haphazard is a weird word.

But so is random. Random is a really weird word, and I've noticed that today's youngsters like to throw it around a lot, in a really random way. If you have a bad hair day, someone might call your hairdo "so random." Or maybe you said the wrong thing: "Wow, did you hear what she just said? That was so random." Or maybe someone cut in front of you in traffic while you were texting and driving: "*&$%$#@*!!! *&^%#*&!!!! SO random!! Random **&^%$#@s!" 

You know what's really random? The fact all of those randoms have applied to me, over the last 72 hours: 

1-I got a hair cut, and for some ungodly reason, told the woman: "I'd like bangs." And now I have bangs, which she did a beautiful job on, but I haven't had bangs for at least 8 years, and I suddenly remembered why I grew them out 8 years ago in the first place. That's random gone bad.

2-Recently, I became tongue-tied while making small talk and for about 5 (50?) minutes, we both stood around awkwardly wondering what to say, until finally the other person just looked at me and said, "Well, it was nice talking to you." And abruptly walked off. That's weird random.

3-I don't text and drive--it's dangerous and irresponsible and also I have an old razor phone and it takes forever to keep punching the keys to get to the letter I want and I just don't have that kind of time. But I *do* curse with random &^%$#@&s a lot while driving. I try not to do it in front of little Miss M, but occasionally someone is just such a bleeping bleeeeep bleeeeeep bleeeeeeeep, it just happens. 

I tell myself this is just a fact of Life she needs to learn early, and I take a deep breath, find "3 Little Birds" on the CD, and we commence to move onwards and upwards by singing "Don't worry! About a thing! 'Cause every little thing, gonna be all right!" That's when you take poor-behavior-role-modeling-by-an-adult random and turn it into redirecting-through-the-artistic-medium-of-song random.

Here is Miss M, whose existence on earth was random (when random is a happy surprise of a random). In this picture, she is not having a bad hair day (people under 10 rarely have these), she clearly doesn't care about making enough small talk that everyone feels at ease, and if she cusses out other drivers it's all babble cussing and so I won't be getting any frustrated phone calls from teachers at her daycare center. For now.

M, mesmerized by an episode of Yo Gabba Gabba I chose randomly from the hundreds saved to our DVR.

a list (with 1 mini-book review at the end).

1. Regarding my June 3 blog post, below, and the aggressive list I threw into it with all of the summer mental health projects I intended to accomplish (back on June 3, 2010). Update: I have visited this many funky coffeehouses since posting that list: 0. I have not painted anybody's room in my house; I have not even visited one of the major chain home improvement stores to choose an electrically funky paint color to paint anybody's room. Random House and Simon & Schuster still have no idea who I am, and I have written nothing to give them any idea. I think I'm still safe.

2. On the other hand, I have swum (swam?) more. While brooding. 

3. And I did leave my friend Erin 2 (3?) long winded bloggy comments on her blog.

4. And I did write one pointless blog the day after June 3. But it was so pointless I deleted it after a week. (If you must know, it was an exceedingly shallow post about blog niches and making money off of them; I decided after brooding over it--see #2, above--that (a) if I'm going to make money off a blog, it will have to somehow involve a 5 star getaway to a private island in the South Pacific where Gerard Butler awaits me half-naked and holding mimosas, and (b) I think I do actually have a niche: it's called Random Stupid Crap, and that's not a joke.)

5. I did a swim aerobics class today. While scissor kicking/doing the twist underwater, I brooded about why the anorexic people keep hogging all the inner thigh and ab muscle weight equipment upstairs. And then I brooded about why my stomach was mocking me by flapping around underwater...for the love of Mark Spitz, you'd think water would be the ONE place it wouldn't flap. And then I brooded about how I was going to get the chlorine out of my hair and if this would have dire consequences at my hair coloring appointment on Friday, and why do I keep wasting money to get my hair colored at all anyway? And then I brooded about the unfairness of being under 50 and still having a lot of gray hair anyway...stupid genes. And my plantar fasciitis has apparently moved to my lower back; would this constant twisting motion make that worse? 

And then the instructor yelled at me that I needed to focus and keep my shoulders underwater while scissor kicking/twisting. So I brooded about that until the stretching started.

6. I just finished a really good book called Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese. Abraham is a medical doctor with a deep talent for writing. He's written a book about healing and forgiveness and family, which also happens to infuse a lot of really important information that might help you one day if you need to perform emergency first aid (or, if you're me, it will cause you brief moments of hypochondria and a general sense of helplessness upon realizing we're really all just giant, walking petri dishes). And yet! I highly recommend it even if you are a hypochondriac, because it could make you cry at the end (I'm incredibly hormonal lately) and it said a lot about human connections. Also, it (mostly) takes place in faraway lands and I am always (always) drawn to novels that take place in faraway lands, for some reason I will brood on during Friday's swim aeorbics class.