1. We’re going through a mild cold snap here in North Carolina, one of the last before Spring settles in for good. I’m going to miss winter, though I know I’m alone in that.
2. Mia rewrote Rihanna’s “Only Girl in the World” last night. It’s new title is, “Only Girl in the World (spoofed into a milkshake).” These are the lyrics:
Ma ma ma malt ma ma ma malt
ma ma ma malt yeah ma ma ma malt
I need to give my tummy something chocolately
mm yum
I want to drink something smooth and sweet
Forget the veggietables cuz I need to have a treat
I don’t want to eat
I don’t care about the calories.
chorus:
I want to have something besides a bottle of Coke
Stuff like smoothies they’re a joke
I don’t care about my diet right now besides a bottle of Coke
I have I have the money don’t worry I’ll brush my teeth
I’m hungry but not enough to eat
No diabetes
No I’m not gonna get sick please Dad I don’t want to fight
Smooth creamy goodness with whip and a cherry to make it nice
Large medium small I don’t care about the size …
She performed it and it was kick-ass. I immediately introduced her to Weird Al Yankovic, so she could see the proud tradition she is working in.
3. I started reading Ninety-Two in the Shade, by Thomas McGuane. I’ve never read him before and the jury is still out on this one. The prose is cooked over a high heat, which produces mixed results. On the one hand, there are infuriating sentences like this one:
“That’s right,” Skelton said positively to this basilisk drunk.
I like “basilisk drunk,” but the word “positively” is just the kind of thing that gets produced in the fury of the moment and ought to be caught in editing. Because now it’s a stupid sentence. On the other hand, you have amazing paragraphs like this one:
“Then, a fifty-seven-day bad marriage to a Catholic from Chokoloskee that ended in the court reconciling everything he had acquired but a skiff and it all went off in a Bekins moving van with the wife up front by the driver, headed for the Everglades. And drinking of the kind that is a throwing of yourself against the threshold of suicide though lacking that final will to your own ceasing, without which all the hemlock and Colt’s patented revolvers are of no more avail than ringside tickets, photostats of lost deeds, or snapshots of Granddad’s five-bottom plow.”
4. It is past time to update “The Cannibal Priests of New England.” This weekend.
Nathan Ballingrud 
The other day, my toddler and I saw a dog that had been locked in the car while it’s owner went into a coffeeshop to grab a cup. The dog was barking it’s head off. Liza started to sing, to the tune of “No More Monkeys,” “Mama called the doctor and the doctor said, ‘No more doggies barking in the car!'”
I was a proud mama.
Love Mia’s rewrite, bet the performance was something to behold.
I put the blame on “positively” squarely on the editor’s shoulders, not the writer’s. While self-editing such disasters out of our own writing is a laudable goal, it should never take precedence over telling the story. That’s what editors are *for.* They allow writers to follow the creative muse and ignore the voice of self-doubt.