I woke up at 3am last night in a cold sweat because while I did remember that platypuses are monotremes, I could not remember what a monotreme is. Mono is one, sure; treme is… an HBO series from 2010. Maybe it means bill? Latin for bill? One bill!? What animal has more than one BILL, Alice, you MANIAC. 

First thing I did this morning is look it up, and I’m happy to report that a monotreme is a mammal that lays eggs. (Treme = hole. Single hole. It’s better you don’t know what that hole is for.) Maybe write this down for yourself so that you, like me, don’t wake up in the middle of the night, appalled by your own ignorance. 

They nurse without nipples 

The night before I had woken up because I saw a strange figure by my bed, but it wouldn’t be the first time. On a number of occasions I’ve experienced hypnopompic hallucinations—I see people just as I’m waking up. “How do you know they’re not ghosts?” the more reasonable among you may be asking. Friends, I have asked myself this. All I can say is, they go away with a few hearty blinks, and my understanding of ghosts is, they stick around to impart messages from the beyond, to rattle their chains and etc. 

This has only happened to me, oh, 10 times? But each has been memorable. The first couple of times, I shrieked like you would not believe, thus scaring the living daylights out of my spouse. The very first time I scrabbled out of bed and got into a fighting stance (crouching, arms flailing wildly) before realizing we were alone. The second time I saw a dark creature hunched over our alarm clock and I woke up the household with my yells. By the third time, though, I was like, this no longer impresses me. I woke up and there was a tall red-headed woman standing on Scott’s chest, and I thought, “there’s no way that’s real,” and I blinked her right out of existence. And ever since then, I’ve felt pretty casual about these sleep apparitions. But it’s been a couple of years since the last one, and this was the first time I experienced it in this house, and I don’t know, I felt more … alert than I would normally be? Seeing a faceless guy standing over our bed? Did not like? And I might have stayed up for a while, my heart hammering in my chest? 

Only the males are venomous 

I went into the city this past weekend to see My Baby, whom I had not laid eyes on since Christmas, which is simply unacceptable. It’s a challenge for us to have Henry visit—the schedule of 60 Minutes is such that Scott works weekends, and guests aren’t really a thing we can do during the show’s season. So I headed down to the Big City to see my boy. 

On the train there, I sat behind two young men who were drinking like it was their job, and just like a job, they were expressing a real lack of satisfaction. “Dude,” one of them would say, for instance, continuing, “I’ve had like five beers, and I feel like shit.” “Dude, same,” the other would counter. A few minutes later: “I’m on my sixth, dude,” and on and on. Mind you, it was 10:30am. I craned my head over to get a good look at them, and they were wearing all kinds of stupid green shit, and that’s when I realized, Christ, it’s the weekend before St. Patrick’s Day. But there was nothing festive about their drinking. They had a job to do, and they were gonna get through it, by God. And they say Gen Z has no work ethic! 

They have no stomachs

I met Henry at his apartment before we set out for dinner, and there was … a Christmas tree. In his living room. Strung with lights, surrounded by random extension cords, and so very, very dead. Every ounce of my maternal instinct roared into action and I was like NOT ON MY WATCH. “That is such a fire hazard,” I said, and he was like, “What does that even mean,” and I was like, “We’re taking it downstairs right now is what it means.” And we did. I have never felt more like a mom. Then his roommate came home and the first thing she said was, “oh, the Christmas tree is gone!” and I was like “you’re welcome!” and she smiled indulgently at me and then I have never felt older.