My daughter has inherited my sense of rhythm.

My daughter is dancing to Barack Obama.

I kid you not; currently Obama is on television, saying something vaguely important about health care. His shirtsleeves are rolled up, and he's wearing that incredulous look on his face that seems to ask why he has to explain the reasoning behind trying to make sure that everyone in his country is allowed to, y'know, not die. (Note to Obama detractors, especially that one lady last night who was famously screaming, "get outta my health care!": YOU DON'T HAVE HEALTH CARE. THAT'S THE WHOLE POINT.) He looks wearily paternal, like he just finished a twelve-hour shift at the factory and has now come home to find his children asking for piggyback rides and bedtime stories. Despite that apparent fatigue, his words are calm, measured, and straightforward.

And my daughter is dancing to him.

I mean, my daughter dances to a lot of things; it doesn't matter what we put on the stereo, whether it be metal, hip-hop, rock, punk, r&b - once it starts, so do her kneebends, and then her hands go up in the air and her head does that sort of half-nodding thing that means she wants to bounce to the beat but her co-ordination's not quite there yet, and then we all laugh because, y'know, we're white and we're dancing, but it's fun, right? And now she's dancing to a press conference.

I don't get it. Then again, she's lately taken to spinning around and around and around and around until she's so dizzy she keels over and smacks her head on the coffee table, but just comes up laughing, and I didn't think that kind of self-destructive behaviour started until they reached puberty and started listening to My Chemical Romance. I guess it's true: they grow up so quickly...

...any one else notice how badass Obama seems these days? I mean, this is a guy who was once considered the whitest black man in America, and this was before Michael Jackson passed away (Too soon? Naw...); now, every picture you see of him is like a cross between George Clooney and Shaft, and every news clip seems empty if you're not playing some James Brown in the background.

I'm just sayin' is all: brotha's got it goin on.

OHMIGOD NEW MUSIC Y'ALL SHOULD LISTEN TO:

1. I had a disagreement with Big Clint a few years back over The Roots, wherein the big galoot actually uttered the phrase, "...The Roots play hip-hop that only white people listen to...", a statement so jaw-droppingly inane that it's taken me a few years to respond: Yeah, like black people are actually gonna tell us what they listen to; every time they do, we steal it from them.

This is their new single; listen to it and tell me that they haven't inherited James Brown's title of the Hardest Working (Band) In Show Business.

2. One Be Lo has a new track out, one that didn't make the cut for his upcoming album, B.A.B.Y.; if you haven't heard S.O.N.O.G.R.A.M., or any of his work as One Man Army, then you're missing out on some of the best hip-hop you'll ever hear - and while I'm white enough to cringe every time someone refers to the cops as 'pigs' (due to the fact that most of the people who I've heard use the term are as white as me, and their definition of harassment amounts to mere inconvenience...), I'm also white enough to understand that I've had a pretty lucky upbringing, given that I was never judged because of the colour of my skin, nor discriminated against because of it, nor outright beaten or arrested because of it, so I can pretty much just shut up and let One Be Lo have his say.

Now I must go rake leaves and then burn them in an offering to Ye Gods Of Winter, so that they don't send snow demons and ice witches to plague our house this season. I'll put in a good word for y'all, but it'll cost ya.

Just stuff.

So. Rachel received her MEGA-EXCALIBUR ACTION FORCE 3000 KUNG-FU POWERED DEHYDRATOR over the weekend, a box of plastic 2 ft x 2 ft x 2ft, that, when activated, slowly drains all the life force from whatever animal, vegetable or mineral you've happened to have boiled, skinned and laid out in small strips as an offering to it's cavernous maw, as though it were some pagan Old Testament god. The process takes anywhere from 8 to 48 hours, depending on what unlucky specimen is being tortured, and for some reason the noise it makes seems to have an exhausting psychological effect on my brain, similar to what happens to Gitmo detainees after they've been subjected to 72 hours of Poison's "Unskinny Bop".

I kid; it's actually only called the Excalibur. It does seem to drive a spike into my brain, for reasons I can only guess at (aural critical mass and the creeping slow-death anesthetic of suburban malaise, or something as such, which in it's entirety is my new math-rock band name...), so we're keeping it in the basement where it can drive the rodents crazy and leave ectoplasmic scorch marks on the walls a la the Ark of the Covenant. It also provides DELICIOUS dried fruits and stuff, for which I am extremely stoked. So far we've done nectarines, peaches, pears, plums and cherries, and in about half an hour I have to go check on the bananas and crabapples, because this is Science, which requires Diligence and Attention and a fair bit of Luck. I say 'we', when what I really mean is 'Rachel did everything while Hazel and I watched and then partook of the literal fruits of her labour', as is usually the case; Hazel enjoys the dried fruit to no end, and has taken to stuffing her cheeks as full as possible, which makes her look like a midget prizefighter after a couple of rounds, although this also leads to our discovery of half-mulched lumps of fruit paste all over the house, which is, well, gross; then again, so are babies.

Hazel has also taken to performing an action that I like to call 'The Flop' anytime that she's prevented from exhibiting adverse behaviour, such as eating the compost, choking herself with her strings of beads (thanks for those, Auntie Mo!) or shoving her doll's head into the toilet like it was a high school initiation; she emits a noise that's half-grunt, half-shriek and then either collapses onto the floor (if she's standing on her own) or arches her back and throws her head back, forcing you to try to catch her and keep her from smacking her head on whatever solid object she's aiming for, despite the fact that she's already in your grasp.

Yay, independence.

She is currently taking her frustrations out on her socks by stretching them around her head; she is doing this because I've steered her away from our new Big Screen Television, a great beast of a machine that Barsky forced upon us (oh, we're victims, it's true...); it's the size of a small horse, which means that it's bigger than any piece of furniture we might want to rest it upon, so now it just sits against the wall, emitting it's hypnotic Orwellian gaze upon all who chance by. This thing is scary. It's hard to watch anything on it without falling into a sort of trance, and I find that if I watch it for too long, I find myself waking up hours later wondering why I'm naked and clutching the remains of a dead cat.

Which happens more often than you'd think.

I could show you pictures of all of these things, except that our camera has a bad habit of staying over at other people's houses; it's currently hiding over at Lindsay & Justan's house (according to the Ladyfriend), which I suppose is okay, because it used to spend all of it's time over at Miss Amy's house, and we'd end up with hundreds of pictures of her nudist Road Warrior child. Which isn't really a bad thing, just a little disturbing.

Now I must go fold diapers. Be good, or I'll make you sit in the basement with the dehydrator.