Having a two-year-old is an experiment in staying sane, everyday. I get up in the morning sometimes and say to myself, maybe this is the day I will hear the word “why” for the gabillionth time and I will strip off my clothes and run down the street naked, yelling, “Woo, woo-hoo!” like one of those old Daffy Duck cartoons.

Maybe my brain will fry and I will leave her at the park or the grocery store. I will come home and suspect something’s missing, and will put a pot of something gloppy on the stove to reduce for hours, and that’s how the police will find me, talking to myself and wondering about all the glop-stains on the wall.

Me and my mama-friends talk about this stuff, the potential for insanity. We talk about little rooms with locking doors (for us or them), tropical vacations, and the possibility of our husbands correcting the things about themselves that really irk us (about the same as us correcting our bad habits, I guess).

And you’ve got your perfect-parenting books, magazines, and even Dr. Phil telling to praise the hell out of your little Morticia or Demonicus. So you get insanity from outside the house, as well as from the inside.

Some days I find myself saying things like, “Thanks for taking the crayon out of the cat’s butt! Good job!” or, “I am very proud of the way you stopped poking your friend in the eye.” Just so I can do something besides scold.

The other morning I realized that the positive-reinforcement thing is going a little too far.

I was so nutsy by 9:30 from being cooped up that I did a quick deck-swabbing instead of a full shower.

“We’re getting out of here, Frannie!” I said, as she stood under me and watched. She watches my every move, it’s like being someone’s personal movie, except the movie can potentially scar them for the rest of their lives.

“Why?” she said.

“Cause Mama’s going crazy. And don’t say ‘why’ again, please. Just because.”

“You washing your face Mama?”

“Yes.” I moved on to other parts.

“You washing your wulva, Mama?”

“Yes, I am.”

“That’s wonderful, Mama. Good job washing your wulva.”

Oh I will be sad when she can say her “v’s”.

Tricky, tricky body. Some people say that weird things start to happen to your body when you’re in your twenties, others say it’s your thirties. I am in-between, and I can tell you it’s now.

I have this theory that whenever one hole in my body closes up, another one opens. When I was eighteen this hole formed in the roof of my mouth. I went to an oral surgeon who thought it was an exploded salivary gland.

“What can you do for me?” I asked, after his diagnosis.

“Well. I don’t like the looks of it.” He had a beard, which he of course slapped a medical mask over. Is there nothing creepier than that? That’s like realizing your old auntie is wearing a swimsuit that becomes sheer when wet, and all the sudden you can see her No-No Place through it. Doctors should be required to be clean-shaven, it oughta be a law.

“I think we should cut it out, and biopsy it.”

“You mean you’re going to cut my hole out, and replace it with an even bigger one?”

“Ahhh,” he said, for I cracked his Zen riddle. There was nothing else to say after that, so he rubbed his mask over his beard, thoughtfully, and it made that hideous scratching sound that only a beard and a surgical mask can make.

Recently, the hole closed up. No more hole that I had to lie about and say it “didn’t hurt a bit” when the dentist would probe it with his little pick. No more shooting, tickly feeling that traveled up to my ear when I licked it. It took seven years to close up, and now I kind of miss it.

It got to be reassuring, the way your little toes are: don’t need ’em, but would miss ’em if they were gone.

But the pendulum swung the other way, as it is wont to do. Now I have a giant hole on my shoulder blade that won’t close up. It’s not cancer or anything. It’s the most giant zit ever.

Buried, three miles below SJ’s surface. Deeper than the Titanic. It lived as a slightly ouchy lump for months, waiting, waiting, for my mouth-hole to close up, I am convinced.

Now it is the Zit That Won’t Go Away. I squeeze it, it refills itself fast as a drink in a Chinese restaurant. I ignore it, it lurks, waiting. The victimized pore is now large enough to act as a rain gauge, should I choose to lie in the yard topless.

Me vs. My Body. Who will win? Where will the next hole appear?

As we look back on the glorious year that was 2002, we must not forget an important (and free) activity that people often turn to in times of economic turmoil: humping.

Once, there were fabulous songsmiths who could weave spellbinding tunes that were worthy of the act itself. I am referring to, of course, persons such as Barry White, Marvin Gaye, and Al Green. They made music that was called “soul” music, and crafted lyrics that said things such as “ooh baby, I’m going to give you all of my sweet lovin’,” which, roughly translated, meant: “Girl, hold still, cause I’m gonna stick my thing in you.”

Alas, “soul” (the genre title implying “humping is good for your soul”) is dead. In these modern times, we have instead the genre known as “R&B.” I cannot back this up, but I’m pretty sure the “R” stands for “Ready” and the “B” stands for “Boning,” as in “The Ready For Boning” genre.

It is also important to note that today’s youth have no interest in the tedious subtlety of the previous “soul” generation. We want our humping NOW, and in lieu of that, we want it described to us using in the MOST GRAPHIC TERMS POSSIBLE, and instead of real instruments we want a backbeat that goes “um-tss, tss, tss, BOOM!” Turn up that bass, BI-otch, cause it’s time to get it OOOONNN!

We in the offices of I, Asshole have worked hard to provide you with a list of Musical Hi-lites of 2002, and proudly present: SONGS ABOUT HUMPING (2002).

First, a call for female equality. In her song “Work It,” Missy “Misdemeanor” Elliot demands the same treatment as her male counterparts, except instead of requesting “let me stick it in you,” she suggests that you stick it in her. (Important: this is the defining difference between today’s male and female hiphop artistes.)

Missy Elliot, “Work It” (snippet)

“Call before you come, I need to shave my chocha,
You do or you don