This week was strange, discombobulating. My work schedule is all wonky and Mimi has been sick. Beenie is fine. She’s cutting old newsprint into teenie, tiny pieces with her little red scissors. Mimi is suffering from an ear infection and as of last night, some sort of stomach virus producing vomit. “My belly is full of throw-up,” she says. Poor thing. She hasn’t been eating much all week because of her ear and is actually starting to look kind of skinny. Freaks me out, but I have lots of faith she will come back as the proud eating machine she was last week. It is scary, though, how quickly a small person who never stops moving loses body mass once the food stops entering said person. I think Mimi also had a massive growth spurt, not helping her slightly ribby appearance. Life was very easy dealing with only my body. Now I’m in charge of three!
You probably never check my Playlist page, and with good reason, since I never make updates to it or any of the other pages, other than this one. If you are so inclined, however, there will be more content on the page soon check this week. Nappy suggested I just get rid of the Snacks page, since I never, ever, update it. I think I’ll take her suggestion.
Now Beenie is cutting out shapes — some established shapes like rectangle, triangle, pentagon — others slightly more amorphic. No matter. She is cutting them out to ultimately live on our next Christmas tree, as ornaments. I told her when it starts getting closer to the holiday season, we’ll paint them and put a hole and string in them, then hang them on the tree. She agreed this was a good idea.
Work was weird this week because I worked Wednesday as they were in school like usual, then again Thursday from 9am-1pm, when a babysitter stayed with them. I was supposed to work again today, but when children puke, you don’t work. You spend your time hydrating them and try to make sure they don’t puke again.
And this situation makes me think of the short article I read in a recent NY Times Sunday Magazine about how the recent Supreme Court female judges (assuming the most recent nominee is absorbed) are childless. You should read the article, but the jist is: a family is a boon to a male anything, not necessarily because they love having families, but because it sort of shores you up as a part of humanity to have been able to find a mate and have that mate produce and maintain children. And do you know why? Because the wife, even if she’s working her arse off, is the person who tends to the children. The children need LOTS of attending to. I’m still blown away when my contemporaries (daddys) in my stupid little fuckbook world make status updates like “Babysitting the kids today” or “Playing Mr. Mom” or what have you. Aren’t you just parenting, my brothers? Unless your partner is breastfeeding, you can do all the things your wife/girlfriend/babymama is doing. So why, mid-life crisis havin’, forty-something men, do you still assume caring for and nurturing (and really, just keeping alive) your children is woman’s work? You really still believe that, don’t you? And I’m not entirely blaming you, mens. It is as much the women who let you get away with saying that shits fault as it is your fault. And the culture. I know a few nurturing fathers who don’t look at caring for their own children as them doing their partner a favor. The reason the women on the Supreme Court don’t have kids is because they know the truth: how in tarnation would they find someone to have children with who would be willing to give up everything — career and education, sanity and self — to do what frequently is required as a parent, so she could work like crazy to be a SC Justice with a side of family? Sad but true. Somehow men are still not expected to give up as much as their wives.
Lucky for me, I have no aspirations to have an actual career, just a bothersome drive to make shit. Which I can do whenever I have a free moment, which is never, or hardly ever.
20 Fingers, 20 Toes 
Sing it, sister.
As a singleton, I deal with a variation of this crap. My advisor told me about his epic dissertation-writing days as though he was some kind of superhero, but when I asked if someone else was cooking his meals, running his errands, and cleaning his house at the time, he got a sort of surprised, confused look on his face. “Why, yes,” he said slowly, the light dawning, “yes, my wife did all that at the time.” Oh. I am my own housewife, fucker. I could work nonstop, too, if wifey was bringing me a sandwich and doing my laundry.
I’m reading a book right now about men and women on the Oregon Trail (c. 1840s) and the author talks about how women had to work non-stop to cook, mend, manage, etc., but the men still thought that wagon trains were men’s business and the wimminfolk was just along for the ride. Oblivious.
But, hey, we’re post-feminist now, right? We don’t need no stinking feminism. Right?
I gots to go read me some kleiosbelly. Cuz she’s got her head on straight (and probably doesn’t talk about how to get it bouncy and shiny, like some other ya-has who pretend they have any clue what feminism means.
2020, I loved your snack page two years ago when it was new. I just feel sad for it. I check the playlist about every month, and the snacks about every two months. And they’re as dead as my books page. Just let ’em go, yo. It’s love for you and your time and your little dancing machines that made me suggest it. Like, a year ago.