So, I’m a little behind on this whole blog thing. It seems I’m only capable of juggling seven tasks at once–that eighth plate gets tossed in the air, and suddenly all bets are off. At least (at least!) one of them is going to come crashing to the ground. I’m pleased to report the baby is still in one piece. The dog hasn’t run away. The house hasn’t fallen down. I’ve even managed to finish writing another chapter of the book, but the blog, well…I’m here now, aren’t I?
Part of the problem has been trying to figure out my subject matter. At various times throughout the week I’ve been alternately moved to rant about the election (“Trump will rape you. Pence will force you to keep the baby.” And I have family members who are still actively campaigning for them. Gah!), laugh about my toddler (Hi Facebook. It’s me, Dana. Can someone please call my phone? Jonah’s done something with it.), wax poetic about the return of autumn (hands down my favorite season), and then there’s that whole thing about the clowns…
I think I just dared myself to tackle all four at once.
Notice I didn’t choose eight.
October is my favorite month. The leaves are changing. The days are getting shorter. The sun is sinking ever so slightly in the sky, bathing the hills around my home in an earthy golden glow. Some days are still baking hot, but others crispy cool, giving me an excuse to make soup, buy a baguette, and hunker down on the couch with my knitting again.
Okay, that’s enough of that.
I’m not going to lie. Ahem. There is a part of me that wants to launch into an all-out tirade about the decline of Western Civilization. The fact that there is a large sector of our society that has either failed to recognize the overt signs and symptoms of mental illness, or worse, chosen to ignore them in the name of racism, sexism, and partisanship, makes my hair stand on end. And that’s putting it mildly. I worry about the future for my child. And not a generalized will-he-get-into-the-right-preschool kind of worry. I mean a Kristallnacht-1939-dawn-of-the-second-world-war-bone-chilling worry. Trump is a madman. Fortunately, he’s no Hitler in one very particular, and all-important way–he’s dumber than his stump speeches. I’m hoping, come November, the rest of our country isn’t.
But since I do want to keep the tone of this blog largely positive, I will utter a few words that I never thought I would ever say. Ever. Thank you Bush family–Junior, Senior, Barbara, Laura, Jeb. Thank you Glen Beck. Thank you Condoleezza Rice. Thank you Arnold Schwarzenegger. Thank you Michael Chertoff and Paul Wolfowitz. Thank you Richard Armitage, Carly Fiorina, John Kasich. Thank you Mom! Thank you each and every Republican who has forsaken, or will forsake partisanship in the name of sanity, humanity and world safety.
Thank you.
So anyway, I walked into Jonah’s room yesterday to find him with his pants down around his ankles and a wad of toilet paper in his hand. “Be-pee,” he said, as he wiped himself over his diaper. “Be-pee.” Weird, but I guess it’s a start.
As for the clowns, they first cropped up in my writing workshop two weeks ago. Not literally, thank goodness. One of my nearest and dearest is working on a memoir too, and the chapter we were dissecting mentioned the fact that her first boyfriend ran away to clown school. No joke–he went off to clown school, became a clown, and joined the circus. For whatever reason, this hit our mentor’s funny bone, and before long we were collectively cackling and rolling, beeping our pretend red noses, honking invisible horns, practicing pronounced pigeon toes and squeaking in non-existent oversized shoes. A day later, this turns up in my inbox, from my Nextdoor subscription:
“A young lady was driving home in the Cascades (my neighborhood) tonight and encountered a man dressed as a clown standing in the middle of the road, just staring at her as she approached…”
Really?
It turns out, this a national phenomenon. I’ve heard it has to do with the reprisal of a Steven King novel (“they all float down here”), but my gut tell me it has more to do with a red red face and an orange toupee.
Sigh.
It’s that time of year again–time to hunker down on the couch with my knitting. And try not to gouge my eyes out.
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