But! I have this news flash: Pop music has become even worse. God help us, Ke$ha was apparently only the tip of the iceberg. Without further ado, I present to you Springtime Pop Lyrics: The Anatomy Edition.

California Gurls, Katy Perry, featuring Snoop Dogg

California girls, we’re unforgettable
Daisy dukes, bikinis on top
Sun-kissed skin, so hot will melt your popsicle
Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh
California girls, we’re undeniable
Fine, fresh, fierce, we got it on lock
West coast represent, now put your hands up
Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh

You know the popsicle thing is the result of the songwriting team’s need for a phallic double entendre somewhere in the song. Banana? Candy bar? Stonehenge? The brainstorming was going decently, until Snoop Dogg arrived at the studio and everyone had to stop to explain what a double entendre is. And honestly, there’s nothing like explaining “double entendre” to a 39-year-old man with unfortunate braids to really take the fun out of the concept. You can almost hear Katy Perry saying, “Oh, screw it. Just make it popsicle. And will someone come over here and FORCE MY DAMN BREASTS BACK INTO MY SHIRT.”

Today Was a Fairytale, Taylor Swift

Time slows down whenever you’re around
I can feel my heart
It’s beating in my chest
Did you feel it?
I can’t put this down

Well, all I can say about that is THANK GOD. Taylor seems like a sweet girl, and I’d hate to think of her having a heart beating anywhere but in her chest. Then again, it might be beating somewhere else, but we’ll never know. I mean, would you go around telling people if your heart was beating in your shin or your elbow?

Exactly.

Carry Out, Timbaland, featuring Justin Timberlake

Let me get my ticket baby, let me get it line
I can tell the way you like it, baby, supersized
Hold on, you got yours, let me get mine
I ain’t leavin’ till they turn over the closed sign

Take my order cause your body like a
Carry out
Let me walk into your body until you
Hear me out
Turn me on, my baby don’t you
Cut me out
Turn me on, my baby don’t you
Cut me out

Now I know I should be concentrating on the whole treating-a-woman-like-she’s-a-fast-food-order thing. Yes, yes. Offensive, demeaning, imbecilic. But the thing I just can’t get past is this image of Jessica Biel and Cameron Diaz leaning on each other for support as they roar in hysterical laughter. “Did Justin just say SUPERSIZED?” screams Cameron, tears running uncontrollably down her cheeks. “YES!!!” answers Jessica, a fresh wave of guffaws knocking her to the ground.

Sigh. That’s it. From now on, it’s instrumental songs only. I mean it this time. Until the summer lyrics post, in which I will totally reveal how I have broken that promise. In the meantime, do me a favor and buy me some Adam Lambert tickets.

Aura has inherited a great many things from her father, including a love of coffee-flavored foodstuffs and an inclination to snicker at me when I am at my most threatening. She also shares his tendency to become completely and utterly submerged in the lyrics of a song. New songs, songs that especially strike their fancy, songs with an unusual tempo—one note and both Adam and Aura are goners, listening and memorizing with a fierceness last witnessed in certain Nordic warriors. Their posture goes slack, their mouths gape a bit, and conversation (at least on their end) screeches to a halt.

Honestly, the trance can be a bit startling the first time you witness it. But once you get used to it, you find yourself almost impressed by such pure, unadulterated absorption. Seriously: I’ve mentioned rogue rocket ships and flying cows and free milkshakes, with zero response.  I did once snare Adam’s attention by yelling, “Look! Megan Fox is driving the car next to us, NAKED AND HANDING OUT BEER!” but later efforts proved that was a one-trick pony.

Given all of this, I really have no excuse for what happened a few days ago. In  my limited defense, it was a beautiful day and I had just picked up Aura from preschool and we had the car windows down, encouraging the spring breezes to mess up our hair. When a hip-hoppy R&B song came on, I just left it, and we car-danced, or at least I did. I knew the song wasn’t going to be age-appropriate, but she was distracted and we were happy and there might have even been a rainbow and some frolicking elves. It was that nice of an afternoon.

Then we parked. As I was releasing my seatbelt, Aura piped up, “Mommy, what does sex mean?” For a second, the whole thing was a bit like a paper cut, when the shock of the unexpected pain makes the world go momentarily silent. Still in the driver’s seat, I swooned as images of second-grade navel piercings and a prepubescent subscription to Cosmo flooded my brain.

Then I recovered, for that is what GOOD PARENTS DO.

After a few unsuccessful starts, I found an explanation that satisfied us both, at least temporarily. “Oh! Sex? Sex is just a silly way some people say the number six. Isn’t that SILLY?” Once I started, it was like I couldn’t stop. “Just like some people say foove for five! One, two, three, four, foove, sex! IT’S SO SILLY, ISN’T IT?”

Days later, I don’t know what scenario scares me most: that Aura sees through the deception and asks again, or that she presents her newfound counting schema at school. As much as the resulting preschool progress report will pain me, I’m rooting for scenario #2. So what if she gets an Unsatisfactory in the Number Identification category? Screw ‘em. When she gets homes that day, I’m so going to give her a high foove.

Then I realized what I had said. And I waited.

We hadn’t gone more than a tenth of a mile before it came. ”Mommy?” Aura asked from the backseat. “What’s a fucker?”

“Oh!” I answered. “Oh, ho!” Then I bought a little time pretending to adjust a mirror. I think I put the window up and down a few times, too. Finally, I said,  “Nothing, honey. I was just saying that the man in front of us was a really bad driver.”

This, my friends, is the main problem with being bad at swearing. After years of experimenting, I have accepted that I am a poor curser and therefore hardly ever swear at all, minus an occasional damn after stubbing a toe or a hissed shit when Adam has let the TiVo override Desperate Housewives in favor of Iron Chef or women’s surfing or who the heck (see?) knows what.

As far as I can tell, there’s neither a deep psychological reason nor a superficial snobbery associated with my inability to let ‘em rip. It all seems to boil down to the fact that I sound completely stupid when I try. And it’s not like I don’t try. Whenever Adam and I have an argument that escalates into yelling, I’ll throw in an “ASSHOLE!” or even a “BASTARD!” just to hear if I’ve gotten any better. But I never have, plus Adam just stops screaming back and instead cries with laughter and that’s just infuriating.

I don’t think there’s a solution, really. And I’m pretty much fine with not being able to swear well. It’s not as if it’s one of the finer points of womanhood, anyhow. But still: It seems like it should be easier.

Oh, well.

In the meantime, I implore all of you: Be careful driving. Roads these days are fraught with fuckers.

“Good morning, Evan!” she called. “How are you?” 

Evan said he was good. 

“Good morning, Madison!” she said next. “And how are you?” 

Not surprisingly, Madison was also good. 

We were up next. ”Good morning, Aura!” The director smiled.  “How are you this morning?”  

“I’m well!” chirped Aura. 

The director’s face momentarily contorted in confusion.  Then she beamed with understanding.  “Oh!” she said.  “You’re wow? Well, isn’t that great?”

I leaned in, aiming for what I hope came across as a conspiratorial tone and not a creepy-stage-mother tone. “No,” I explained. “She’s well.” 

“Ah,” the director replied. “Of course!” Then she disappeared into her office. And maybe she closed the door. 

Okay. Get the eye-rolling and derisive snorts out of your system.  Go ahead. I’ll wait. (As long as you snort well. I don’t suffer readers who snort good.) 

Needless to say, neither does Aura. It makes her kind of lip-curly.

Now that you’re done, I’d like to hop up on my Grammar Soapbox for just a sec. Yes, I was an English major in college. Yes, I am a writer by trade. And yes, perhaps I am the teeniest bit compulsive about my child speaking correctly. But I ask you: So what?  Didn’t we just finish up eight years of making fun of a president who couldn’t conjugate his way out of a paper bag? Doesn’t the rash of best-selling books and popular Web sites about proper punctuation tell us anything? 

Now I’m not saying I’m perfect. (I mean, I am. But it seems immodest to admit that here.) However, I see absolutely nothing wrong with trying to raise children to speak correctly, even if they do it while behaving like cretins most of the time. Once in a while, it feels…nice to use a word with its original definition in mind, instead of some modern mixed-meaning bastardization. Even the loudest snorter among you has to agree that there is something adorably impressive in hearing a child say difficult instead of hard, or entire instead of whole, in a sweet, reedy little voice. 

As you can see, fishing in a tutu is difficult. Especially with an entire pool of fish to catch.

Don’t even get me started on yeah.  While it doesn’t bother me in the least to hear an adult say yeah, hearing my 40-inch angel say it makes me kind of mildly homicidal. I can’t offer an eloquent explanation for this. I think my aggravation stems from the fact that English is often so dumbed down, so lowest-common-denominatorish. Kids growing up today don’t have a freakin’ chance. Look at that damn Dora the Explorer. I want to launch myself across the living room and strangle that navel-baring, animal-befriending little bugger every time she yells yeah, which is an average of 67 times per episode, if I’m not mistaken. (Perfect people rarely are, you know.)

And so Aura says she’s “well” when asked her current condition. She’s been trained in other adverbs, too, though the -ly rule and its exceptions can be tricky devils, often resulting in directives to “Run fastly, Mommy!” But then recently, when I did a particularly admirable job answering her pop quiz on Santa Claus and the snacks that must be left for him on Christmas Eve, she told me I was correct, not right. I tell you, she got the BIGGEST cookie. It was like each and every one of those chocolate chips was a testament to our shared appreciation for the literal.

Well, then. The bulk of this post is complete. So let me share the conversation Adam and I had last night. 

Adam: Want to order a pizza tonight?  

Kate: YEAH!  

Adam: Onions, peppers, broccoli?  

Kate: RIGHT!  

Adam: I’m so hungry that I think I might…  

Kate: …eat the WHOLE thing!  

Man. This language thing is hard.