a very happy tina day to you

In college, I had a tradition for a while where I decided that every day was Tina Day and people should make little offerings to me. No offering was considered too small: pennies, empty matchbooks, deformed paperclips, broken pieces of tortilla chips. You just had to hand me a little thing and say Happy Tina Day. And you had to do it every day.

And now it's Mother's Day, a new version of Tina Day. I wonder what Finn is going to get me. He's probably made me a little card. He's probably going to make me some pancakes. He'll probably actually silently dedicate one of his small effortless milky pukes to me. A perfect offering. I'd eat it on toast, it's that unobjectionable.

It's 1:30 in the morning. What am I doing up? Why aren't I sleeping while I can?

Pepsi is why. I had a strategic Pepsi a few hours ago, meant to keep me awake through my traditional evening coma. It didn't take in time, so my head kept threatening to bob into my tacos. But now that it's beyond bedtime, I'm up. I just had a lovely hour and a half phone call with my mother-in-law in Australia.

This is the perfect time for non-sequiturs, this Pepsi-induced quiet awake time.

I love Finn's gums. I love his gummy mouth when he weeps. His mouth, when he weeps in earnest, takes on a Peanuts-style rounded rectangular shape. Finn has a couple of signature weeps that Dave and I find unbearably charming. One of them is, "La! La-a-a-a! La-a!" And the other is, "Nghee! Nghee!" I particularly adore his "La!" weep. I love that he doesn't know that "la" is a syllable usually used for singing. He's just using it. I hope he uses other syllables for weeping that have other connotations already. "Me!" or "You!" or "Bee!" or what have you.

Bee-ee-ee! La-a-a! Yoo-ooo-ou!

I'm starting to understand that Finn is actually my son. Up until now it's been like, my lord, what a beautiful child! I wonder whose he is! He certainly is adorable! Where are his parents? But now, he's starting to feel like....my paisan. He's my blood, my little countryman. When he weeps against the poo or the hunger or the gas, I feel indignant on his behalf. Yeah, you gas! What the fuck? This is my boy, here! You want a piece of me?

His head smells...all right, look, we've all talked about and heard about the smell of babies. But his perfume is remarkable! It's French, I think! It's subtle and elegant. Finn would have been a goner if he were a character in "Perfume", which I think is that novel where the guy with the freakishly keen nose kills pure people to harvest their perfumey essence. Finn would have been this guy's main course. He would have been the coup, the ultimate.

Enough. Let's look at him.








It's 2am now. Closing time. I don't have to go home but I can't stay here. Good night.