We have a new microwave oven, after having spent the last year without one. Heating our tea water in a kettle on the stove like savages. Yesterday afternoon Jack walked in on me heating soup for lunch, on the stove, like you do when you forget you now own a microwave oven.

Jack: "What are you doing?!"

Me: "Uh . . . not using the microwave?"

Jack: "Don't hesitate -- irradiate!"

I had been perfectly happy without a microwave, but our son mounted an extremely determined offensive to change my mind. Three days ago we were walking past a movie theater and Jackson was all, "Oh my God, that popcorn smells so good. I wish we could have some popcorn."

My response was to take him to the grocery store and show him bag after bag full of Jolly Time popcorn ready to be popped in a pan on someone's stove. Our stove, perhaps!

"Nooooooooo," he said, looking longingly at the individually-expensive, cellophane-wrapped packages of extra cheesy microwave popcorn waiting to be plucked off the shelf and taken home to explode into life within a microwave. A microwave that, sadly, did not belong to us.

It's just that we left our old, cranky one in the condo when we moved out, and there wasn't one already installed in this house when we moved in. And for the last twelve months I haven't particularly felt like spending a hundred bucks on a metal box whose main purpose is to make it easier for my son to eat junk food.

So I have no good reason to explain why I finally gave in after a year of being asked every day, "When are we going to get a microwave?" Apparently my goal was to teach my son that if he behaves as gently and persistently as water, he can carve a Grand Canyon through the microwave-resistant portion of my heart. Just like Lao Tzu prophesied in his deathless work, How to Succeed by Being a Really Stubborn Eleven-year-old. And honestly, though I may not be up on the current literature, I don't think microwaves are causing a lot of extra cancers, or damaging the brains of our nation.

Why haven't I been posting drawings? New excuse! My camera battery died and I couldn't find my camera battery charger, so I had to order another one online, where they're cheaper, and it finally came yesterday, and then my website was over quota on disk space usage. The whole thing was just tragic.

Anyway, I was feeling bad about the drawing I did for the person who asked for a fat old lady talking about sex, I felt it was too depressing and could be interpreted as the fat lady in the drawing was sad that she'd never fully explored her sexuality because she was fat. I might be overly fat-sensitive, but in order to correct an imbalance that may only exist in my own mind, I drew another picture, this time of a fat young (whoops) lady quoting Mae West (love her) talking about sex:

The lettering, sadly, isn't that great, but at some point you just have to let go and move on, even though I seem to be allergic to doing that. (Just ask Alice how I wanted to rewrite Let's Panic! when it was in final proofs. I win at being both fun and insufferable at the same time.)

This next one was for a friend who wanted me to draw of a cup of coffee saving the world. Coffee has naked arms and legs! I hope you're not shocked by this development.

Lastly, I have two Popcorn Whisperer posts you should see:

Sesame Street Does Downton, where you get to see the Muppetized versions of the Dowager Countess and Mr. Carson, and

Goodbye, Lurz, where I speculate wildly on what would happen in the not-happening eighth season of 30 Rock.