Sprinkler Private Parts

There's this song on the episode of Sesame Street that my son is currently obsessed with, and it's been looping through my head at the most inappropriate moments. It's about this one little girl ("ya know she's a girl/ she's gonna change the world/ she's gonna change the world/ she's gonna make the world a better world!") and it's lovely and clever and catchy, but it digs into my brain and festers there right at the moments I happen to be unclogging the sink, or bouncing an angry baby, or spooning a pot roast which took all day to make into seven separate Tupperware containers because my husband isn't coming home for dinner again.

In these moments, I rewrite the lyrics and feel satisfyingly dour about things: "ya know she's a girl/ she's gonna have some kids/ she's gonna clean some things/ she's gonna cook some complicated and evidently uninteresting things..."). Philosophically, I know that what I'm doing for my family right now is important, and even on an ideological level I can get on board with the idea that this is noble and necessary work, no less rewarding or legitimate for being unpaid, but then that god damned Muppet starts singing about being president and going to Mars and healing the sick and I think, what have I done for history lately? More to the point, when my husband looks at me, can he see past the baby food splatters and the Matchbox cars forever wedged into my jeans pockets to the mind beneath? Why do I feel so persistently invisible to the rest of the world (she asked the blog she hadn't posted to since September of the year prior)?

Anyway. Funny thing: this morning's mission is to go to the ranching supply store and trade out sprinkler parts purchased the day before because they are inadequate to get the job done. Their ends are male/male and we need male/female. I am going to go ask a farm retailer to help me find gendered sprinkler parts. I might make it really awkward and ask for penis/vagina parts instead of these double penises.

If I were feeling optimistic-- which, hey, let's say I am because honestly I have to be optimistic, I'm going on four hours of sleep and if I don't buck up quick it's going to be a long day-- I could look at this little errand as affirmation that the world (via the microcosm of a sprinkler system) doesn't work without both energies, masculine and feminine, and that those energies can take whatever form we want them to. The fact that my arrangement looks pretty traditional right now is not some kind of check mark in the column against progress, or evidence that I'm incapable of anything else, or affirmation that my husband sees me that way no matter how insensitive he is about my pot roast.