reasonable creature

My science-fiction/fantasy roundup is now online at the Washington Post, and will be published in tomorrow's print edition. If you haven't started getting into genre fiction, this is the time, baby.

The Georgetown DMV: It looks like a regular DMV, it smells like a regular DMV, it's in the basement of a crappy mall and is run by a rather gruff woman with way too much work for the number of staff members she supervises.

And yet: I have my new learner's permit, and it took little over an hour. I'm even in a good mood!

While I don't quite have the energy to explain why I even need a learner's permit (it has to do with a bizarre upbringing plus failures of DC bureaucracy), suffice it to say that this is an accomplishment. And now I'm one step closer to being able to drive myself to the craft store whenever I want!

Oh, Stephen. You are all that is good in the world.

I think that this sums up my ambivalence about children's television. And, really, my ambivalence about any official-type job that doesn't allow you to appear in abstinence-only parodies talking about anal sex. Keep it real.

So we're outside, and baby's "helping" me water the back garden, which devolves into hose fun--she's splashing around in the runoff, trying to touch the water as it comes out of the sprayer. Then all of a sudden she has one of those big barfs, not just a little spitup, and partly-digested formula is all over her pretty new blouse. Lightbulb! I just hose her down, she loves every minute of it, crisis averted.

And that's why I'm a great mom.

Breathe easy: It's off the top ten list. For now.

I'm very much hoping that this piece about women falling in love with their contractors replaces "Modern Love: What Shamu Taught Me About a Happy Marriage" on the New York Times "most-emailed" list. And who are these people still emailing around the Shamu story (which isn't even, like, about Shamu) weeks after it ran in the newspaper? I suspect they are the types who like "Caveman" comedy routines (you know, "men are hunter-gatherers, that's why they like to flick from channel to channel with the remote control"), and who watch those dumpy-guy-cute-wisecracking-wife sitcoms that I find so puzzling. They are also, unfortunately, probably not very good at talking to their mates. "Shamu" is terribly cynical about heterosexual relationships--the premise, after all, is that these couples would get along better if they communicated through animal-training techniques. The contractor story, meanwhile, at least allows for the idea of some common ground between men and women. You know, plus the sex and all.

No, I'm not referring to that list on the left, which hasn't grown too much this summer. That is a completely different issue. My current problem is the adjustment to life without free books. Because for the past seven years--and indeed, for a few years before that, too--I received cartons of books from publishers every day. And no matter how many I passed out to colleagues, I still had many more than I could ever read (even in those periods of insomnia when I literally read two books a day).

Luckily, I still have somewhat of a backlog--there's an unread copy of White Teeth in the basement, and Gilead, and various obscure mystery novels. But I don't want to lose my grasp on what's new, so I think I might actually have to start buying books again.

This is stressful, and not only because I've been so spoiled this past decade. There's also the fact that I'm not really earning any money, so I don't quite feel like I have the right to make such purchases. Plus, I think husband will actually file for divorce if the number of books in the house begins to increase.

There's also the question of where to start--which is where you come in. I'm looking for suggestions of new books I should actually buy. I think we should stick to novels, unless there is a particularly important book of Irish history that would help me with my own novel-in-progress. Clearly I will read the next Jonathan Lethem, and I will most likely buy the George Saunders, but what then? And should I continue my spec-fic feast by checking older books out of the library, or should I move on to what's new in that genre, too?

I await your urgent emails.

I'm not in the habit of sending around every ol' YouTubie that comes my way, but this one is actually very entertaining.

(And yes, I know it's not as hot out today, but why not play it safe?)

Well, actually, I'm not, since I absolutely refuse to go outside until October. 'Kay?

I had been hoping that "Reel Moms"--the bring-your-baby screening on Tuesday mornings at our local movie theater--would get around to showing The Devil Wears Prada, so I could go see it but with the excuse of taking baby. Then I could say, "It was what they were showing, I didn't actually choose to see it."

Instead, we get the latest Owen Wilson vehicle. I hate that guy. Not even linking to the movie. Why bother?

Luckily, there is this haiku version of TDWP. Thanks, Rose!

Fans of RC blogroller We're Only Human take note: Newsweek's website has picked up a version of that blog in column form, starting today. Which means more human behavior antics for everyone!

So the phone rings while you are changing the baby and you don't want to leave her unsupervised on the changing table, but you don't want to miss the call?

Do not decide that you can just carry her, bare bottom and all, into the other room to get the phone. You know, unless you were planning to mop the floor, change your clothes and take a shower anyway.

With all due respect to the various babies I know and love, I've come to believe that my favorite people in the world are the 4-to-6-year-old set. These kids are crazy! They have opinions, strong ones, and they will tell you stories like you've never heard before. At a 2-year-old's birthday party on Saturday I was cornered by two 6s, one of whom spun a long tale about how her younger sisters beat her up everyday, except Friday "when they beat me up two times!" Augusten Burroughs has nothing on this kid. Then there was the 4 who told me about the time he spent--you know, when he was little--as a butterfly. It seemed to involve flying over zoos, mostly. And avoiding sharks. But perhaps the best was the 6 who visited yesterday and begged to do a load of our laundry. He had very strong opinions about the contents of the darks load and fell in love with my Shout stain remover gel brush. "You have the best things!" he told me. And sighed.

... that sometimes I like to watch people twist awkwardly while they attempt to figure out what I'm, like, doing all day? It's usually someone I run into at a party, someone who hasn't seen me in a while, and I can see in their face that they are trying to determine whether I have a job, or am looking for a job, or failing to find a job. So I ask them what they are up to, in detail, and then they either aren't brave enough to ask me, or they try to figure it out obliquely, by asking whether baby is in daycare.

I do sympathize. After all, it's dangerous to ask a woman with a child whether she works, or "works outside the home," or whatnot. You don't want to assume she's at home with the baby, but you don't want to assume she's not.

What you shouldn't do, however, is assume she's pregnant again. Even if, like me, she's still wearing maternity tops 11 months after the fact. (They're comfortable, damnit, and I loved my pregnancy clothing.) Because when you assume, you make an ass out of you. Just you.

Oh, Gawker. Just when I think I am over the retching you give me a beauty like this.

Now everytime I blow a raspberry on baby's belly I do it with a Russian accent. I can't help myself.

We're still recovering from a weekend of the Disney Channel. Which is to say: A lovely lake house weekend with friends (i.e., nothing like the horror that was my sister-in-law's "family vacation"), some of whom brought tweens who spent about a thousand hours watching TV. I had never actually seen the Disney Channel before, but as far as I can tell their lineup features the same low-budget show over and over, just with different titles. "The Suite Life of Zack and Cody," for example, seems to be the same show as "That's So Raven," but with slightly different actors and just-as-crappy stage sets. There are wisecracking kids with schemes that are doomed to fail, "madcap" grownups who have even less common sense than the kids, and fake rock 'n' roll concerts with craaaaazy camera angles.

Of course, at their age I was watching "Happy Days" and "Laverne & Shirley," so really, who am I to judge?