Incredibly wise words from Auntie Lee on:
Baby food
Counting feminists
Giving advice
Identifying adults
Memory
Rebellion
Writing's rewards
Baby
food
...Personally, Maggie, I found much of what you were eating repugnant.
Dinners of crushed peas and pulverized chicken in peach and carrot sauce
are difficult to witness, and any parent who requires this of a friend
or neighbor should be forced to watch certain scenes from The Exorcist,
or perhaps, Aliens, as a refresher course on what is and is not appetizing.
But you have moved on, and I'm relieved ...
Counting
feminists
...both Kaminer and Pollitt are wrong. There are nowhere near ten different
kinds of feminists, and there are certainly more than two. There are actually
three kinds of feminists, Maggie: dead feminists, live feminists, and
live feminists who wouldnąt be caught dead being called feminists...
Giving
advice
... The adviser is like the sneezer. Asked not to, he sneezes anyway,
and the only positive result of this act is that the sneezer feels better.
The adviser who writes could be accused of germ warfare...
...One area
that is particularly helpful in identifying grown-ups is humor. If you
see someone chuckling in front of an episode of The McLaughlin Group,
this is definitely an adult. If you see someone laughing at just about
any bodily function, including burping, falling, sliding, kicking, running,
screaming, peeing, sneezing, or throwing up, this is probably a child.
I have a theory about this ...as adults age, they become less likely to
do any of the said bodily functions and so forget the humor inherent in
them...
(Back to Top)
...This is the
world -- the world in your mind. As you grow up, your memory will become
your intellectual and emotional garden, the soft, rich soil where you'll
plant new ideas. It's here you'll marry a young thought with an older
experience, where your feelings will grow roots, and unrecorded experiences
will flower and pass on, fertilizing those you've chosen to tend...
(Back to Top)
...I just want
to state now, unequivocally, that I have no inherent objection to the
word no. Nor am I innately prejudiced against two-year-olds. The
phrase terrible twos has never passed my lips (at least within
the hearing of a two year old) and I have been known to engage in parallel
play and obsessive ownership even as an adult. So I want you to take this
in the generous spirit in which it is offered. Do you think you could
wrap up this stage of development sometime in the next couple of months?
(Back to Top)
- One complementary subscription to Vegetarian Times
- One four-pound box of blue cheese
- Three boxes of unbleached, all-cotton sanitary napkins
- One dead silkworm
- One large
box containing a bottle of tanning lotion; a pair of sunglasses; a white
terry cloth robe, extra large; a cookie sheet; eight large chocolate
chip cookies; a paperback book on women's friendships; a list of chick
flicks to rent; and a package of popcorn. (Given my history, this last
package may have been sent to me as a mistake, but -- I admit it, Maggie
-- I kept it anyway.)