film role for Theresa Russell. So I am here to help you through this inevitable transition. No one did that for me. But I’m doing it for you. That’s how I am. I am generous. I am thoughtful. I am sensitive to your needs.

What I am not exactly, is sober. I have not been altogether sober in probably two weeks. This is what happens when you buy your wine in a box. No one tells you that. But I will.

Here’s what happened: About two weeks ago I went to Target to purchase power tools and alcohol. After comparison shopping for drills and sanders, I headed over to the coffee and alcohol section. (Because at Target, they apparently organize the foodstuffs in aisles according groupings appropriate for categories on The One-Hundred-Thousand-Dollar Pyramid. This being the aisle identifiable as Foodstuffs That Directly Interfere with Normal Brain Functioning.) I have to admit, the wine selection is not at all bad for a discount store. They have most of your favorite really cheap wines from the grocery store. Plus they have there own line of box wines. The insidious part is that the wine boxes are available in smaller sizes than one might see in the grocery store liquor sections. That’s how they seduce you. With introductory sizes at a deeply discounted price. It’s not the big twelve dollar commitment it might be at the supermarket. It’s just a few bucks. Clearly, the people running the wine business for Target are the same ones who sold weed outside my junior high school.

So I hardly had to think about it. I bought myself a box—nay, a mere cube—at a cost equivalent to seventy-eight cents a bottle. Or something like that. As I said, I’m not entirely sober. I shouldn’t be relied upon for calculations.

I feared my neighbors would see me bringing it in, but I think I managed to scurry up to my apartment unnoticed, securing, perhaps, another week of avoiding their pitying sidelong glances. Yay.

It didn’t take long to figure out how to place and operate the spigot. You’ll figure that out fine by yourself What you may not realize—and it’s really important that you realize this—is that you will have no way of tracking how much wine you have consumed. I mean, unless you count the glasses—and who does that?—you will be unable to estimate the volume by which your wine box is diminished. This is more than an invitation to overimbibe. This is practically a demand. The box, you see, unlike the traditional bottle, is opaque. So there is no wine-line to tell you you’ve sucked up half a bottle before dinner’s even ready. It carries the illusion of an endless supply of (surprisingly tasty) wine. The box, is, in fact, merely the housing for a bag. And that bag is remarkably similar in texture and appearance to a mylar balloon. And as you know, the mylar balloon is practically a universal symbol of deceit. It is the customary means of seeming to have contributed something important while expending minimal effort and cash. (E.g., “Hey, it’s your birthday! Look what I got you! A balloon! Not just a balloon though—a mylar balloon! Did I go the extra mile, or what?!”

Don’t be entranced by the mylar illusion of the wine bag in the box, I implore you. It’s too late for me, but you can still save yourself.

Me? I was entranced. The box o’ wine had me mesmerized. As a consequence, I have made some significant errors in the past two weeks. These errors may have included but are not limited to:

Going to an organic food store and spending approximately seventy-two dollars on six dollars worth of vegetables from a be-mohawked young lady for whom, from what I can tell, organic foods have done nothing helpful.

Watching Tyra.

Pulling out the guitar that’s been in the closet for at least six years and calling up an ex-girlfriend to play the song written especially for her, not giving a second thought to the guitar being way out of tune, and not really knowing how to play a guitar.

Losing a large bottle of laundry detergent and at least two loads of laundry.

Watching Barack Obama’s press conference, noticing the lame, softball questions put to him by the press, and thinking at one point, “Ooooh, that young blond Republican girl on The View is certainly going to have something to say about that!”

You can avoid these errors. Circumvent the excessive boxed wine consumption problem by pouring yourself one big tumbler of wine and then cutting yourself off right there. If you’re like me, this will probably mean hiding the wine box somewhere that’s hard to reach when your equilibrium is compromised. Because after one big tumbler, you’re likely to change your mind and decide you want more. I suggest you put it up high. On the top shelf of a closet perhaps. That way, when you get out the ladder to try to get it, tipsy as you are, you’ll more than likely fall of the ladder and knock yourself unconscious, thereby cutting yourself off for the evening. When you wake up in a heap just inside your coat closet the next mid-morning, you’ll congratulate yourself for your temperance. Go, you!

Robots. Autism. And so it begins.

Can Robots Help Treat Autism?

This was a story on the Today Show this morning. Basically, the idea is that kids with autism, having been functionally compared to robots inasmuch as they tend to lack a socially appropriate range of affect, might learn to assemble the elements of constructive social transactions by interacting with humanoid robots. Humanoid robots. That’s what they said in the story. Humanoid robots are apparently less threatening than actual humanoids if you’re autistic. Hence, the robots would not provoke anxiety and would be more relatable for the kids. This actually makes some sense when you consider how the plan seeks to avoid the overstimulation that often sabotages learning for people with autism. The robots could help autistic kids deconstruct the components of social behavior without all that loosey-goosey human affect that so often rattles 'em and sends them packing into social withdrawal. The robots would be presumably be programmed in such a way as to model and encourage more adaptive behavior.

A fine plan. Right up until those robots secure a bond with the kids and beguile them with their cool, brushed metal lack of emotional range into doing their evil bidding.

Robot planetary conquest: Phase one.

And I’ll tell you what else: When the robots and autistic kids have fully joined forces, the first thing they’re going to do is avenge this poor kid.

And by the by: Over a lifetime of hearing kid-left-on-school-bus-by-incredibly-stupid/high/stupid-bus-driver news stories, I have yet to have anyone sufficiently explain to me how a bus driver, even a stupid or high or really stupid bus driver, gets off a bus without noticing a person sitting there. Even little persons can be seen fairly easily when they’re sitting on a school bus. It’s not like these things are big old rolling auditoriums with distant, darkened recesses and all manner of colonnade obfuscations.

Oh sure, a kid could slump down behind the seat and not be immediately noticeable at a glance. But you’d think that any school bus driver, recalling the innumerable stories about kids left on school buses and the very bad social ramifications for the bus drivers who leave them, would perhaps look around a little bit for some sleepy hanger-on before closing up shop for the day. A minor investment, I should think, in contrast to the possible consequences for losing a freaking kid.

And besides, think back to your school bus rides. Was it remotely plausible that your school bus ride was so serene, so smooth, so deliciously soothing—that you actually fell into the kind of ossified slumber from which the heaving brakes of a bus couldn’t rouse you?

Now granted, the autistic kid who got recently left behind while his bus driver went shopping, was perhaps not as likely as the average student to say, Hey! Where the hell are you going? as the driver bound from her sacred charge to a party supply store. (I thought at first it was a craft store. Same difference. You just know that a school bus driver that eager to get to the party supply store is likely to be one of those people who regularly uses “scrapbook” as a verb.)

It’s possible that an autistic kid might not summon the social initiative to bring his presence to his stupid bus driver’s attention. Or maybe—just maybe—like the robots with whom he will eventually unite to take over the world, he was lying in wait. Biding his time. Knowing that a species that leaves kids on buses and maybe spends their spare time scrapbooking, is a vulnerable species indeed. Ripe for submission to our eventual robot overlords.