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2004-09-23 - 11:31 a.m.
Ha.
Today, the cleaning lady is at my house, cleaning it.
We've gotten better at the tidying thing. It now seems like it would be really great to have someone come once every week, instead of every other week. At first it seemed like such a luxury to have someone come at all.
It still is -- it really is.
But wouldn't it be great to have a clean bathroom sink all this time?
In theory, the presence of the cleaning lady means that I devote myself to things like cleaning window screens, and throwing out old papers, and finding the old baby clothes in the basement and giving them to the pregnant woman in my office.
Actually, I really do do those things.
Hmmm.
Anyway -- what else.
Maddy is writing a paper on the Rastafarians. I have always wondered what the deal was with them and Haile Selassie. I mean -- what was the fascination? It never really made sense to me. I thought there must be something I just didn't know. Apparently, based on Maddy's research, it all depends on smoking enough of the "holy herb." What you've got to do, apparently, is smoke enough pot until it just makes sense that Haile Selassie is god and that Ethiopia is where you want to be.
?
I guess that makes a certain amount of sense. I mean -- I guess that's about as much sense as you're going to get.
In other, related, news, Nora announced to me that her good friend's mother had told the good friend that she would be allowed to go to parties where there were drugs and alcohol as long as she herself did not use any drugs or drink any alcohol. Would Nora also be allowed to go to these parties?
She promised vehemently to abstain from drugs and alcohol.
This is something I have been wondering about actually -- what exactly do they teach them in these drug and sex ed classes. I mean, clearly, at some point most children are going to try these things. I guess for my kids I'd prefer it to happen a bit later --
I mean, do they teach them that they will never drink or use drugs?
What are you supposed to say? Maybe the truth, which is, you will probably experiment with some drugs at some point, but maybe you should wait until you're 18 and in college, and even then, please avoid things involving needles. You'll probably drink, too, and at least a few times in your life you'll get drunk, but make sure you can walk back from wherever you've gone, and certainly don't drink in any frat houses. Best to avoid those, and their denizens, completely in any case.
Anyway. I actually really don't want her to go to parties with drugs and alcohol right now. I'm not exactly sure what good friend's mother was thinking.
She's only 14!
I asked her if she'd been invited to any such parties and she said, no, but that there was supposed to be a party during the day at a local shopping center.
??
Neither of us could figure that out.
The whole thing makes me uncomfortable, of course, because any normal human being is going to experiment with things, but the truth is, it's better to
do that at 18 than 14.
However, probably best not to wait until you're 40.
Hmmm.
Got to go.
Bye.
