even though i'm by far the best mother i know, i'm reluctant to admit it because it it creates certain implications and leads conversations i'd like to avoid. parents are always trying to recreate my success and always failing. daily, i am bombarded with questions about what i feed lily, who makes her clothes, how i got her talking at six months, it goes on and on! and they look at me with such horror when i tell them lily doesn't eat baby formula, she eats nothing but jaeger schnitzel! excellence does not come from a can, my mother used to tell me while sipping her bottle of miller high life.

that's where it all started. i used to suspect that my mother's rampant alcoholism prevented me from becoming all i could be in utero, but now i know better. i was born with a healthy blood:petrus ratio in these veins and it's been my life's work to maintain that, although the bordeaux had to be downgraded, slightly. while i was destined to be a withered wino, lily has greater things in store for her; when i was pregnant, the only thing i could eat was wild venison. i couldn't keep anything farmed down. this was the first time i had to make the decision whether i wanted her to be great or happy, as usually the two get along as well as me and my driver. i chose great when i saw her, when they put her on my stomach right after she was just born. even through the bloody visocse, it was obvious she was pretty. she'll no doubt be able to flirt with doctors and get vicodin prescrptions if she wants to dumb herself down a little bit. but i'll leave that choice to her.

none of this came naturally to me. i lost my shit the first time i had to throw away a j.mendel leather jacket because it got drenched in baby puke. i reckened with it by realizing that while such jackets will come and go, my only daughter's youth is fleeting. her infancy is nearly gone and soon she'll be stealing my pearls and pizza rolls. the jacket may have cost me a fortune but the memory she'll have of it will be worth so much more!

time to upgrade to a 35 cm.

stupid shit people spend their money on.

my dad is a banker and all i hear from him lately is blah blah blah economic crisis blah blah. he says it's because of sub-prime lending blah blah blah blah. i say it's becasue of this:

http://www.charismabrands.com/Products_All.aspx?&CatID=201&cs=mo&Index=5

for the mere pittance of 140 us dollars you can own this treasure:

somewhere out there, someone thinks that this is a good deal! i know that for a lot of people 140 dollars is pennies but something tells me they're not the ones who are ordering these things.

i understand that some things make people happy and are therefore worth any amount blah blah blah blah. but seriously. if this makes you happy you should probably take a good look at your life.

i don't know why i'm so irate over this stupid doll. it's things like this that make me really, really dislike america and americans, for the most part. it also irritates me to no end to know that the jackass responsible for designing and producing these things is probably far richer than i'll ever be. he's probably richer than you and your grandfather who came over on the boat and worked his fingers to the bone!

i know the grass is always greener blah blah blah but i am extremely hesitant to raise a child in a country that encourages such nonsense and accepts such aesthetics. i hope my generation does a little bit better.