pour faire parler les curieux

#6 - a poem

2008-08-05T21:36:00.001-05:00

Almost there
Just don't care
Something something underwear

There. That was my final dry heave of creativity for the summer before I head back to civilization for rejuvenation. I'm hoping that a real bed, real food and time with the nephew will cure what ails me before I get back to NYC for the apartment hunt, the new job and the new semester.

I'll see you all on the other side.

#5 - dear mr. program-evaluator-guy,

2008-07-29T20:27:00.002-05:00

You, sir, are an ass-wipe.

You came to visit our delicate ecosystem to learn of the intricate balances in its fight for survival and during your tour of the facility you politely sat through our lectures and became privy to the most intimate details of our program and its staff. You exhibited all of the qualities of an exceptional evaluator and guest—you were respectful and courteous, deferential and thoughtful—but now it appears that none of your behavior was sincere. It seems that you have smiled and cajoled us into confiding in you only to trample our work and piss in our office plants once our backs were turned. While you, sir, get to return home to the city, or wherever it is you keep your freakishly tall pants, we—we, sir—must remain here to endure the havoc that you have wrought under the guise of assistance and goodwill. You have betrayed our confidence and you have made unbearable what before was barely tolerable. You have, in short, ruined our lives.

In conclusion: Cock, cock, grandma, jism, cock.

Also: Your mom.

Sincerely,

#4 - kickapoo canoe cock-up

2008-07-27T23:35:00.001-05:00

I am steadily losing the will to live. We are entering Week 7 of 8 of the program and a glint of insanity is starting to appear in everyone’s eyes. We have run out of things to say to each other, the drama of living in close quarters is mounting, and our resilience is flagging. Weekends offer little respite—one night of heavy drinking can only cure so much of the week’s ills and the field trips the next day are a fucking chore. Half the day is inevitably spent on a rickety yellow bus (no matter how close they claim the destination to be) and each week the trips get progressively worse. Last weekend we ate crappy food and saw a crappy cave way the fuck out in Minnesota which, we discovered, has even less to offer the world than Wisconsin. This weekend we went canoeing and the results were very nearly tragic—as in lawsuits-and-funerals.

Fourteen canoes departed and twelve landed at the designated area. One of the missing canoes continued down the river, having missed the unmarked landing site. The other, containing the program director no less, sank to the bottom of the Kickapoo river, no doubt in an attempt to escape the mind-numbing incompetence of its passengers. I hope it is in a better place now.

During the wait, some people milled about the river’s edge, some were driven to the restaurant where the group was supposed to have eaten hours before, and some jumped (despite protest) from the top of a bridge into the murky, branch-mined water.

But wait, things get better—I mean worse. Upon discovering that four people were missing (two ahead and two beyond the landing site), search parties were deployed. One search party consisted of the wife of the man who rented canoes to us out of his shack, and the other consisted of two men—one Navy, one drunk. The wife of canoe guy set off down the river to look for the overly-ambitious group, and the two guys jump into a canoe at the launch site to comb the river for the director’s canoe. In the dark. Without flashlights. Or working cell phones.

Oddly enough, this seemed to concern very few people. Most carried on quite normally through the late dinner while waiting for the others to be found, but my end of the table was fairly subdued. I’ve noticed that in times of trouble this is usually the case. It’s not like in the movies where everyone is running around, frantically screaming. Rather, the worried get very quiet.

I was certainly worried. This seemed just like the kind of thing you see on CNN over the weekend. In the summer it’s always one water tragedy after another—shark attacks and boating accidents, pool drowning and flooding. Fortunately, all returned alive and unharmed, but I still felt like strangling someone. I can’t help thinking that we’ve burned all of our luck on this one trip and something terrible will surely happen on the next. Right now I’m determined not to go. Yet, somehow I know that my mind will be swayed by mid-week. I just can’t drag myself away from every gory detail of this train wreck of a summer.

So stay tuned for further adventures. Next weekend we’re off to Minneapolis and whatever fresh hell it contains. I can’t fucking wait.

#3 - mystery food

2008-07-05T22:42:00.001-05:00

We are being housed in a dorm on a small college campus. The men are on the first floor, the women on the second, and each person has their own room. Each room has two beds, two desks, a small refrigerator and an air-conditioning unit. The bathrooms are shared (one per sex) and there are laundry and kitchen facilities in the basement. The walls are cinderblock, the floors are vinyl, and the bathroom tile color pallet is cutting-edge 1973. At some point the facilities director got a bulk deal on two dozen rolls of forest-green floral wallpaper border and plastered it onto the walls of all the common rooms. The woman for whom the dorm is named gazes benevolently over the cramped lobby from behind her horn-rimmed glasses. No one keeps their door open to socialize and when someone cooks in the basement the bathrooms smell like chicken and macaroni.

The campus is grassy and spotted with trees and every day when I walk to breakfast I encounter half a dozen bunnies grazing in the morning shadows. They share the lawns with the sparrows, finches, robins and squirrels. The squirrels startle to their branches and the birds flit around singing and feeding their chirping nests. It’s so fucking picturesque I expect Snow White to burst out of the foliage at any moment, singing some soulful melody about the beauty of forest creatures or her hollow life as a single woman.

We are fed three meals per day during the week and left to fend for ourselves on weekends. Each meal is served in the Math Learning Center a short walk away from the dorm. Lunch and dinner include a salad of plain lettuce (though recently carrot slivers have made an appearance!), a fruit salad of melon and grapes, a mayonnaise-based pasta cold dish, and an assortment of hot food. It is a showcase of mediocrity. The fish and vegetables are always overcooked with the exception of the eggplant which has not yet been served in a manner conducive to consumption. The recipes are strange and bewildering. Dinner conversation centers around 1) identifying the meat, 2) identifying the combination of flavors, and 3) guessing the recipe’s country of origin (or what we believe the cook to believe to be the country of origin). Usually, meals include some sort of discernible theme such as “Mediterranean”, “BBQ”, or “Breakfast”. Lately, however, the cook staff seems to have strayed from this pattern. Last week we were served what were purported to be bean & rice burritos but what turned out to be wraps filled with a teriyaki sauce-drenched mixture of rice, beans, corn, cheese and tofu. One classmate’s burrito included couscous and carrot slices. These so-called ‘burritos’ were accompanied by sides of steamed cabbage, corned beef and boiled potatoes. This led us to wonder if 1) the cook was fucking with us, and 2) if there was any Latino presence in Wisconsin—certainly there wasn’t any working in the kitchen that day. If there was, the poor souls have surely lost all self-respect in addition to their sense of right and wrong.

Our mealtimes are 8 AM, 12 PM and 6 PM. I have never in my life eaten three meals per day unless the third fell somewhere beyond 10 PM. I feel as if I am constantly eating. Mostly I stick with salad and fruit because it is reliably free of sauce and salt. On weekends I grab one meal in town with classmates and eat the rest out of my mini-fridge—cheese, fruit, hummus, diet Dr. Pepper and crackers. There are few restaurants accessible from campus—lack-luster family dining and pizza joints. There is one Chinese restaurant downtown but after our encounter with ‘Mexican’ food in the cafeteria, we have thus far avoided it. Also, for the land of cows and cheese, Wisconsin’s cheeseburgers are severely disappointing.

On Saturday we ate in one restaurant, in the midst of a gaggle of middle-aged bikers. A caravan of Harley Davidsons lined the street out front and their riders filled the tables inside, drinking diet sodas and adjusting their leather vests. I watched one woman twirl a curl of her graying hair from beneath a skull-and-crossbones bandana and wondered what drives people to spend their retirement on fringe-festooned clothing and obnoxiously loud motor vehicles. I understand the appeal of open road and fresh towns, but this does not sufficiently explain the phenomenon. No, it is something else entirely that drives people to tour the country dressed like morose rodeo clowns. I resent their sense of entitlement—that they now spend their lives riding from pristine countryside to charming town, annoying everyone they encounter with their raucous engines. And I resent the fact that by the time I can afford to retire gas will be too expensive for me to do the same and electric motorcycles will make no more noise than a bicycle. Perhaps by that time one will be able to download a variety of loud engine noises from iTunes in order to compensate for the convenience of clean and quiet vehicles. I certainly hope so. This is America after all.

Update: The melon is starting to invade the other food platters—at a recent lunch the vegetarian mélange included mushrooms, apples, honeydew melon and cantaloupe. Bewildered and fearful that the fruit would continue to run amok and mount a hostile takeover of our entire culinary world, one classmate fired off an emailed complaint to the program director. The next day the melon had vanished, replaced by a bowl of tiny, spotted green apples. The people rejoiced.

#2 - dreaming of sleep

2008-07-02T16:52:00.002-05:00

I can’t sleep. Well, I suppose that isn’t entirely true since I am still alive and functioning. More accurately, I can’t sleep for more than an hour or two at a time. Each night I wake up more than half a dozen times and each time I wake up I spend 15-30-60-90+ minutes trying to get back to sleep again. What is keeping me from sleep? It isn’t the erratic rumbling of the mini-fridge, nor the hammering choke of the air-conditioning unit, nor the quality of my mattress—it’s my brain. My brain refuses to shut up. No matter how exhausted I am, it whirrs tirelessly within my head, thinking of storylines, memories, Spider Solitaire, and financial aid papers. These separate entities compete fiercely for my weary attention, jostling back and forth, in and out of the spotlight. They are loud and refuse to be ignored. In addition, my brain insists on translating every thought that flies through my mind, creating an echo chamber of English babble and its bad Persian translation. I have been here for 15 days and have yet to sleep a night.

I expect my brain to explode at any minute or my body to collapse. I am both scared of and fascinated by my condition. I wonder how long this can go on. I wonder if my hair will catch fire. I wonder if I will spontaneously slip into a coma. I wonder if I have discovered some latent superpower within me which allows me to live without rest. I have often wondered what the best superpower would be but now I know that this would be the worst.

I have tried napping, not napping, eating, not eating, caffeine, no caffeine, exercise, showering before bed, reading, writing, studying, and listening to music, but nothing works. My mother suggested beer and my brother Benadryl but I don’t think either is a viable long-term solution for the 6 weeks that remain in the program. I don’t often dream, or rather I remember fewer of them than usual. The other night I had the first silly dream of my life. I held in my hand the red foam apricot-sized ball that had allowed me to fly over the dark city and when it had expanded to the size of a large melon I placed it on my head like a hat. When the villains spotted me hiding in their lair I snatched the foam hat from my head and it promptly shrank back down to its original size. As I frantically whistled the tune necessary to cause it to fly (“Reveille”) I paused briefly to appreciate how ridiculous everything had become. When I awoke I hummed the tune on the way to the bathroom and it filled my head until I finally escaped back into a fitful sleep.

The next morning I giggled to myself uncontrollably over breakfast, goofy with exhaustion. One classmate inquired about my state of mind but I brushed him off. How does one say “whistle” and “foam ball hat” in Persian? I only know how to deny my insanity. A few nights ago I returned to my usual pattern of nightmares and awoke feeling hopeful that things might once again return to normal and I would finally get some sleep. I have learned my lesson—I will appreciate what I once had, even more if I can get it back again. What I wouldn’t give for a full night’s worth of zombie hordes or battlefield atrocity. Here’s to dreaming.

Update: In a desperate attempt to sleep, I resolved to exhaust myself completely, shower and then chug a beer. I did a couple hundred crunches/push-ups/lunges, showered, downed the beer and went to bed. The beer made me sleepy but no dice. I didn’t drop off until a long while after—I stopped looking at the clock after I passed the 90-minute mark—and sleep was fitful. The following morning I awoke sore and tired and that night resigned myself to drugs. A full dose of NyQuil did the trick. As did Benadryl the following night. I don’t like the whole drugging business, but for now I need sleep and it will have to do. I’m relieved that 1) something finally worked, and 2) that it wasn’t the goddamned crunches.

#1 - greetings from Ironsin!

2008-06-30T15:03:00.000-05:00

I have not posted anything new in 6 months due to a combination of grad school rigors and sheer laziness and although it is now officially summer, for me it is no time to indulge wholeheartedly in the latter. My course of study (for whom I have only myself to blame) requires me to spend these months studying Persian so that I might acquire sufficient language skills to qualify for placement in advanced language classes this fall. I know , it all sounds very glamorous, but unlike my classmates who are off to all corners of the globe this summer to absorb native cultures and save the Third World from disease and economic hardship, I will be staying here in the States. Due to circumstances beyond my control—such as the chance that Bush may take this remaining time to go for three in the Middle East—I will not be studying in Iran this summer, nor anywhere near it. Instead, I have sequestered myself in an 8-week language immersion program in rural Wisconsin—or, as I like to call it in the spirit of exotic flair—Ironsin.

We are a small group in a small town near the Mississippi River. The town is quaint and strange. You can walk down the middle of the road until nearly downtown without encountering any vehicles to endanger your stroll. There is a Taco Bell and a Hooters but no Starbucks. It is quiet. It is muggy. It is only Week 2 and it is driving us all insane.

But of course that is the idea—that there be nothing left for us to do except eat, sleep and live Persian. I must confess, though this is an immersion program, few of us uphold the Persian language speaking rule 24/7. We do our best, but we have discovered that at a certain point one’s brain reaches a melting point where it simply refuses to function—it will not read, it will not provide words for the mouth, it will not translate. It simply sits back stubbornly with its arms folded across its chest, pouting. And so we give in and occasionally speak English, but it is always quietly and with guilt in our voices.

Only one person in the program adheres strictly to the ‘no English’ rule. He sits everyday in his room or the lounge, hunched over his dictionary and notes, with Iranian satellite TV blaring. He does not speak English and will not tolerate hearing it—if he hears a non-Persian conversation he turns away, back to the seclusion from whence he came. He brought his own advanced reading materials and has volunteered to provide them to others in an extra class session at night. Although I admire his dedication and wish that I had such willpower, I fear it as well. It is a scary thing to watch someone lose himself so completely to anything. It is these very cases of self-immolation that allow me to justify such distractions as Spider Solitaire and blogging. It isn’t healthy to do one thing nonstop for 8 weeks. It wouldn’t be good—no, it wouldn’t be right—to limit myself to the guidelines of the program: no English spoken, written or heard. Adherence to such rules would be a detriment to my relationships, my world-awareness and my mental health. Blogging will be good for me, and besides, the opportunity to disobey the rules in such a blatantly passive-aggressive manner really appeals to my sense of contrariness.

Thus, this summer I have decided to provide the occasional blog update for whoever has grown so tired of their own boredom that they would seek temporary refuge in thoughts of mine. Though none may prove thrilling, hopefully you will find that the grass is indeed greener in Ironsin.

back to crazy

2007-12-17T23:41:00.000-05:00

It's been a looong time since my last post, but as of 8:26pm tonight I am free of academia for a whole month. What better way to kick off winter break than with some weird news from a far-off land. Nope, this time it isn't Germany--it's Singapore, the city-state you'd love to hate if only that weren't illegal according to some anal-retentive law they passed back in the 90s. Don't believe me? Check it out for yourself. Apparently "fraudulent possession of women's underwear" is a crime.

calling all bosom buddies

2007-09-27T22:14:00.000-05:00

David Brent was right--Dolly Parton is more than just a big pair of tits. For one thing, she can exude patriotic bodaciousness like no one else. (Nevermind that this may only be because the wobbling of her boobs creates the effect that her tribute-to-America pantsuit is waving proudly above the land of the free.) Someone needs to sign her as a spokesperson for something...

A-ha. I've got just the thing.

October is breast cancer awareness month, which means it's the one month a year that reminds you that you should have been feeling yourself up for the last eleven months, so you try to make up for it by being extra paranoid and checking every day until November comes along and then you get paranoid about all of the extra attention you received from your partner during the whole boob-check month and suddenly your concern over possibly having cancer is eclipsed by the ensuing pregnancy scare. Ah, fall. It's my favorite time of year.

So let the paranoia begin--in two months we'll wash it all away with a big helping of turkey and pie. But in the meantime, why can't we have a little fun? Why does breast cancer awareness have to be such a somber topic? Don't you think more awareness could be raised through comedy rather than scare tactics and marathons? Isn't there some way to raise funds and concern about cancer without having to resort to such barbaric tactics as exercise and depression? I sure think so. And so do others.

Nice. That last one just follows the natural progression of ideas--check here for more. And, if none of these are your style, you can lend some support with a simple click. So during this month, click on the thingy, squash your boobs (or your loved ones' boobs--ask permission first), and remind others to do so as well.

Holy bazooms, folks, there's so much material here that this just doesn't seem like enough! That is why I propose a Breast Cancer Awareness Contest. Submissions may come in any form, as long as they bring attention to the boobies:

- Writings (plays, haikus, T-shirt slogans)
- Art (papier machee, steel sculptures, pipe-cleaner doo-hickies, Halloween costumes)
- Music (songs, cello pieces, drum solos)
- Photos (oh my God, please don't send me photos)

And anything in between. Submit to me via email (for art pieces, pictures are acceptable)--anyone may enter. Deadline is 31 October 2007. There are no objective judging criteria. Instead, I will judge the submissions myself, à la Tyra Banks with the helpful assistance of my Resident Boob Expert. This will involve me wearing a wig and some weird outfit and taking every opportunity to draw attention to myself. (As my sidekick, the RBE will act flamboyantly catty and roll his eyes incessantly.) The Winner will receive an awesome prize in the shape of--what else--boobies (it doesn't matter what it is--you know you want it!!), Second Place will receive a honk on the boob of their choice (note: it does not have to be theirs), and Third Place will get a friendly slap on the ass.

Encourage everyone to enter--pass along my contact info to bored co-workers, relatives, etc. And in the meantime, use as many of these emoticons as possible. Remember, it's for a good cause:

for next time, might i suggest some sort of peer editing process

2007-09-27T21:28:00.000-05:00

People, it's happening--we're engaging Iran.

Well actually, I suppose it's not really an engagement. An engagement implies something official. This was more like a promise ring. You know, the kind of 'commitment' you make to someone just so she'll have sex with you already? Like that. Except right before foreplay you pop her in the nose.

Oh, Lee. I understand you were under an intense amount of pressure from all sides on this one. You were denounced on the Senate floor, your alumni were threatening to buy yachts instead of donating to the university, the media was up your ass the entire week, you probably had an attack of ideology the night before the event and went through a fitful speech revision at 4am ("You exhibit all the signs of a petty, cruel dictator"? That's fucking Shakespearean GOLD, baby!!). It was a tough break, kid--really. And I still want to think the best of you, even though you were pretty damn rude to your guest, President Ahmadinejad.

Don't get me wrong, it felt pretty fantastic. You did what everyone fantasizes of doing, sticking it to that thuggish asshole. (Who here has not stood in front of their bathroom mirror, pointedly tapping their toothbrush on the glass, admonishing their stately reflection for its heinous human rights abuses against the proud people from the cradle of civilization?) For a few shining moments you were our fucking hero.

But then it started to feel wrong. Like when the boys on the playground knock the fat kid over on the tarmac. Sure, it's hilarious at first but then your conscience starts poking at you, and you realize that no matter the slapstick value it's wrong to torture fat kids. Especially when you suspect they might be mildly retarded as well. And then you feel bad--guilty, queasy even--and you realize, it's just like the lesson you learned last summer: kicking puppies might feel good at the time, but it's wrong, so wrong. Especially if you do it on a global media stage.

Regardless, you made a good point--it's not really about free speech. Rather, we as Americans have the right to listen to anyone and anything we want to. And just to let you know, in case you need some cheering up, this one great argument was very nearly absorbed by the citizens of your academic nation:

Well, it's no sheep-herding trophy, but...that'll do, Lee. That'll do.

génial

2007-09-26T22:57:00.000-05:00

This clip from Flight of the Conchords is dedicated to anyone who ever had to endure the awkward "let's go to the discotheque" conversation in French class. You know who you are.

And this one is just for fun.

education is sexy: idealistic panties and other political lingerie

2007-09-23T21:41:00.001-05:00

How stressed out is this guy right now? Like, soooo stressed out.

Like, ohmygod I didn't move my car and it's street
cleaning day stressed out.

No, more.

Like, ohmygod I can't remember my last period, who was that guy anyway? stressed out.

No, even more than that.

More like, ohmygod I totally invited the president of Iran to speak at my university and now an American fatwa has been issued against me and my children and my children's children stressed out.

Yeah, that's it.

The president of Columbia University, Mr. Lee Bollinger, invited Pres. Ahmadinejad to speak and answer questions at the university on Monday and it is as if the entire universe has imploded. There have been rallies and demonstrations all weekend (and tomorrow) denouncing the invitation and calling for everything ranging from a withdrawal of the invite (which is what happened last year) to an outcry for all New Yorkers to make Pres. A's visit as unpleasant as possible. I was a bit confused by the latter, since I kind of have a feeling that NYC is not considered the friendliest place on Earth anyway, and any further mistreatment by its residents only serves to confer a high title of extreme bad-assiveness to the target. Either way, it made me laugh. Thank you, random angry guy, you are an ironic genius and I love you.

For an enlightened liberal university, people sure have their idealistic panties in a bunch. Their reasoning: he's a jerk so we shouldn't listen to him. My reasoning: yeah he's a jerk, but he's also in charge of a country--a country we seem bent on invading before Jan'09. As one of my professors told me when he heard that I wanted to study in Iran: you better go while it's still there. I could tell that he thought he was hilarious, but was still kind of sad about it. How do you say 'fuck you and your tragically comic repartees' in Persian? I will have to ask my professor tomorrow.

Anyway, I'm all excited--like it's Christmas Eve or something. Except, instead of Santa there will be Ahmadinejad, and instead of reindeer there will be secret service agents, and instead of presents there will be massive protests. I would bring the traditional cookies to welcome the president, but it's Ramadan, so instead I'll have to settle for a glittery pink "I [heart] Ahmadinejad" poster. You know, to give the media spectacle some perspective. Maybe I'll even start a counter-rally. When he comes through the campus gates we'll scream as if the Beatles had just arrived and swoon at his hairy good looks. Maybe some hyper-excited co-eds will even throw their idealistic panties at him. We'll just have to remember to smile--gotta look good in those FBI file photos.

terrorism and vaginas--HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!

2007-09-12T22:36:00.000-05:00

This post is for Brian, who has the worst birth day ever thanks to al-Qaeda. Brian, I just want you to know--despite the fact that everyone wanders around all day looking morose, it isn't your fault. Remember, bin Laden doesn't hate your birthday, he just hates your freedom. I mean, I'm sure even he likes gifts and cake. Unless he's some sort of monster.

Speaking of gifts, I didn't get you one--but I did find the perfect one at Threadless.com:

It's a vagina, get it? A giant green chomping vagina. Brilliant! You and Crotchety could both get one and then wear them around together. You'd be a hit--everyone loves a matching couple and references to genitalia! At least everyone I know.

And now, to complete your belated birthday, the French rendition of "Happy Birthday":

Happy beerrstday to you,
happy beerrstday to you,
happy beerrstday dear Brriaann,
happy beerstday to youuu!!

back to school

2007-09-09T20:06:00.000-05:00

In honor of my return to school this week, I am posting the video below:

Pleasantries aside, I realize now--9:45pm on Sunday night--that I should have started my reading in July. I have been reading nonstop for nearly the entire weekend, and I still have a couple hundred pages to go before Tuesday. I guess that's what you get when your professors assign readings for the first class before you decide that you actually want to take it. Ah, the memories of college are flooding back. At least I feel somewhat prepared--the fearful, doomed stares on the other students' faces reassure me that UofC has somewhat acclimated me to the sheer amount of reading that we will be expected to complete each week. Unfortunately, before I realized this, I insensitively laughed at one classmate after he expressed concern over the number of articles and books assigned in a particular class. Whoops. Way to make friends on the first day.

Actually, my concern centers more around the fact that I have been placed in the 'highest level' of Math Lab in connection to our economics classes. My placement was based on the results of a math quiz following the math tutorials forced upon us during student orientation. I don't remember much of the quiz besides a red haze of frustration and a hastily penned essay in lieu of an answer on the last exercise explaining how I would solve the problem if only I actually knew how. Consequently, I refuse to believe that these results are accurate and am instead convinced that God hates me and has employed his math minions to inflict pain upon me and my loved ones, to whom I shall be whining incessantly until my economics requirement is fulfilled. God, what have I ever done to You to deserve This? May your supply always outweigh your demand, you Meddling Communist Bastard. Why don't you make yourself useful and strike down some of the undergrads clogging up my language class instead? Half of them are going to drop out by Thanksgiving break anyway, once they break up with the girl/boyfriend whose exotic culture and language seemed so much more academically appealing when raunchy class-skipping sex was involved. Just think about it--you'll see that I'm right.

I now see that with that last sentence I have shot myself in the foot--much like the US foreign policy I have been reading so much about for the last four days--and you are all now completely and irretrievably distracted by memories of your own raunchy class-skipping sexcapades.

Lest anything I write here become forever entangled with your disgusting thoughts of sluttitude, I will end here for now. Perverts. You'll get another post once the sock is removed from the doorknob.

moppets take manhattan

2007-08-14T14:13:00.000-05:00

Well, we made it to NY. Thanks to RJ, my mom, and that guy who frantically yelled and gestured at us on the road off the George Washington bridge we successfully moved out of our apartment, stored crap that won't fit into our downsized living space, and didn't crash into the 9-ft bridge overhang that would have lopped off the top of our UHaul rental, making us rush hour media darlings on our first day in town. Thanks, guy. I know you were swearing at us and all, but you're the best.

I forgot to take a picture of our place with all of the boxes piled everywhere. Well, no I didn't forget--I was just too tired and hot to care. Just imagine a gigantic mess. And one hundred degree heat with no air conditioning. And only one closet. Right.

This is what our apartment looks like now:

It's "cozy" but manageable. We're already dreaming up new ways to create storage. J has an idea for some sort of suspended closet system in the hallway. I'm skeptical, but other people's ideas always sound a bit nuts. Like, two months ago when I bought a bunch of colored acrylic cups at Target to make bookshelves, J was skeptical--and deservedly so. I tried to explain how I would superglue them together to create support for the shelves on one side while building a ladder-like suspension to support the other side, but despite my efforts to make him visualize my concept he just had that panicky look on his face. The one that says Oh my GOD, I'm living with a crazy person. How did I not notice this before? Can I fit through that window? Damn this giant head of mine!. He admitted as much when we finally got the shelves together. Ooh, I could see him thinking, she's crazy like a FOX!!

Now we have a place for our massive CD and DVD collection. Notice how all of the shelves are full? That means that media gifts at Christmas will only throw the delicate storage balance out of whack. So, no go. Unless you want to trade. Do you have something you'd like to exchange for a Cats CD? Perhaps an Andie MacDowell movie of some sort? Call me.

Speaking of emotionless robotic actors, has anyone seen Transformers starring Shia LaBeouf? I know I've already mentioned it, but in case you've resisted the summer blockbuster marketing campaign up until now I'm posting one last reminder.

Who can resist such a genius marketing technique? We sure couldn't.

Next up, Superbad. I have a feeling that Michael Cera is going to rock our world.

plausible deniability--DENIED!

2007-07-10T20:34:00.000-05:00

link

morning observations

2007-07-09T20:49:00.000-05:00

Today on the way to work we came across a strange sight. A full-size mattress laid across a loveseat in the front yard of a small house—classy—and leaning against this comfort contraption was a man. Having been stopped by a red light we were able to observe him closely. In his left hand he held an empty soda can and in his right a butter knife. As we watched he scraped the knife across the can, as if to whittle it. Of course, he was having a hard time of it. Even a sawing motion would not cut the can in half. Back to whittling. I was baffled. J suggested that he’d been locked out of the house and was now in the process of whittling himself a key. I challenged his theory: why would the man need to get into the house when everything he needs to live is outside on the front lawn with him? The answer was simple: he needs to use the bathroom.

When we got to my building I saw an old man in a business suit, standing completely transfixed on the sidewalk. He was staring at a newspaper dispenser, looking intensely perturbed. I looked more closely before we zoomed into the parking garage. It was The Onion.

reminiscing about the future

2007-07-08T12:56:00.000-05:00

We saw Transformers last night. It was extremely enjoyable in a cheesy, excessive explosiony kind of way. And despite the fact that it's a two-hour commercial for the US armed forces, it holds an unexpected balance of anti-administration sentiment. And Shia LeBoeuf is hilarious--who knew that actual talent would ever come out of the Disney Channel's craptastic lineup of pukitude? Amazing. And whatever the movie lacks, it certainly isn't humor. Which is the only transformer to die in the entire movie? Oh yeah--it's the black one. In what is most surely the next blockbuster action trilogy, the only minority robot is the first to bite the dust. Oh Jazz, alas we barely knew ye. Your smooth moves and hip-hop lingo will be sorely missed.

I confess that I never watched the show as a kid, but I understand the nostalgic appeal to my generation and I'm willing to support this endeavor, as long as my fellows support me when Jerry Bruckheimer's live-action Strawberry Shortcake flick comes out in 2009. Of course, if you're too antsy to wait, we do have JJ Abrams' Rainbow Brite movie coming out in early 2008 to tide us over:

Cloverfield (1-18-08) Trailer #2 - Click here for more free videos

Rumor has it that Kirsten Dunst nabbed the starring role after Abrams saw her badass Samurai sword-wielding interpretation of the character. So, the 'goodness and light' angle may be bent a little, but the rainbows and fur-lined miniskirt are still in. Awesome.

more proof that cheerleading competitions are for pansies

2007-07-08T12:53:00.000-05:00

pants!

2007-06-20T21:20:00.001-05:00

Today I was trapped in a waiting room for two excruciating hours, powerless against a blaring CNN broadcast coming from a television suspended on the wall. Boy but CNN is a load of crap—or as the English might say, “My word but CNN is pants”—for some reason I’ve never realized how bad it really is. All of the hard work I’ve put into growing my brain with the Wii’s Big Brain Academy has been completely ruined by the sheer stupidity of the looped broadcast. Below are the ‘stories’ that CNN covered:

- Anna Nicole Smith’s judge gets his own show

- Paris Hilton’s neighbors concerned about media frenzy in neighborhood

- Nicole Ritchie faces impending DUI trial

- Man beaten to death by angry crowd

- Furniture warehouse burns, kills firemen

- Horse stable burns, kills horses

- San Diego burns, kills sagebrush

- Plane that might have had faulty landing gear doesn’t land but then safely lands at another airport

- Abused children in Iraqi orphanage rescued by US troops

- Abandoned baby’s potential link to missing pregnant woman investigated

- Football player caught in legal woes

- Baseball player makes amazing catch

I don’t any of this can be considered actual news. Half of it is about celebrities that have no business garnering this much media coverage, and the other half doesn’t affect me at all. And the story behind the Paris Hilton headline only disappointed me--I thought they were going to report that her neighbors were nervous at the prospect of having a hardened criminal living in the next mansion down. In fact, the only story that I would consider real news was only mentioned in passing: Over a live shot of an empty podium, soon to be occupied by President Bush to explain his reasoning behind his veto of the most recent stem cell bill to pass through Congress, the anchor directed viewers interested in this story to the live streaming video on their website. Then we watched what’s-his-face catch the same baseball 42 times. And then it was back to ‘Anna Nicole Smith’s judge gets his own show’.

Now I know what J feels like when he hears a Fergie song and flies into a foaming rage. It’s true— like Fergie, CNN’s sole purpose is to actively make the world dumber. Well, I for one, refuse to be a victim any longer. From now on, instead of poisoning my brain with drivel I will hone my Big Brain Academy picture-matching whack-a-mole skills. It might not actually increase the weight of my brain, but unlike watching CNN, I sure won’t feel stupider as a result of it.

out of focus, out of mind

2007-06-15T21:47:00.000-05:00

I'm starting to lose my shit. I've known for weeks that I'm leaving for school this summer and ever since I haven't been able to focus on anything. Today during the staff meeting when everyone was scheduling their summer leave I cracked and told them I'm leaving--but that's still five weeks away. I don't know if I can make it. I wake up at night thinking about the depths of our junk closet and which books we should take with us and which should weather the next few years in my mom's garage.

My lack of focus has taken strange forms. I've made plans to build elaborate bookshelves using colored plastic cups. I've read two books in as many days. One doesn't really count--I re-read The Turn of the Screw and it's only a novella. I won't count the other one either--it was pure shit. I'm reading The Joy Luck Club right now. I don't know how I got through life this far without reading it. In the acknowledgments Amy Tan thanks her agent, Sandra Dijkstra, for "saving [her] life". While we were in San Diego looking for new jobs, I applied to be Dijkstra's assistant. I was one day too late to get an interview, but they said they'd keep my resume on file. At the time, I was sick over the lost opportunity. That was back when I thought I might work in publishing--when I thought I might be able to write something decently not-awful. Then I came to my senses and went to work for the government. Though now, reading that crappy piece of crappity crap book, I'm starting to convince myself that I could be the next JK Rowling. If I ever write that billion-dollar-industry series, I'm totally writing in a part perfectly tailored for Hugh Jackman. Thus my power of Planning will finally come to some good.

Joy Luck has failed to hold my attention, and now I've been sucked into watching crappity crap TV all night. There's a new show on TLC hosted by Clinton from What Not to Wear about teaching complete slobs manners. They have them housed in an manor of some sort, where they force them to walk around with teacups balanced on their heads and use salad forks. One of the victims, a self-professed feminist, objects at every turn--questioning the etiquette based on her sex. Some woman in a tweed suit fails to convince her that embracing gender roles
will make her a better person, a better woman. Then she cries because her boyfriend is caught on tape comparing her to a dude. Then they put her in a wrap dress with snazzy pumps. Oh, now she's sold on the whole idea--she understands what it is to be 'a lady'. She feels what it is to be a woman now, what it is to be herself. Funny, I feel most like myself in a pair of trousers. And a blazer. In a dress or skirt I always feel like a gorilla who's somehow managed to sneak into an english garden party to eat all of the little sandwiches. Wow. Maybe that's who I really am.

I sure know what I'm not--Chinese, that's what. These bitches are crazy.

for Baby E, on his belated early birthday

2007-05-28T08:47:00.000-05:00

Work cuz you're gonna need money,
Love like you might catch something contagious,
And fart like no one else is in the elevator.

there must be a law against looking this good

2007-05-24T20:36:00.000-05:00

Oh wait, there is.

Recently Iran has been experiencing spasms of ultra-conservativeness in the form of police crackdowns on people who do not adhere to the 'social norm'. Violators include women whose scarves are too loose and clothing is too tight, and men whose hair is too styled and shirts are TOO SEXY--I mean, tight. In an effort to stave off this latest wave of sinfulness, government officials are raiding bazarres for skimpy lady clothes and threatening to revoke the business licenses of barbers who engage in the perpetuation of spikey, big-hair styles and employ too much hair gel.

Horrifying is the new sexy

Men who use facial cosmetics or pluck their eyebrows are also receiving warnings from the moral police.

Such crackdowns represent a step backwards in the Iranian government's tolerance for its own society, and some predict that these measures will help push the public to the edge of another revolution. Political scientists think that this potential change will be driven by a thirst for personal freedom, but I suspect it will have more to do with the world's growing intolerance for unibrows and flat bangs. I'd love to know for sure, but if I ever make it to Iran, I'm not sure such questions would be at the top of my list.

Finally, all this talk of hair reminds me of my brother, who suffered a giant mistake of a haircut at our mother's hands during his Kindergarten year, and had to obtain special permission from the school so that he could wear a hat for a month while everything grew back in. Recently, while cutting his own hair, the episode repeated itself--leaving him with a mostly-buzzed head and a rooster-comb mohawk. Bear, this pic is for you:

The day Billy discovered that he looks pretty damn good in a fedora

i feel like i've made this joke before...

2007-05-09T22:06:00.000-05:00

Maybe that's because someone's already beaten me to the punch:

But oh, that's so mean--so cheap and mean. Go ahead, google "Condi" and see how many photoshopped pics of her show up in which she's sporting giant tits in skimpy bikinis, drooling blood from her vampire fangs, playing kissy face with Dub, and scowling darkly over a stern jaw. Well, okay, maybe the glares aren't photoshopped--but c'mon, let's be fair! Maybe she's just one of those unfortunate chicks that doesn't photograph well. Sure, she's scary as hell, but maybe she has a soft, sexy side too. Take Eartha Kitt! She was pure, sexy evil as Catwoman opposite Adam West! And she wasn't what I would consider a typical beauty. See?

Not beautiful. In fact, perhaps even a little drunk--but still vivacious! Maybe this is more along the lines of 'sexy-like-attractive-not-sexy-like-beautiful':

There. Kinda weird, but attractive--not scary. And not drunk--perhaps hung over a bit, but definitely not still drunk. And I'll bet Condi has a 'sexy' face too.

Oh my sweet baby Lord. Condi, honey, don't you have a publicist who can explain these things to you? Remember the last State of the Union Address? You shot laser beams into Camera 3 the entire time. I don't think you even blinked once. Loosen up, smile a little, have some fun! I know there's a war on, but that hasn't stopped you yet! And it definitely isn't stopping Ms. Kitt.

Grrr, baby.

LA photo essay, part 2

2007-05-01T20:37:00.000-05:00

After our extended stay in the Memphis airport, we finally made it into LA--ironically the only city in the entire country with cloud-cover. Our whole reason for coming to the west coast was to see my sister-outlaw who is pregnant with her first child (due in June), the first nephew/grandkid in either of our families. Considering her reaction to the pictures of herself from the baby shower ('Oh my GOD--I'm e-NOR-mous!') I've decided not to post any pictures of her in case she's self-conscious. However, in case anyone is interested in exactly how enormous 7-months-pregnant really is, I've provided a reference:

Just imagine darker hair and more dignity.

On Saturday we had the baby shower--the only one I've ever attended that was comprised almost entirely of single, child-less (and let's not forget drunk) people. Only one child was present. She spent the entire time eating carrots, fending of cooing adults and harassing the cat.

Wary friends

Gettin' her drink on

In accordance with true Cali-tradition, we spent some time at the mall:

How we know we're not mature enough to have kids yet (not purchased)

Egg-tastic

You can't go wrong when your shoes have pineapples on them

For our baby shower gift, I made a small quilt. I know--shocking, especially since I haven't sewn anything since the Great Skirt Disaster of 6th Grade in which I sewed each skirt panel in EVERY WRONG COMBINATION/ORIENTATION in which it could be sewn. Each new mistake involved me whining to my mom to help me rip out the seams and my expert seamstress mother laughing and laughing and laughing at me. Well, fifteen years later I was ready to try again, simply to see if it could be done. Frankly, I'm kind of embarrassed that I did something so girly as sew, so I compensated with an overly-complex design (fish, in case you can't tell) and cursed up a storm. Halfway through the project I finally gave in a bought a seam-ripper. (I had hoped that NOT buying one would trick the sewing fates into leaving me alone, but to no avail.) Whatever, now it's done. I just hope it doesn't give the kid seizures.

Of course, emboldened by my success with the small baby quilt I decided that, hey, quilting is a breeze--why not make a big one for our bed? I looked up bed sizes and determined that 90 inches x 90 inches was a goodly size. Just how big is that?

No, not quite. More like 7.5 ft x 7.5 ft--30 3-inch blocks x 30 3-inch blocks. It doesn't sound like much, but I divided some of the squares into triangles, resulting in approximately 1150 pieces. Oh. Dear. God.

For scale.

I have finally come to my goddamn senses. The next kid is getting a gift certificate to Baby Gap.

LA photo essay, part 1

2007-05-01T19:27:00.000-05:00

If your cross-country flight is ever delayed and you get stuck in the Memphis airport in the early afternoon, be advised that you will be completely, mind-numbingly bored as this composes the four-hour lull between the busy morning and evening times. That is, unless luck is on your side and you happen upon the first annual Northwest Idol competition held in the B terminal. What better way to kill a couple hours while you wait for Northwest to pull their shit together? "Broken aircraft", my shiny metal ass!

NI strayed from the original format to included a variety of acts: short stories, dancing, singing and public speaking. It was fascinating to be one of the only non-NW people there. Every performance yielded new insight into the inner workings of NW employee relations, and the revelations were sometimes unexpected. For example, the lady in the gold hat got a huge amount of sincere applause. The little white guy in the red bow tie (not pictured) did not fare nearly as well. He read a short story about a man and his dying wife. The woman standing next to me thought it was fucking hilarious.

Interviewing paparazzo

The judges

Interviewing Ms. Paula

Dancing: sexy, in an 'oh God Mom, you wore THAT to church' sort of way

Fashion modeling: new NW flight attendant uniform

Final dance number: they dragged away a chick who joined in the dancing 'on-stage' but let this random fat guy do whatever the hell he wanted

I don't know where he came from but he knew all the words and possession of the microphone, however it is obtained, is nine-tenths of NI law

The winner isn't pictured here--she performed near the end when my camera's battery started fading--but she was good. (I could tell because everyone clapped.) Though the best performance was from Paula Abdul. From thirty feet and a squint she was a dead ringer for the real dame, and she stayed in character the entire time. The best Paula Moment was during the performance in which a woman delivered a 20-minute tirade against injustice while instrumental countryish music played in the background. Everyone looked kind of uncomfortable, giddily embarrassed over the strange combination of solemn subject matter and setting. I looked over at the judges' table to see how they were taking it. Randy was keeping a straight face under his dark glasses and Simon was looking very much like he would give anything for a pair of his own, but Paula--Paula was just boppin' along to the beat. I've never been a fan of the show (Randy's carefully stunted vocabulary drives me nuts, Simon's comments are predictably mean, and I've always found Paula to be a mess of vapid niceties) but time spent with Fake Paula has really mellowed me. Tonight I'm feeling her.

your mom

2007-04-15T21:16:00.000-05:00

Who's freakishly good at Wii bowling?

ouch, ouch—feels like rain

2007-04-13T23:17:00.000-05:00

The out-laws are headed down to see the cherry blossoms and perhaps a national park or two this weekend, just in time for 40 degree weather and what will probably be three straight days of non-stop rain. Now, the local weather people and online radar services have been wrong in the past (especially when it comes to precipitation predictions—oh, the schoolkid agony of over-ambitious snowfall forecasts!) but I’m pretty sure they’re right this time because my finger is killing me. Just like that crotchety old guy in stories whose description includes a grumpy demeanor and a bum leg, one of my old injuries always flares up when it’s about to rain.

My injury is not from World War I, or a noble duel over family honor, or even that time that Danny McNelis’ slide-tackled me in gym class in a pitiful exhibition of junior high manliness—it’s from basketball. Basketball, you say? When have you ever played basketball? Well, never really (unless you count that one humiliating experiment in college when I was guilted into playing an intra-mural game for the glory—make that absolute embarrassment—of our dorm) and the reason is simple: I suck big time. I can’t dribble, I can’t pass, I can’t shoot, I don’t look good in shorts. The sole effect that a basketball has on me is to render me into a retarded, uncoordinated mess of flailing limbs. More so than usual, even.

I’ve hated the game since junior high, when cold or rainy days forced us off the track or soccer field and indoors to dodgeball, basketball, and (though only threatened and never carried out) mixed-sex square dancing. The worst thing about it was that because space in the gym was so limited on days that weather precluded outdoor activities, court time had to be split between groups in the class. These groups naturally and unfailingly divided along the gender line, leaving the girls to cower in the bleachers during the boys’ game, hoping against hope that the teacher would lose track of time and leave us with a mercifully short game of our own. Playing in front of all those boys was terrifying. Self-conscious 8^th-grade girls forced to play a game for which none of them possessed any aptitude in front of boys their own age whose only method of exerting superiority over their peers was exuberant mockery and vicious name-calling? It was like shooting fish in a barrel.

We ran around the court, trying to ignore the catcalls from the sideline, shoving the ball from player to player, a frantic game of musical passing in which the person holding it when the teacher reached her breaking point of screaming at us to shoot it already! was forced to make a humiliating attempt at scoring. Inevitably, the ball fell short, or got knocked away by an opponent, or bounced off the backboard, or ricocheted off an innocent player who happened to be in the way at the time of the blind shot—it nearly never went in. And when the ball did occasionally make it through the hoop, only peals of sarcastic male laughter greeted the miracle. It was a cruel, misguided, and tragically late attempt to instill rudimentary athletic skills and confidence in a generation of young women whose only lesson from the game was how to initiate voluntary emotional detachment—the third, but never mentioned, survival mechanism of the fight-or-flight defense.

During one such game, when the scores didn’t have a hope of breaking through to double digits and the weaker girls had merely frozen in place on the court, too terrified to even raise their arms against the passes lobbed at them by other desperate players, the ball flew towards me unexpectedly and jammed the ring finger on my left hand. It went numb instantly, and I threw the ball angrily back into the fray. I was tired of the goddamn game and the fucking gym teacher who kept yelling at us to pick up the pace. I hated the stupid girls who weren’t even trying, who cowered away and squinted their eyes shut when the ball came anywhere near them. I was no good at all, but moving around helped me ignore the boys who never shut up, despite the teacher’s stern looks in their direction. She could have stopped them, but she didn’t and I knew she thought we deserved it. How could we be so bad at this? This was America! Michael Jordan was a household name! There was no excuse for this level of incompetence.

The ball came back to me and I looked around for the best candidate on which to unload it. Limp arms flapped defeatedly below slumped shoulders and my finger throbbed insistently. I was so tired of basketball. Damn Dr. Naismith and his stupid peach baskets. Fuck it, I thought, and I held my breath and shot from way outside the line. The ball arced steadily and swooshed perfectly through the hoop with a sharp thwap of unbelievable success. Everyone froze for a second, caught in the air—a glitch in the Matrix. It was events like these that made you realize nothing was real. But a moment later, taunting and laughter erupted from the bleachers. I seethed with embarrassment under their focus. The only thing worse than failure was success.

I kept my face down but the ball flew back towards my head and I was forced to catch it or let it break my nose. The other girls eyed my warily, afraid that I would single them out. I briskly dribbled the ball up to the three-point line, intending to fake them out and throw the ball to whoever was caught off-guard. But instead I shot it again. And it went in just as smoothly as before. Raucous noise exploded from the boys, but it had lost its affected timbre and taken on the high-pitched squeal of real excitement. Perhaps afraid of compromising their cultivated aura of masculinity, they quickly reverted back to mockery—singling me out, taunting me to repeat the shot, daring me to try. When I sunk the third one from behind the line they jumped up and cheered. I was officially a one-woman freak show, at once admired by, but fearful of, her public.

I can’t remember exactly how many shots I made that day (it was at least four, perhaps as many as six) but I didn’t miss one. All were three-pointers. All were utterly perfect. All begat renewed cries of disbelief from the boys. It was as if the entire section of bleachers had caught the vapors. They slapped their foreheads, fanned themselves with their hands, and shook their heads at my sudden amazing talent. Even I had to admit—I was awesome.

But it didn’t last. Maybe the gods had had their fun, maybe they feared that I’d use my new-found talent for evil instead of good, or maybe they merely grew jealous of their own creation, but before the game had even ended I looked down at my swollen hand and knew I was through. My left ring finger was purple and five times its normal size. I couldn’t feel it or move it. It was clearly broken. I waived it at my gym teacher and she whisked me away to call my mother and ice my hand.

I sat in the nurse’s office in my gym clothes while classes ended and students whisked by to new endeavors. I gazed down at my giant ugly finger, and moved the ice pack away to prod the inflamed tissue through the clammy skin. I knew that my brief, shining basketball career had ended forever, just as suddenly and unexpectedly as it had begun, and that its tragic end had nothing to do with my injured hand. I would never be that good again but I didn’t mind. For one fleeting moment I was awesome—and the boys knew it.

all the ladies dig him hardcore

2007-04-07T11:46:00.000-05:00

While bored and Googling my friends and family, I found out that according to Urban Dictionary, there are sixteen definitions of my manfriend. (That's right—he's been upgraded.) You all know him—vote for your favorite. My personal choice is #16:

The worst name you can call someone. You might as well be taking a bat to their nutsack. A "jed" is the biggest fucking herb ever. Tries to act cool and say something that will make you think they're alright, but in actuality you’re thinking of calling them a faggot.

Example: "Hey dude, don’t make fun of Sum 41 and those kinds of bands, I like them. Shut the fuck up, your new name is Jed for being such a douche bag!”

what Chris Parnell and Vincent D’Onofrio have in common

2007-03-23T17:10:00.000-05:00

Today I attended the mandatory motivational training arranged by the big boss in my office for all of us minions. In fairness, he attended as well and even sat in the very first row in the closest spot to the motivational speaker, who looked like a cross between Chris Parnell and Vincent D’Onofrio (of SNL and MIB/L&O CI fame, respectively). Unfortunately, the result was not nearly as hilarious as you’d expect. Instead, all we got was the big head and awkward head movements without the alien humor or the bombastic wit of “Lazy Sunday”.

I must confess a bad attitude going in. I wasn’t thrilled at the prospect of sitting through 7 hours of ‘motivation’ at the hands of some joker whose credentials included working for several Fortune 500 companies and the phrase “former stand-up comedian”, especially when I knew that I could have skipped out of this trap earlier, if only I’d been properly forewarned. As it stands, all I got was a smart-ass grin as my supervisor whisked out the door yesterday. “You know we have that mandatory training tomorrow, right?” he asked. I said yes, and assured him that I was going. “Good,” he said, “I’m going to ‘motivate’ myself from home—have fun tomorrow.” Ass. I hope there’s a fucking quiz on Monday.

Anyway, despite my conviction that I would have no fun whatsoever and my fear that I would be chosen out of the crowd to perform some humiliating trust exercise in which I would have to catch/be caught by co-workers who have not yet had the opportunity to meet me, the experience was not completely devoid of substance. For one, it was kind of funny—at least until the speaker ran out of good material an hour into our motivation. At one point, whose context I am not able to recall, he asked us what Michael Jackson and Tanya Harding have in common, besides the fact that they’re both probably women, hahahaha. Tentative answers escaped the crowd from all around, but the most interesting came from directly behind me: “They’re both athletes,” someone murmured with complete sincerity. Wow, I thought, today could actually turn out really well.

But the best moment was not a humorous one, but rather educational. It involved an overly long story that went something like this:

Jim’s garbage disposal stops working so he calls the plumber to fix it. The plumber arrives soon afterward, in his beat-up van, lousy hair and less-than-flattering low-riders. He reaches into the garbage disposal and pulls out banana peels and beer cans, finishing the job quickly. Before leaving the house, he tells Jim not to ‘put anything weird’ down the disposal again, and even calls the next day to make sure that it’s still working. It is. The End.

Then the speaker asked that each group of participants rate the plumber’s performance on a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being the highest. A few minutes later he went around the room to collect the answers. By far, the most popular answer was 4, with many 5s thrown in for good measure. Besides the group of engineers who (for unexplained reasons) rated him a 1, my group was the only low score (3) and that was only because my vote for 2 dragged our average down. After the vote everyone spent the following minutes extolling the virtues of the plumber, who not only showed up for the job but also fixed the problem in record time. Only one lonely female voice articulated my concern, piping out of a sea of uniforms—“But he didn’t address the root of the problem—so how could he have fixed it?” Her question was ignored and the subject changed without further discussion.

Now, I don’t remember the purpose of the exercise—something was briefly mentioned about a second, more attractive plumber whose quality of work was not elaborated on—but the sense of horror that washed over me at the general acceptance of such a crappy fix for a problem (especially considering the ongoing lesson in Iraq) will stay with me always. The other trauma I suffered today was realizing that my boss most reminds me of a gleeful 5-year-old kid with red juice stain all around his mouth. I could feel his radiating delight at the speaker’s risqué jokes all the way across the room. Now that I’ve seen him giggle like a little girl, I’m not sure I will ever look at him the same way again.

When we broke for lunch I had reached my mental suffering saturation point, so I cut my losses and headed home for my personal brand of motivation—naptime and Spin City re-runs. Let the healing begin.

yaaaarrr, shiver me--oh christ, I'm dying!

2007-03-16T21:37:00.000-05:00

Ever since moving into this apartment we haven't had good luck with the hot water. In fact, we even complained and had the repair guy drop by to check out why we weren't getting any hot water. He checked it out and determined that, actually, we had hot water, it just took fifteen minutes of running the faucet for it to kick in. You're at the end of the line on this side of the building, he told us, you just have to be patient. But just to appease us, he said that he'd bump up the heater temperature a couple of degrees to make it easier on us. Thanks, guy.

And that worked for a while. Sure, sometimes we had to run the shower for five or ten minutes to get the hot water to make an appearance--sometimes merely lukewarm. But hey, we're no wusses. We can handle little hardships. Even when we lost power from the ice storm a couple weeks ago and had to shower in complete darkness for a day we didn't really get upset. Showering by tealight isn't so bad, anyway. It's just like our ancestors the pioneers used to do it, and you don't hear them whining.

But tonight we hit a new low. We came back from the gym and tried, unsuccessfully, to coax hot water out of the shower for two hours. Nada. And it wasn't the kind of 'nada' that you can just suck it up for, and take a few quick breaths, and power your way through. No, this was freezing cold water, and not a drop of warmth in sight.

As we were not prepared to die of hypothermia, we took a page from the pioneers' book (the one besides the Bible) and boiled water on the stove, mixing it with the frigid tap water in a giant soup pot and juice pitcher. A few quick douses and quick soaping technique carried us through. It was a bit of work, but I've never felt so satisfied with being clean.

Though it wasn't as awful as it sounds, nothing is going to stop me from tearing the apartment office staff a new one first thing tomorrow. And if they give me lip, I'll kick their injun asses--pioneer-style.

everything's coming up Millhouse!

2007-03-10T09:47:00.001-05:00

The past couple months have been a little stressful, what with J & me applying to school, and me starting a new job, and J starting a new job and then quitting its evil influence that very same day, and both of us having almost daily aneurisms at the thought of not getting into school this fall or getting into schools in far-apart cities or, perhaps worst of all, only one of us getting in at all. Well, I’m not sure there’s a Greater Power anywhere—and if there is I’m not entirely convinced that he isn’t just a big cosmic sonnuvabitch with a wicked, though not entirely unfunny, sense of humor—but if there is, something has definitely swayed him in our favor. I don’t know if it was our parents’ desperate prayers or our incessant whining or just plain dumb luck, but things have turned out very well. To summarize our recent fortune: J got into NYU and got a job working in public television, and I got into Columbia.

Now we’re both employed, both going to school in the same city this fall, and both sporting giant goofy grins. After I discovered the admissions notification in my inbox the other night, we spent the better part of the next four hours popping M&Ms and jumping excitedly around the living room squealing, “New York! New York!” and “Wheeeeee!” and “More candycandycandy!” We forced ourselves into bed at eleven, but stayed awake to bask in our joy and let our sugar-high temper. The following morning, the six-thirty alarm only reminded me of my good mood, and all day I’ve been secretly researching student housing, tuition, classes, and summer programs.

Wow. Tuition is expennnsiiiive. And the rent quotes on the housing page almost killed my spirit. I feel another aneurism coming on…

Aaaahhh, it feels so good.

my exploding head: brought to you by Blue Cross Blue Shield

2007-02-23T16:15:00.000-05:00

Jesus fucking Christ do I hate insurance companies! I think I've shed just as many fucking tears over fucking insurance problems as I have over my parents' fucking divorce. I can think of three instances right off the top of my head:

1) When I went to fill a prescription at college only to discover that my insurance had changed and the bill was now three times as much. Money was tight and I couldn't eat, pay rent, AND get the medication so I opted for basic survival and left the hospital in tears.

2) When I had to make an emergency doctor's appointment on my first day back at home post-graduation (with my pediatrician, because I had no other doctor and no time to find one) and spent a half hour arguing with/explaining to the insurance company that although I was related to my father, whose name was on the policy, I did not live with him and why does that mean I can't possibly be eligible for coverage, all the while sobbing in front of a dozen diseased toddlers and their mothers while the sympathetic nurses behind the counter shoved tissues at me.

3) Today, when I discovered that because I started working for my new company after the 1st of February, I was not eligible for health coverage until the 1st of March, and any medical costs accrued between those dates would NOT be reimbursed in any amount. Since I must fill a prescription this weekend (ie. before my coverage begins) I really really wish that they had told me about this little caveat when I signed up for the benefits almost a whole fucking month ago. Being in a bind, I contacted my doctor to see if they had a sample of the medication to tide me over until Thursday, but no fucking dice. So, resigned to pay full price for the prescription, I called CVS and discovered that the full cost of the medication is only $20 more than the deductible I usually pay with insurance. I was paying over 60% of the cost! What kind of fucking system is this?? I pay up the ass for health insurance for shit! I don't smoke, I hardly drink, I exercise and don't gorge myself on fatty foods and I don't even break even on cost? Fuck that!

Now, you may be tempted to attribute my raging hate to hormone fluctuations, but you would be mistaken. This is not the scattered anger of PMS--this is pure righteous hatred, the kind of which legends and mass murders are made of. And I haven't even gotten into car insurance! (We recently discovered that Progressive has been charging us California rates for the past six months, resulting in an overpayment of $500, which the company will NOT reimburse or credit towards future payments because that's just the kind of fucking assholes they are.)

So to all you insurance people out there--CEOs, CFOs, customer service reps and brokers--FUCK YOU AND YOUR FUCKING PALTRY LIVES, YOU ARE THE DEVIL. I'd call you all right now and give you a piece of my rage-fevered mind if I could only get past the fucking auto-prompter and get one of your lazy asses on the fucking phone. Instead, just go ahead and give yourselves the finger. Go on. Are there any sharp sticks around? Perhaps some sort of flowering cactus plant languishing in the office? Good, go sit on that and grind your ass around a little. Take turns bashing your head in with the refrigerator door. Throw some tacks on the ground and dance around to that awful Fergie song with your shoes off. French kiss that fat guy who sits near the bathroom and smells like overcooked turnips.

Now, you're on the honor system since I can't see or contact you, so you'll just have to be honest and accomplish this without any outside supervision. Okay?

Yeah right. Dicks.

for everything else, there's RJ

2007-02-18T13:27:00.000-05:00

Man's Greatest Invention: $250

Man's Greatest Time-Saver for the 1950s Housewife: Free

The Ensuing Fight to the Death: Agonizing

Inability to Find Replacement Parts: Frustrating

Fixing Man's Greatest Invention with Man's Greatest Discovery Using Instructions from Al Gore's Greatest Invention: Amazing

Desperate Innovation: Priceless

Baghdad or bust

2007-02-04T21:02:00.000-05:00

It's been a while since I've posted. Like magic, all of the free time and boredom I enjoyed before Christmas evaporated as soon as January arrived. Suddenly, there were school applications to fill out and everyone's perspective of their workload changed once we dropped on this side of 2007. Now that January is over and people have their sights set on Easter, things are starting to calm down and I'd been looking forward to February all month--yearning for a little time to blog or eat lunch--but I screwed up my relaxation schedule by taking a new job.

I wasn't looking for it. Basically it jumped me and I gave in. I can't say much about it here, but it seems like it should be interesting. It pays more, which is always nice, but it promises to be a whole hell of a lot more work too. Now I'm staring down a 6:00 AM alarm and a metro commute and wondering what I've gotten myself into. They seemed really impressed during my interview. It was flattering at the time, but now I'm worried. How great do they actually think I am? Because I'm not all that. I mean, I'm not bad but I have no delusions of grandeur. But what if they're really impressed with complete crap? What if my not-as-crappy-as-others qualities rocket me to the top of the bureaucratic food chain too fast for the development of my actual skill set? Things seem to be going down the toilet pretty fast around here and everyone's scrambling to deflect blame and throw any nearby object/money/innocent passerby at the problem. What if someone spots me? "Holy cow! Look at her work that Outlook Calendar! We need quick thinkers and nimble fingers like yours in Iraq, darlin'. Strap on some kevlar, we're going to Baghdad!"

Paranoid? Somewhat. Irrational? Let's hold off judgment until mid-summer, shall we? Regardless, I'll just have to accept the risk. As the great political philosopher Biggie Smalls once put it: Mo' money, mo' problems.

Holy social conservatism, Batman!

2007-01-07T10:14:00.000-05:00

Hold on to your snazzy pleather underpants, people—my head is (once again) about to explode.

Feeling powerful and legally relevant after its victory pushing (and passing) the state constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage in Virginia (but not really), the Family Foundation has crossed off “withhold rights from unmarried couples” from its list of resolutions and moved on to “withhold rights from married couples who want to become unmarried.” Confused?

[The Family Foundation] will lobby the General Assembly this year to amend the state's long-standing no-fault divorce law, which essentially allows a husband or wife to terminate a marriage without cause.

The foundation is advocating "mutual consent divorce" for couples with children, which would require a husband and wife to agree to divorce before a marriage can be legally terminated, except in certain instances, such as abuse or cruelty. The proposed legislation would not affect childless couples.

"Right now, one spouse can unilaterally end [the marriage], and not only is their spouse unable to stop the divorce, their abandonment does not preclude them from having custody of their child," said Victoria Cobb, president of the Family Foundation. "When we send a message that one can up and leave their family and have no consequence, the Old Dominion is encouraging divorce."

I can’t make it past the second sentence without having to close my eyes and take a few deep, calming breaths. Why, why, WHY would this ever be a good idea? For the sake of my blood pressure, I’m going to limit my exposure to such radioactive stupidity. The Family Foundation is assuming that:

1. Living with miserably married parents is better for children than living with divorced, perhaps still slightly miserable, but nevertheless happier than being miserable with their ex-spouse parents.
2. The spouse that ends the marriage is the bad guy and wants to ‘abandon’ familial responsibility as well as their spouse.
3. Everyone’s main reason for NOT wanting a divorce is related to preserving the wellbeing of the children.
4. Abuse is only abuse if it leaves a visible mark.

Discuss.

Grad schools in other states are looking more and more appealing every day.

right almost part of the time

2007-01-03T22:29:00.000-05:00

In this spirit of almost nearly viable accuracy, here are my predictions for 2007. (Please note that the underlined portions of my predictions are interchangeable with one or all of the following):

1. Britney Spears/ Paris Hilton/ Laura Bush will go anorexic, deny an obvious addiction to blow, and fall into the dark abyss of pantylessness.

2. The stock market/ your weight/ the value of morality will plummet/ explode/ remain disappointing.

3. George W. Bush will say something incredibly stupid at a press conference/ the United Nations Annual Potluck/ afternoon tea and will consequently make a lifelong enemy of North Dakota/ Turkmenistan / Concerned Women for America.

4. The Chicago Cubs/ Detroit Tigers/ Assumption College Greyhounds will win the World Series against the Yankees.

5. Simon Cowell will say unforgivably mean things to American Idol contestants/ finally succumb to his burning sexual attraction to Randy Jackson/ go anorexic, deny an obvious addiction to blow, and fall into the dark abyss of pantylessness.

6. Women’s pant sizes will shrink further leading to nationwide mall riots/ a massive increase in female suicide rates/ widespread pantlessness.

7. The US government will recall US troops/ chickpeas/ civil rights because of a contamination of 2008 election jitters/ e.coli/ evil.

here's hoping this year is less retarded

2007-01-01T18:43:00.000-05:00

Happy New Year, everyone! If you're anything like me, the absence of workplace boredom over the past week has rendered you somewhat disconnected from the depressing world of internet news. Well, here's something to bring you back down to earth. In case you need a little prompting, here's an excerpt you won't be able to resist:

Earlier this month, Baker conceded that the Muslims probably aren't after his land, but he said he had to go through with the pig races because "I would be like a total idiot if I didn't. I'd be the laughingstock now because I've gone too far."

Let's hope Texas renews its new year's resolution to secede from the Union. Yee-HAW!

Christmas came early this year

2006-12-22T16:32:00.000-05:00

First of all, I know I'm obsessed but I can't help it. Giant creatures of the deep get me all excited and for the first time ever, video footage of a live giant squid has been recorded (brought to you by the genius Japanese guys who successfully photographed one by dangling a camera and a tasty treat on the end of a fishing line). Much the same technique was used this time, and you can see the footage here. See how huge that thing is? Well apparently it's just a young'un--full-grown giant squid can be more than twice as big. And the guy who's photographed them thinks that there may be more than believed. From his theory about whale diets, it sounds like swarms of giant squid are squirming around by the thousands, just waiting to be eaten by other sea monsters.

--which makes me think. The squid they caught died during its capture and was carted off to their lab. Do you think they ate some of it? Just a bit? I think they did, because I totally would. Just think of the calamari...

give me back my wife!

2006-12-20T16:40:00.000-05:00

I have the sneaking suspicion that this man is a genius.

so what'd you work on today?

2006-12-15T22:21:00.000-05:00

don't panic

2006-12-14T19:37:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I finally took the GRE. I was really nervous about my score because my diagnostic tests had yielded a fairly abysmal math score, I hadn't had to remember any obscure vocabulary words since the SAT and I didn't have time to re-take the test for a better score before my grad school applications were due. Knowing I would be feeling a bit queasy over all of this, my mom called me the night before the test to give me the parental pep talk:

Mom: You'll do fine. You did really well on the SAT and the GRE is just like the SAT. Just don't panic. Stay calm. You know this stuff. The vocabulary won't be a problem for you--you know that stuff--and you'll be fine with the math. All you need to do is find a strategy and stick to it. Just stick to the strategy and you'll do fine. Stick to the strategy until it breaks and then... don't panic, you'll do FINE. I'm sure you'll do fine.

Me: Ok. Thanks, Mom.

Mom: Let me know how it turns out. But you'll do fine. I love you. Just don't panic.

I appreciate her efforts to make me feel better before the big day, really I do. But at the time I was just trying to insulate myself from my fear that I would fail miserably and my stellar letters of recommendation and decent grade point average and killer letter of purpose would be eclipsed by some horrific GRE score. I could just imagine the graduate program admissions staff reading over my application: Why this girl is mentally retarded--just look at this math score! The poor dear must be confused about which school she's applying to. I'll just forward this on to the retard college down the street. I hear they have a new jungle gym now.

I would die, I would simply curl up and die. All of my hard work in school and life just to be thwarted by a stupid standardized test? Oh God. Breathe. Remember what Mom said: DON'T PANIC--EVERYTHING WILL BE FINE.

My phone rang again. It was my mom. I must sound more convincing in my test-taking confidence, I thought, or she'll be calling me on the hour until I go to bed.

Me: Yes, Mom?

Mom: Oh my God, oh my God, you have to help me! I've clicked on something or moved it or deleted it, but now my task bar is on the LEFT SIDE of my computer screen and I can't get it to move it only gets BIGGER when I try to move it and I can't get it to go back I don't know what I did! Please you have to help me I don't know what to do please help me I can't find anything I can't work like this oh please!

This coming from the woman telling ME not to panic.

Me: Have you tried dragging the toolbar back to the bottom of the screen?

Mom: I've tried everything--EVERYTHING!--and nothing works! I just can't get it to go back the way it was. I've checked the control panel and I can't find it anywhere, please help me I need your help can you fix it?!

Me: Yes, Mom, don't worry. We'll figure it out. Just don't panic. Everything will be fine.

And everything did: Mom eventually succeeded in repositioning her toolbar at the bottom of her screen and I didn't fail the GRE, despite the fact that we got lost in the ghetto on the way to my testing site. But even that didn't really phase me--in fact, I think that the mild brain hemorrage that I suffered as a result limbered me up for the essay section.

God I hate it when she's right.

christmas genitalia

2006-12-12T17:58:00.000-05:00

My mom gave us an advent calendar at Thankgiving and we've been faithfully eating our way through it. Every day offers up a little chocolate treat with a raised holidayish design of some sort. So far there have been Christmassy things like a snowman, a candle and a wreath, as well as some ambiguous items like a four-leaf clover, a moon wearing a hat and a squirrel holding an enormous nut. I don't really mind the weird ones. After all, I'd be hard pressed to come up with 25 Christmas-related pictures that would be appropriate. However, one day has troubled us: December 7th. This is its chocolate piece:

Unfortunately, in a fit of petulant rage, Blogger refuses to display my picture right side up. Therefore, for clarification I've included a photo of the chocolate's window:

Sweet Baby Jesus—is that thing circumcised?

It was not immediately clear to us what the picture depicted and no matter how long and hard we stared at it, we couldn't shake the impression that it was some sort of double-penis. This confused us, for as far as we knew, penises are not traditional Christmas decorations/ gifts/ personnages. No real harm done, though. Being the dedicated chocolate consumer that I am, I didn’t let a little Christmas-sexification ruin my good time. And it was delicious—just like that squirrel.

You think that’s it, don’t you? You think I only have one example of Christmas genitalia. Well, you’re wrong. I’ve been studying for the GRE and I know that at least two examples are needed for the essay portion of the exam, so I’ve come prepared.

Example #2: A friend of mine just returned from Paris, where she happily ate her way from monument to crêpe stand to pastry shop, and kindly brought me back a Christmas present: a petit cochon. This particular pastry holds fond memories for me. Nearly every Saturday during the six months we lived in Paris, I would select this delicious treat as my weekly pastry ration. The oblong chocolate cake is soaked in alcoholic goodness and wrapped in pink marzipan, which is styled in the shape of a pig, complete with a tiny twisty tail, ears and snout. The snout was my favorite because it is a chunk of pure marzipan. I always ate it last. Thus, you can appreciate how very happy I was when my friend handed the pastry box over:

Petits cochons! How divine! How delicious! How…strangely shaped. The heads aren’t quite how I remembered them. In my day they looked more like pig heads and less like labia (or “flip-flop-flablay-blia” as my friend calls them) but whatever. They’re still magically delicious! I mean, most holiday meals are centered around eating mashed spiced bread out of a giant bird’s ass-crack, and that's never bothered me. I’m French, dammit—I can eat anything! Whether it be mutant penis-shaped chocolates, cake-filled marzipan vulvas, or donkey sausage. But that’s a story and picture for another day.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

this is your brain on gwen stefani

2006-12-10T23:45:00.000-05:00

Thanks to SLee, we have a name for this sort of thing: the retard tingles.

he was a fucking asshole in the first place

2006-12-07T22:21:00.000-05:00

Carrot Top--you are a Batman villain to the max.

what's cookin' for Thanksgiving dinner? propaganda? mmm, delicious!

2006-11-23T11:02:00.000-05:00

Last week CNN.com featured an article about some teachers' non-traditional approach to Thanksgiving.

Teacher Bill Morgan walks into his third-grade class wearing a black Pilgrim hat made of construction paper and begins snatching up pencils, backpacks and glue sticks from his pupils. He tells them the items now belong to him because he "discovered" them.

Although I don't support romanticizing any historical event (especially ones that, though well-intentioned, in retrospect proved to be giant fucking mistakes) I'm not sure I'm to the point where I'm going to snatch schoolchildren's possessions off their desks and squirrel them away in a self-righteous huff either (however much fun that might be). But I do see Bill Morgan's point. The images that most Americans have of Thanksgiving

and

are not completely accurate, and are held up as an annual reminder of our relations with the natives, a cruelly deceptive moment when taken out of historical context.

Therefore, in recognition of 'alternative' views of Thanksgiving, for all of you whose holiday image is not this,

and who perhaps feel the need to atone for their breakout role as Squanto, the kind-hearted Indian whose unbounded benevolence initiated the destruction of the native peoples from sea to shining sea, I offer you the following option: create your own Thanksgiving story using the pictures below.

Native Fall Formal

Native whores

Flight of the Great Ballerina Spirit ceremony

Pilgrim Fall Formal

Super Pig blasts off to invite the Pilgrims to lunch

"I know we're starving and all, but I ain't eating no yams. What kind of barbarians are they?"

Native Ghost of Thanksgiving Future: "This no good idea, dum-dums. Trust me. Bwwaaaahhh!"

"Told ya."

the healing power of hate

2006-11-21T22:26:00.000-05:00

Today Israel's Supreme Court ordered the government to recognize same-sex marriages performed abroad. This is significant because gay marriages are not performed by the rabbinate in Israel and although heterosexual civil marriages performed abroad are recognized by the government, up until this point homosexual ones were not. Now gay couples married abroad may gain the rights that their heterosexual counterparts already enjoy, such as tax breaks and the ability to adopt a child. Of course, not everyone is happy about it. Damning phrases such as "Sodom and Gomorrah" and "the destruction of the family unit" are blasting from the lips of ultra-Orthodox protesters. One lawmaker mentioned in the article has already proposed championing a bill to outlaw all homosexual marriages. Sound familiar, fellow Americans? Well don't worry, it's not all bad news:

Animosity toward gays and lesbians is one of the few issues that unites Jews, Muslims and Christians in the Holy Land. They have jointly come out against gay parades in the city and are all likely to oppose the Supreme Court ruling.

Fantastic! When was the last time the Jews, Muslims and Christians were on the same side of any fight? What we need is some more gays! We can pump them into Israel and Palestine where the quarreling religious masses will descend upon them with unmitigated furor to beat every delusion of equality from their human dignity. The gay marriage opposers will march door to door like Erin Brockovich (minus the sinful boobage) to gather petition signatures, Jerusalem's streets will echo with cries of you can't handle the truth!, and the dramatic struggle against the wanton destruction of society will culminate in a big heart-warming hug at the conclusion of a victorious court scene (although the emotion of this final tableau may be somewhat dampened by the ironic preponderance of same-sex hugging, as the alternative is forbidden/frowned upon by many of the ultra-conservative participants).

Proposed uniform for Gay Troopers

Mel Gibson, Woody Allen and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad could jointly direct the feature film chronicling the groups' epic struggle and ensuing unification. It would make a great holiday release, don't you think--a wholesome, inspirational, family-friendly Christmas activity? Oh right, forgot about Chanukah. Okay, how about a week before Christmas, then? Oh yeah, when is Ramadan again? September?!

Damn it. Back to square one.

a made-up fact--brought to you by Scientology

2006-11-19T23:14:00.000-05:00

One in four women is a slut.

Carrie, Miranda, Samantha, and Charlotte

crappy impressionisms

2006-11-11T17:58:00.000-05:00

Late this summer we took a trip downtown to the Hirshhorn Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art and Sculpture Garden. Some of the wire sculptures and paintings were pretty cool, but I found these enjoyments few and far between. I must confess that I'm not a huge fan of modern/contemporary art. I try, I really do! But most examples just serve to convince me that, hell, I could exhibit artistic work in a museum too. I know everybody thinks that they can be a modern artist and that nay-sayers will claim that modern art contains genius subtleties that my gray, plebeian brain could never fathom, but I beg to differ. For example, take the painting below:

"Nude (?) #4"

Hideous, correct? I mean, a Kindergartner could have painted this, providing he had access to enough paint and a naked lady. The kid wouldn't even need an adult-sized attention span--the artist of this painting didn't even finish properly. He kinda petered out near the bottom of the canvas. I guess he figured, Hair, face, boobs, vagina--done! What does she need legs for, anyway, I've covered all of the main points. It's the artistic equivalent of a high schooler's essay or lovemaking skills. I know that artist dudes are supposedly irresistable to women, but I doubt this monstrosity scored this painter any points with the ladies. Or maybe he's just gay... Good Lord, it all makes sense now. Next!

"I'm Skankalicious"

This photo series features a beautiful blonde in a bikini top devouring various fruits with slutty delight. I don't really understand what I'm supposed to think about this piece. The only thoughts that come to mind when I see this are: 1) Whore!, 2) Mmm, I haven't eaten a lemon in a while, and 3) Okay, I get the motivation behind this piece--I really hope she wasn't suckered into sleeping with him. Oh, who am I kidding, she totally was.

"Motion Sickness"

As I strolled into this room I nearly fell over, but less from awe and more from nausea. More awaited me downstairs.

"I will not throw spitballs in class. I will not throw spitballs in class."

See, what the artist did here was actually cover the entire ground level foor in colored tape, lining along the walls and working his way inward. It was undeniably cool looking, but made me wonder exactly how many detentions the artist had to accrue in art school in order to complete this amount of busy work.

Finally, a masterpiece from my childhood. I'm sure my brothers remember the day we wandered through this sculpture garden for the first time. We were entirely unthrilled with the modern sculptures, and upset at the fact that we were supposed to be appreciating something remotely educational during our summer vacation. It was wet outside, fresh from a mid-day downpour, and we slumped dejectedly from sculpture to sculpture, mocking the various pieces as we went. We spotted this one from down the path--"That one looks like a turtle on a stick!" The quiet adults perusing the sculpture garden shot us scathing looks of disapproval, tired of our sarcastic commentary. I think our mother was a bit embarrassed, but even she had to laugh at the words that we discovered etched in the damp sand of a nearby smoking tray: Turtle on a Stick. We were ecstatic.

"Turtle on a Stick"

I guess that's modern art's saving grace. Our reaction may not have been what this sculptor was going for, but his work still made an impression on us. I now realize that modern art is not just art for art's sake, but an opportunity to connect with other people who don't understand what it's supposed to mean either. We might not get why the artist created a fake mushroom forest out of plaster or chose to portray the naked woman as an apple with green boobies, but we can still share a laugh about it--a common sense of what the hell?.

And too bad if that's not what the artists are going for. If they want to be taken seriously, they can learn how to fucking draw.

it was the blurst of times

2006-11-08T22:43:00.000-05:00

Democrats take the House.

Democrats take the Senate.

Wildly popular Rev. Ted Haggard is fired from his 14,000 member church due to "sexual immorality" (and not the pre-marital/prom-sex kind, but the meth-dealing man-hooker whom I only got a 'massage' from I swear really it was just a massage he was recommended by my hotel concierge for Chrissake kind).

Donald "SecDef for Life" Rumsfeld resigns.

Dubya admits a lack of progress in Iraq.

Britney Spears files for divorce from K-Fed.

Hot damnation--now this is an Apocalypse I can get behind!

curious m's beach house of horror

2006-10-29T21:39:00.000-05:00

Does anyone else watch Dirty Jobs with Mike Rowe on the Discovery Channel? He travels around the country doing jobs that are completely disgusting. Every time I feel weighed down by my college loan debt, watching him wallow around in pig manure/vats of yeast/barrels of fishguts never fails to re-inspire me about my earning potential. It sounds kind of awful, and it is, but trust me--it's awesome (in a horrific, gag-tastic sort of way). I must admit that certain episodes have succeeded in turning my stomach a bit, but none have horrified me as much as the one I saw this weekend. In this episode, he traveled to the beach where he helped flood the sand beds with water in order to dig up geoducks (pronounced "gooey ducks"). It doesn't sound so bad, right? Fresh ocean air, digging in the sand, high pressure hoses. Yeah, that's what you think. But get a load of this:

That is a geoduck. When they first pulled one out of the sand I nearly screamed aloud. And no matter how much they insisted that a geoduck was a type of clam and was delicious when sauteed or served as sashimi, I just can't escape its obvious resemblance to a giant penis and ball sac. Never in my entire life of watching nature shows had I ever seen such a monstrosity. I thought for sure that it was a fake--that Mike Rowe had superglued clam shells to a bunch of rubber dildos and planted them in the sand. But the internet confirmed my worst fears: geoducks truly do exist and people really do eat them. UGH! Of course, I couldn't stop myself and further googling yielded more horror:

Oh God.

Oh God, make it stop!!

Oh sweet Je--actually, this is kind of funny for several reasons. Not the least of which is that everyone unfamiliar with geoducks can only assume that this poor fellow dressed up like a giant diseased (albeit tastefully bedazzled) penis.

Well, now that you're completely creeped out and possibly vomiting into your office trashcan, here are some antidotes for what ails ya:

Exibit A) A cute, curious pup seeking someone to feed her mini-quiches and free her from pink accessories.

Exhibit B) A real-life pirate vessel--a black Chrysler Sebring with a skull and crossbones car-freshener.

Exhibit C) A papa vampire pumpkin and son.

Happy Halloween.

Onion staff schooled by actual headline

2006-10-18T17:08:00.000-05:00

Late Wednesday morning, The Onion’s editor-in-chief Carol Kolb arrived at the newspaper’s headquarters in SoHo and called for an emergency staff meeting to be held in the windowless corner of the loft by the mini-fridge, ostensibly referred to as “the large conference room.” An emotional Kolb briefly greeted the three writers and a janitor believed to be the new fall intern before bracing her co-workers for “the most awful moment of [her] 11-year career” at The Onion.

“It’s happened—we’re finished. The world of wacky headline satire has finally been eclipsed by real world news,” she said tearfully, referring to a headline published on CNN’s website earlier in the day [‘Dog saves owner from fire, dies trying to rescue cat’].

Piercing wails and vulgar, ear-blistering curses immediately followed her announcement. “We all knew it might happen some day, but we never prepared for it,” confessed one incredulous writer, Joe Garden. “We just focused on being positive and hoped that it would last forever.”

After a lengthy group crying jag, Kolb summoned every ounce of her stalwart leadership skills to microwave ham ‘n’ cheese Hot Pockets for the entire group. After naptime, she spent several minutes reassuring each member of her staff.

“I’m just telling them that they’ll be fine, even though I think they may all be homeless by next month. I mean, I’ll be fine,” Kolb laughed reassuringly. “I have actual experience editing stories and running a newspaper. But the only experience they have is making up slightly offensive news headlines. Now that their skills are obsolete, it might be difficult for them to hold down a real job. I mean, they’re so used to our format, but if they want to stay in the newspaper business they’ll have to get used to writing the headline after writing the story—that’s the real world of news. Their world has been turned upside down.” Kolb paused thoughtfully before shrugging bravely, “But I’m their boss, and my job is to make them feel good, you know? It’s tough, but I have to be strong for them before I get busy with other things.”

“It’s just like 9/11 all over again,” sobbed Maria Schneider, another Onion writer. “I’m completely shocked that this could happen.” Drawn to the newspaper’s comic genius while attending the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where The Onion was founded in 1988, Schneider volunteered her services as a graphic artist and began working at the paper in 1992. “I love working here because it’s such a great creative environment and the audience is great. I once got an email signed ‘Osama B-L’ commending us on one of our articles [‘Latest Bin Laden Videotape Wishes America 'A Crappy Valentine's Day'’]. I thought it was really cool, you know, that even he was a fan. But I guess it wasn’t really him. If he really liked us he wouldn’t have destroyed us—he’s finally won.”

UPDATE: Since the initial printing of this article at 5:54 PM, 18 October 2006, three of the ten Onion staff members remain unaccounted for and unaware of their newspaper’s demise, while one writer (John Krewson) has already received and accepted an offer letter to work as a news reporter for The New York Times.

what is wrong with me??

2006-10-17T22:08:00.000-05:00

I think I have some kind of new, as-yet-undiscovered, debilitating disease. For the second time this week, I've inexplicably spilled a glass of liquid ALL OVER. I'm not talking about carelessly knocking over a cup of water with a wayward elbow--I'm talking full-blown, eruptive splatter-patterns.

On Saturday night, during Cheez-its and wiiine, I somehow managed to spill a small plastic cup of red wine all over myself, my camera, the carpet, the floor AND the wall. (One tiny cup of wine!!) Fortunately everyone was distracted by Donkey Conga, and I was able to clean up most of it before anyone noticed (though as hard as I try, the wine splotches on the wall--two feet above the floor!!--will simply not come out). Tonight I wasn't nearly so lucky: I dropped/spilled/rocketed a full glass of icy water onto my neck, chest, lap, the table, bench seat and floor. I still don't understand how it happened exactly. Just, all of a sudden, pure freezing embarrassment was pouring (somehow) down the collar of my T-shirt and all over my pants in the most God-awful dish clatter you've ever heard. My dinner mates were just as helpful as they were during the wine episode (laughing and laughing and laughing) but every single waiter in the restaurant immediately rushed over with non-absorptive napkins. All I could do was giggle hysterically. Once they'd cleared away the spent napkins and the remains of my drunken noodles, one waiter brought over a fresh glass of water and set it cautiously down in front of me. I tried to joke my way out of mortification by promising to be careful with this one, but he didn't look very amused or trusting. I can't say that I blame him. From now on I'm drinking my fluids out of a goddamned sippy cup.

weekend bragcomplishments

2006-10-16T23:06:00.000-05:00

Friday:
- Wolf down burgers from Five Guys
- Watch The Departed
- Admire Alec Baldwin's slovenly comic genius
- Create poster-CD case wall art

Winter on the Quads

Saturday:
- Conduct frantic Cheez-it shopping spree
- Eat early Thai dinner in empty restaurant under watchful gaze of three very bored, overly attentive waiters
- Rush home to host Cheez-its & Wiiiine Party

Extensive Cheez-it selection

- Spill red wine on floor, carpet, wall, camera
- Hold rambunctious Donkey Conga tournament and loud games of Taboo and charades
- Go to bed drunk on wine and beer

Employing gorilla tactics against neighboring terrorist, Screamy

Sunday:
- Wake up feeling like a god
- Make delicious mushroom and cheese omelette to appease boyfriend's queasy hangover
- Discover that crappy-ass DVD player from Best Buy is broken (for the second time in two months)
- Weep uncontrollably
- Wallow in technological despair and self-pity
- Create awesome 'Wall o' Faces' wall art

Every visitor gets their mug on the wall

"this is our country"? dear Christ.

2006-10-15T20:49:00.000-05:00

Lately, I haven't felt motivated to post about anything. However, I can't blame my lazitude on a lack of rantable material: skeezified horn-dog politicians, crazy nuclear dictators, my blossoming love for Alec Baldwin. Instead, I'm going to blame it on an overabundance of material.

But despite the bad news saturation level of late, something has finally infuriated me enough to break through to my numb intellect: have you seen the new commercial for Chevy's 2007 Silverado? I read an Ad Critic review on Slate a few days ago and finally had the privilege of catching it on the air today. Good Lord--I have never seen a worse commercial. Instead of focusing on one emotional button (the dad smiling at his little daughter, a good neighbor's helping hands, a Navy jet-fighter swooping over the Land of the Free), Chevy threw reason to the wind and hit all of them: Rosa Parks, war, Nixon, terrorism, firefighters, smiling kids and wheatfields. And don't forget the awesome soundtrack: John Mellencamp's ham-handed tribute to flag-blinded patriotism. The Ad Critic article gives a much better (and hilarious) assessment of this commercial than I ever could, but even without a detailed evaluation you come away with the feeling that Chevy ad executives are now doling out emotional punches with the same finesse as a toddler playing the piano. (Forget fingers--when you use both forearms you can hit ALL of the keys at once! Hot damn!)

The sad thing is, all of this firepower is being whipped out in a desperate attempt to sell crappy American trucks to what we can only assume are easily manipulated red-state Wal-Mart workers who only wished they had a reason to own the motorized equivalent of a giant penis. The sadder thing is--it will probably work.

Ugh. Who needs a Budweiser?

the spirit of the dog olympics

2006-10-08T21:52:00.000-05:00

Yesterday we braved the freakishly cold weather to witness Dogtoberfest--a sort of amateur dog olympics sponsored by the local animal shelter. J got some good audio of the events, but since he hasn't posted any of it yet, I'll try to recreate the exciting competitive atmosphere for you here:

Timer: You have sixty seconds to throw the frisbee as many times as you can, but your dog must bring the frisbee back before your next throw. Ready?

Dog owner: Yup.

Timer: Okay. Go!

Dog owner: Go, Artie! Get the frisbee, Artie! Good catch, Artie! Bring it here!... Bring it here, Artie! HERE, ARTIE! OVER HERE, ARTIE! ARTIEARTIEARTIEARTIEARTIE!!!

The yelling is all in vain. At this point, Artie is obsessed with shaking the frisbee to death, and nothing will distract him. The timer keeps a straight face, even when the dog owner runs into the enclosure to chase down his uncooperative pet and wrestle the limp frisbee out of Artie's mouth. The owner finally manages to wrest the toy away and complete another throw, but the result is the same: "Bring it here, Artie! HERE! ARTIEARTIEARTIEARTIIIIIIIIIE!!!"

The other dog events are just as amusing. Everywhere dogs are running and jumping and chasing after thrown objects and sniffing each other happily. Owners smile at each other and cheer for their pets and laugh over their failed coaching attempts. I suppose everyone wants their dog to be a great athlete, but like most amateur athletes, these participants are never going to make a successful career of it. It was still fun as hell, though, because unlike the obsessed parents at a pee wee football or varsity baseball games, no one at Dogtoberfest really expected much out of their participant. They're were just happy if Fido didn't shit in the back seat on the way to the park, or bite another child like last year. And really, that's what Dogtoberfest is all about.

pearls of advertisement wisdom

2006-09-24T11:15:00.000-05:00

Now that we have cable again, I am once again being pelted by TV advertisements for everything from Ziploc bags to CoverGirl mascara to Republican Senators--and it's got me thinking about what makes an effective ad.

Most ads are out there for the sole purpose of creating brand name awareness since people are more likely to buy a brand they recognize versus one they don't. These commercials employ all sorts of tactics: feel good family shots, cute children with lisps, hilarious dancing fat guys, boobalicious babes, etc. The good ones catch your attention and make you laugh/cry, and some are extremely effective. For example, I have yet to see a Pepperidge Farm commercial that didn't make me want to run out and pick up a box of Goldfish Crackers and a cute singing kid. Target ads that showcase multiple brand items are also influential, as they remind me of all of the stuff that I forgot to get during my last trip through the store's overcrowded aisles: Right, toothpaste--we totally need that. Oh, and the batteries in the remote are dead. Damn, I forgot about toilet paper too! How much do we have left? Fuck! That reminds me we don't have any Kleenex either.

Big name companies spend big overhead bucks to make their ads super flashy and create more business for themselves. But is such extreme spending necessary to achieve the desired effect? I mean, I see a gazillion tampon commercials every day that feature women bouncing happily on trampolines/running through flowering meadows/dancing around ecstatically in their underwear, but it never galvanizes me into any sense of excitement at the prospect of buying tampons--and I never remember what brand which woman was bouncing/running/dancing around in appreciation for. They all just make me think the same thing: Oh yeah, tampons. As far as I'm concerned, the companies spending big bucks to put out competitive bids for my business are wasting their time and money. And this is on a sure-fire product! Like clockwork, every month millions of women run out and buy tampons (except for the ho-bags that get knocked up). That's an extremely consistent and reliable buying cycle--you'd think that Tampax and Playtex and Pepperidge Farm Tampons wouldn't have to throw so much ad money around to get the business they want. You wanna know who will win this advertising war? The first company that decides to take the simpler, more direct approach to advertising: the "Head-On approach."

Remember that commercial that was running in July/August of this year? You know, "Head-On, apply directly to the forehead! Head-On, apply directly to the forehead! Head-On, apply directly to the forehead!" That one. Yeah, you remember it. The commercial didn't even make the product's purpose clear and you remember the name of the product and how to use it. Now that's effective advertising. Tampon companies need to jump on that bandwagon. I might not remember which brand that fresh-faced teenager was smiling about in that one commercial, but I sure as hell would remember if it were advertised using the Head-On approach: "Nabisco Tampons, insert directly into the vagina! Nabisco Tampons, insert directly into the vagina! Nabisco Tampons, insert directly into the vagina!"

Try getting that out of your head while you're shopping for batteries at Target.

star-crossed lovers

2006-09-08T22:28:00.000-05:00

Tonight we had our revenge on Screamy, the cute but whiney three-year-old who lives next door: we watched Chunhyang, a lengthy Korean movie with wailing/stylized singing narrative. The music is intriguing--to me it sounds a bit like Native American singing--and the lyrics are endlessly amusing. The best ones involve needlessly detailed descriptions of the story characters' garments ("He wore a hat and a blue jacket with the end tied back") and the shouting
("That bitch will pay!" and "Beat her until her organs burst!" were my personal favorites). My one big complaint is that just as the story was starting to pick up speed (The evil governor is going to beat the courtesan's daughter to death at his birthday dinner--the Korean equivalent of a piňata party. Will her husband arrive to save her in time?) our brand new LG DVD player crapped out on us. The irony of the similar story lines is not lost on me: just like the two lovers in the movie, these two pieces of Korean technology were unable to overcome their world's shortcomings in order to live happily ever after. I don't need to see the end of the movie to know how things are going to end for Chunhyang and her husband--we've already beaten the DVD player's organs until they burst.

Operation Sinker

2006-09-06T20:31:00.000-05:00

Due to a recent office move I have started using another bathroom on the other side of the building and have thus noticed a disturbing phenomenon: every once in a while, a giant solitary turd can be found lurking at the bottom of one of the toilet bowls.

I don't know who the culprit is--not yet anyway. I've made a few inquiries around the office, and it seems like so far the stealthy minx has succeeded in evading detection, like some sort of Poop Ninja. Ugh. I shudder at the prospect of future attacks. Not only is it horrific to behold, but the conspicuous lack of toilet paper baffles me. Twice already I've stumbled backwards out of a stall, shielding my face from the unexpected horror, wailing blindly: Unclean! Unclean! What is going on here?! Why would someone do such a thing? (Or rather, how would someone do such a thing?) Is it disgruntlement? Terrorism? Child-like delight? I must know.

Have faith, office mates,
For I, Restroom Samurai,
will defeat Nasty.

denying I have a problem

2006-08-30T20:17:00.000-05:00

My addictions are back, and I've made a dangerous discovery--they compliment each other. No need to worry, though, it's not like it's cocaine and tightrope walking or anything, it's just caffeine and Free Cell.

Over a year ago I dropped caffeine after I started to suspect that it was giving me heart palpitations. However, during our trip across country I took it back up and now I indulge almost every day--a soda here, a cup of tea there. I'm kind of upset with myself for succumbing to it after months of hard-fought independence, but it's just that getting into a new work schedule is brutal, and by early afternoon I'm crashing between acronym-riddled project meetings and draining phone conversations about PowerPoint slides. So I grab a cup of liquid strength and sit down to a Free Cell game or two. Or ten. I try to stop, but I find that playing clears my head and jump-starts my productivity. Plus, that extra boost from the caffeine really sends me flying through the cards. Last week I hit a new record: 32 wins in a row. I know. I'm sick, but i can't help it! At least I'm not playing for money and I'm not nearly as deranged as the people who play in Free Cell tournaments. (Yes, there IS such a thing.) Those guys play 30 games per hour! I'm not nearly up to par with that kind of performance. Maybe I should practice more. I've never liked coffee much but I have a feeling that we could become fast friends...

boycott underwear

2006-08-27T21:56:00.000-05:00

I'm no prude, but I think Victoria's Secret has finally gone too far. As I flipped through the fall catalog of lace thongs, stocking garters, and crotchless panties, I was struck by the peculiar vulgarity of this contraption:

Ooh-la-lecch!

This particular brassiere is constructed in such a way as to allow the maximum amount of cleavage exposure, or as they call it 'plunging neckline', without having to suffer the pesky modesty of underwear getting in the way. Of course, I have no beef with cleavage, or boobs in general, really. (I don't so much believe in "if you've got it, flaunt it" as I do in "even if you don't got it, it's a free country, so entice/horrify at your own discretion".) No, my righteous horror has nothing to do with decency, but with fashion. Now, I'm no fasion guru and I know that bras are meant to be worn under one's clothes (except on the most special of occasions), but that doesn't mean that they are allowed to be this ugly. Christ. I was physically repulsed at the sight of this bra. It's a fucking disaster. It's so awful, in fact, that it gives this monstrosity a good run for the money:

Even she looks pissed at having to wear it, and she's getting PAID for it.

Ugh. No more shopping at VS for me. I didn't mind the child labor sweatshops, but I draw the line at visual terrorism.

strange neighbor fellows

2006-08-26T16:32:00.000-05:00

Despite the fact that my brain is finally firming back up from the mush that the recent week on the road reduced it to, I have decided to continue to bore you all with the mundane details of my everyday life. Today, we're talking about neighbors.

We met several of our next door neighbors on the day that we unpacked the moving trailer. We were trudging up the stairs, boxes in tow, and when we reached our landing the door next to ours opened and a horde of children ran screaming out of their apartment followed by billows of toxic white smoke and a panicked woman in a worn housedress. The four small children huddled on the tiny third floor patio with their hands clamped over their ears against the wailing fire alarm, crying and yelling for their mother who was still inside the apartment dealing with the cause of the smoke. She soon emerged to borrow my burly manfriend, whose lab safety training must have done him some good as he soon found the source of the problem--a plastic toy that had been placed in the oven and had burst into flames--and saved the day. The mother babbled her gratitude in Spanglish, the children stopped screaming, the grandmother returned (I'm still not sure if she ran for help or just ran), and we continued on with our move. That evening we decided that renter's insurance might not be such a bad investment after all. I also checked the height of the drop from our balcony, just in case the hallway is ever on fire and we have to jump ship. It's a pretty steep drop, but I figure if I avoid landing on the cement porch below and roll once I hit the grass (without hitting the treeline), I could probably survive. In any case, it probably beats burning to death.

Several nights later we came home after dark, allowing us to peek inside the lit apartments from the parking lot. One of our downstairs neighbor's shades were open and she had all of her lights on, so we could clearly see into her living room. Thus, we discovered this:

In case you can't tell from the mediocre photograph, that is in fact a fully-trimmed Christmas tree. Now, I must admit that the previous week I had watched Love Actually, a film set in the Christmas season, but in my defense I believe that there is a very clear line between the pleasure of watching a snowy holiday film in the middle of August, and the insanity of actually keeping a decorated tree up year-round. Oh, I'm not being fair. She's probably a very nice yet eccentric person who, for one reason or another, chooses to celebrate Christmas in August instead of December with everyone else. Maybe it makes the shopping easier, I don't know. If I ever gather the courage to talk to her, I'll make sure to ask when Halloween is--it would be a tragedy to miss out on any trick-or-treating just because she's completely bonkers.

Finally, last weekend we moved my brother's ginormous couch into our apartment. Rather, with the amount of sweat, grunting, cursing and weak cheering upon success, it felt like we birthed the couch more than moved it. Whatever, the point is that we met our other next door neighbors--two gentlemen that generously assisted us during the delivery. We were extremely thrilled to not only have friendly neighbors (the Spanish-speaking family with the kids next door is nice enough, just a little loud and difficult to communicate with) but to have neighbors who shared a common interest--archery. J had just started researching archery ranges to pick the sport back up again, and the bow cases that they were carrying up the stairs caught his eye. You know what caught my eye? The mounted animal heads that covered every inch of their living room walls. One of the men leaned out of his front door to shake my hand, pulling the door closed as much as possible. I thought he was just being private, or that they might be gay and just wary of public scrutiny. And then I saw the giant deer head hovering over the armchair. When he opened the door to retreat into his apartment I caught the full view: deer, bears, bobcats, ducks, elk--nearly any damn thing you can shoot was mounted on their wall. It look so crowded that I wondered if they felt self-conscious sitting in the room, staring down the blank marble eyes of those they had slain. Now I really hope that they are gay. Not just because that would be awesome (how many kill-hungry redneck gay couples can there be in the world, anyway?), but because I find the prospect of a stable relationship more reassuring than the possibility that they're just two guys who like killing things so much that they live together in their den of death. J said they might have stuffed humans in the back rooms. Oh God. I really really hope that this whole hunting thing is just an attempt to butch up. Maybe if we feed them cookies they won't hurt us. That's a law of the jungle, right? Don't shoot the hand that feeds you cookies?

We have yet to meet many of our neighbors, but after these recent revelations, I think I'll take it slow. Those two little Vietnamese boys who live downstairs sure seemed sweet, but you just never know. Their eighty-year-old grandmother seemed a little sketchy...

DAY 7: Tuesday, 8 August

2006-08-22T18:56:00.000-05:00

We bag up the rest of the fruits and vegetables from the refrigerator, do some laundry and set out on the highway once again--this time for our final day of driving. Pennsylvania is scenic but a little bossy.

Finally, we arrive in Maryland that evening. We stop at a Cracker Barrel to return the book on tape that we borrowed somewhere in Oklahoma (I think). It was a spyish novel by Le Carre, narrated by the author himself, but we never finished it. I think it was called Abosolute Friends, or something like that. It involved two guys that are friends for years and years and meet up to save the world or something. It was kind of interesting, but he did voices for all of his characters, including annoying falsettos for the women, and Sasha's effeminate Russian/German accent and long-winded Communist soliloquies grated on our nerves after a while. I'm tempted to check the book out from the library and finish the last chapters, but I'm not really that motivated. I'm just going to assume the climax of the book is when the reader discovers that Sasha and Teddy are gay for each other. And if that's actually the case, all I can say is "called it!".

I include this crappy picture of a highway sign because: a) It's kind of cool-looking, actually, and b) This accurately represents how we were feeling at this point in our journey--so close to our destination and woozy as hell.

That night the moon was huge and kind of orange. I tried to get a picture of it, but with limited success. But it was so beautiful that I just had to keep trying. I was nearly laughed out of the car for my many many attempts to capture the skyline on 'film.' At the time I was a little peeved, but then I checked the digital reel--I took approximately one gazillion pictures of the goddamn moon and all of them look like shit. So, I guess I deserved at least some of the mockery. Damn.

Stupid moon

FINALLY, after battling through surprisingly thick traffic at 10PM, we reach my mom's house. I think she fed us before we passed out downstairs, but I don't really remember. Whatever, we made it, baby, and that's all that matters.

DAY 6: Monday, 7 August

2006-08-19T12:54:00.000-05:00

We finally arrive in Ohio, our pre-determined resting spot. As the parents-out-law have recently been called away to the home country, the house is all ours. Not having a key of our own, we refer to the treasure map that was emailed to us a few days before (ie, pictures of the house key's hidden location in the backyard). Success!! We invade.

Anticipating a certain amount of bored exhaustion, we head for the local Blockbuster for a movie. We select George Clooney's Good Night and Good Luck but decide against watching it that evening. Instead, we choose a shameful piece of fluff comedy. We slink up to the desk, hiding the second case with our artsy pick. Alas, the cashier's lack of savvy coolness (or perhaps her evil sense of humor) leads her to call out the film's title loudly, for all patrons to hear: "Good Night and Good Luck is due next week and She's the Man is due back on Wednesday!". We sprint to the getaway car.

We return home ravenous for real food. Having never really cooked in this particular kitchen before (during visits our duties are mostly limited to table-setting and salad), we venture cautiously into the refrigerator and grab perishable items to eat, since they are likely to expire before anyone returns to the house. Spicy catfish and kimchi await us, along with a head of lettuce and half a dozen bell peppers. Oh a whim, we grab the block of tofu as well. Upon slicing it up, we realize it would be extremely unwise to eat it all in one sitting, but fry all of it anyway in case we want some for breakfast. Our feast is strange but delicious. We settle into the couch to watch our stupid movie. As expected, it is stupid (though it be loosely based on Shakespeare's Twelfth Night), but Amanda Bines' goofy-ass proves fairly entertaining.

The next morning I eat toast in the newly-constructed sun room and watch the birds and squirrels devour the seed set out in the bird-feeders. The squirrel looks a little mangey, but the chipmunk that shows up is cute as hell. He stuffs his cheeks full and bounds happily away.

So cute!!

That evening a friend comes by for dinner and a movie (George Clooney, this time). We make him work for his meal--we all sit around the kitchen table and fill and fold about a gazillion pork and apple chutney dumplings. Finally, the work is done and we settle down to a dinner of dumplings and leftover catfish, salad and tofu. We talk and laugh, then watch the movie. I enjoyed it, especially as a parallel snapshot of our times, but I must admit to liking most Clooney movies, even the awful ones. I never liked him back when he was on ER but then he did O Brother, Where Art Thou? and BAM! I was in love. He and Amanda should make awesome movies together.

This doesn't really fit in anywhere, but I must mention it simply because it is possibly the ugliest thing I've ever seen:

Oh, the humanity!

I don't think it's scented like anything, but I can't say for certain one way or another. If it does smell like anything, I would have to guess that its either 'pine fresh' or 'elf aura'. I hear tell that this is merely one of three candles purchased at a craft fair back in 1983. One of its brothers was given away as a gift to someone years back (undoubtedly to a sworn enemy of the family), and the other was melted at the stake during a wintertime marshmallow roast. Legend has it that if one listened very closely, the agonized screams of tiny plastic squirrels could be heard has they were engulfed by their melting wax tree house. I shudder to think.

DAY 5: Sunday, 6 August

2006-08-18T17:37:00.000-05:00

Blogger sucks, so here are the remaining pictures from DAY 4:

Another creepishly large cross looms in the darkness over the Illinois highway

We rejoice in our Best Western find.

DAY 5:

Indiana is full of cows and farms and corn:

Indianapolis isn't very awe-inspiring either:

This is too bad, because the only Indian people I've ever met (hicks, not dots or feathers) are pretty cool. One of them is DWright. The other is the owner of this canoe:

Cheer up, Dan Savage!

He saw me taking this picture of his car at the rest stop, and I felt a little weird about it, so we admitted that we were admiring his sticker. Then he knew we were alright. That didn't stop his creepy ten-year-old son from staring us down, though. I wonder if the man finally had to explain the meaning of the sticker to his son after we left. And I wonder if his explanation included a reason why the sticker is on his canoe and not the family car. I wonder if he had to sleep on the couch that night after little Timmy enlightened Mommy regarding the sorry state of our country's domestic policy and overseas military campaigns over lukewarm oven-baked fish sticks and Jell-O that evening. I wonder if they're now on the path to divorce.

Whatever. Vigorous political discussion and divorce is what this great country of ours is all about.

DAY 4: Saturday, 5 August

2006-08-17T19:10:00.000-05:00

We drive into Missouri on Saturday morning. I am not disappointed--it is the total sleaze-fest that I remember. Whereas Oklahoma and Texas highways are lined with billboards promoting abstinence and condemning abortion, Missouri is splattered with giant roadside advertisements for adult 'bookstores'. Here is a sampling: (Note: I did not cheat on this--these are billboards for three separate stores.)

Of course, Missouri isn't all smut. Lest I give the impression that this state is completely tasteless, I've included some pictures promoting other fine Missouri business establishments.

That evening, we stop in St. Louis as planned, having never been to see the gateway to the Midwest. We are far more impressed with the arch than we'd anticipated. It is shiny and awesome and a free blues concert is being held in the park, right on the river.

We wander around and eat bratwurst and crab rangoon from the vendors parked along the park's walkway. After about an hour, we head back to the car, right as a Park Ranger squad car is leaving the concert area. A man is cuffed in the backseat and I hear a faint plop as the cruiser's wheels drop of the curb on its way out of the park. Upon further inspection I find an evidence bag full of the detainee's personal belongings: a cell phone, a handkerchief, two dollars, etc. As there is no sign of illegal substances in the baggie I conclude that he was probably detained for drunkeness and wouldn't mind the return of his personal possessions. I imagine it would suck to be arrested by a bunch of action-hungry Park Rangers in the middle of my good time, only to have them lose all of my shit. So, on our way out of the parking garage I run up to another squad car and hand the driver the bag. He doesn't seem surprised or grateful, but just radios his partner, who is now huffing up the exit ramp, scanning the darkness for the poor bastard's things. I feel exceptionally proud of my good deed--helping out a bumbling backwater policeman right after being ticketed by his brother in arms. Upon further consideration, I wonder if the presence of a cash wad and/or drugs in the bag would have changed my course of action. How much cash and what kind of drugs are we talking about here? What if it were over a grand? And just a few ounces of marijuana? I would totally cut and run, and consider true justice served.

We continue on to Illinois and stop in Terre Haute, Indiana that night at a Best Western. As luck would have it, there is some kind of convention in town here as well, and hotel rooms are in short supply. The enormous balding woman at the front desk offers me a queen-sized suite, the only room left. I pause to weigh the exorbitant price, our chances of finding another room in town, and our level of exhaustion. Just then, an entire family comes stomping into the lobby, led by an angry mother toting a load of pillows and suitcases: "The room you gave us has someone else in it. The door is chained and we can't get in." I book the suite.

DAY 3: Friday, 4 August

2006-08-16T20:35:00.000-05:00

"Welcome to New Mexico"

We leave Gallup, New Mexico somewhat on schedule--sometime before noon. Like Arizona the day before, New Mexico appears grumpy and splatters us randomly with light rain throughout our drive.

Land of enchanting storm fronts

We enter Texas sometime that afternoon, determined not to stop at any cost. Last time through we stopped to eat at Logan's Roadhouse, a chain restaurant of reputably reliable mediocrity, only to discover a pick-up parked twenty feet from the entrance with an open trailer full of squealing swine attached to the back. I went back to the car for my video camera, so somewhere we have footage of a dozen piglets screeching as they pummeled each other and tried to escape through the cracks in the trailer's metal gate. I remember ordering salad for lunch that day.

Welcome to Texas

Sadly, Texas is just as exciting as we remember it.

We watch for mileage signs to Groom, Texas, home of the second largest cross in the western hemisphere. We are not disappointed. Several miles out we're able to spot it in the distance, looming damningly on the horizon.

We consider stopping to visit the 190 foot structure and the surrounding cross sculptures but decide against it. A website has warned us not to take our under eight-year-olds to the site due to some graphic anti-abortion propaganda, and we're in no mood for fanaticism. Especially in Texas. Texas is like the Afghanistan of the United States. The people might be friendly, but it's not really a place you want to visit. Not when Iraq is just down the way.

For a while we are distracted with taking pictures of clouds shaped like stuff. Here's an alligator eating a fish:

And a chicken:

We are so obsessed with clouds and getting out of the state that we fail to notice the cruiser parked in the median's grassy ditch. It zooms after us and the trooper informs us that we were going 14 miles over the speed limit. As I've never been in a car while it's been pulled over before, I don't really know what to expect. I'm filled with the irrational fear that my California plates and nervous demeanor will land me in a hail of gunfire and I will bleed to death five miles from the Oklahoma border, groping for my car registration. But instead he just gives us a ticket for $175. Once administration fees are added on, we may well end up paying more in speeding fees than gasoline for the entire trip. Fucking Texas. We drive eagerly, yet cautiously, into Oklahoma. I miss taking a picture of its welcome sign because I'm too busy moping.

It's late so we stop at one of the only open restaurants near Oklahoma City--Chili's. Our waitress cautions us not to speed until we reach the Missouri border, lest we suffer a similar fate to our Texas one. We order a giant girly margarita and check into a nearby Clarion hotel--our third lodging attempt that night. We are informed that we're lucky to find a room in the city at all, what with the rodeo convention in town that weekend. We don't understand what a rodeo convention would be, and how exactly it would differ from an actual rodeo, but we're too tired to ask. We lug our suitcase up to our room and summon enough energy to wallow contentedly on the king-sized bed and watch a re-run of Frasier before passing out.

To my surprise Oklahoma is kind of pleasant, especially at night. Warmly breezy and almost pretty.

But still retarded:

DAY 2: Thursday, 3 August

2006-08-15T23:02:00.000-05:00

Auf wiedersehen, Cali-FOR-nia!

The next day we zoom east over the mountains to Arizona, willing my little Honda up the slopes beside lumbering big-rigs, hoping that it won't overheat in the record temperatures and explode along some desolate stretch of highway. Luck is with us--we don't explode.

Hellooo, crippling heat!

To our delight, halfway through the state we are peppered by sporadic rainstorms and surrounded by rainbows. We consider stopping to look for the pot of gold, but decide to move on. Who the hell wants to chase a grumpy leprachaun in 115 degree heat, anyway?

Double rainbow

We stop in some city I can't remember the name of to eat dinner. We pass up Denny's and other mediocre chain restaurants in favor of some local flavor, thinking it might be tastier, or at least somewhat safer, gastrointestinally speaking. This turns out to be a terrible mistake. Rather, ordering items from the menu that the waitstaff doesn't recognize (such as their heavily advertised "Wild for Strawberries" chicken wrap or a simple side of vinaigrette) turns out to be a terrible mistake. An ancient pair of oil and vinegar bottles are brought to the table by a bewildered waitress. The chicken wrap contains no strawberries. We eat without complaining, giggly with hunger. We stop to immortalize the evening in a few pictures before screeching back out onto the highway.

Village Iiiiiiiiiinn!!

We continue on to Gallup where we spend the night in the same Red Roof Inn that we stayed in on our way out to California almost two years ago. Our memory has failed us--this place sucks too. The late night and early morning trucker traffic is almost unbearably loud and the toilet paper is painfully stiff. The single complimentary baggie of shampoo is nearly impossible to open once wet. I use my teeth to tear it open and get most of the shampoo in my mouth. It is nearly as delicious as it smells--like Lysol lemonade. I curse the Red Roof Inn. I curse it.

let's start at the very beginning

2006-08-15T22:34:00.000-05:00

Well kids, it's been twelve grueling days of packing, loading, driving 3,000 miles, unloading and unpacking, but we're finally settled on the east coast. Mostly anyway. Sure, we don't have a couch yet, can't find my car registration and only get one TV channel--but that's just all part of the fun of moving, right? Right.

For those of you who have never driven across this sinfully large country of ours, we took lots of crappy pictures through our bug-splattered windshield along the way. This "cream of the crap", if you will, will be featured in the following blog entries, starting with our departure from the Sunshine Universe. Let us begin.

DAY 1 : Wednesday, 2 August
After bidding our last visitors from the east coast goodbye (and cleverly suckering one of them into helping us load our shipping container--thanks, Jimmy!) we frantically clean the apartment, drop off our apartment keys with the landlord and zoom north to Los Angeles to spend one last night with family. Our remaining evening in California is spent eating cake, watching Bravo's Project Runway, and battling the resident feline who, despite our lively protestations, refuses to stop biting our toes and attacking us in our sleep.

Evil kitty

and they're off!

2006-08-03T11:38:00.000-05:00

Well, as soon as our last load of laundry finishes. And after we top the tank off. And check the tires and wash the windows. And load some snappy driving tunes onto our mp3 player.

But after that we're totally out of here--later, bitches!

Road Trip Sighting #21: Giant Jesus stick in Groom, Texas

lesbians and terrorists and Bush--oh my!

2006-07-29T14:19:00.000-05:00

Due to the recent Israel-Lebanon debacle (in addition to the ongoing US-Afghanistan, US-Iraq, and US-Iran ones), I am rapidly approaching my depressing/politically frustrating news saturation limit--much as I did after September 11 when I killed my TV for 4 months until I could safely get through an afternoon re-run of Frasier without pulling my hair out over the commercial patriotism of an evening news bumper. During yesterday's morning commute I was just about to switch from my favored program on NPR to some hideous DJ show on one of the local rock stations when the radio reporter on the morning news twice referred to Lebanon's resident terrorist militia as "Lezbullah". She quickly recovered and carefully finished the rest of her broadcast without another slip-up, but it was too late--I was inspired. A bit of Googling revealed some joking chatter involving the term "Lezbullah" or "Lezbollah," as well as an intriguing site in Turkish which I think may involve some sort of a dead lesbian, but as of yet, no Islamic terrorist organization run by lezbos. Though I am neither a lesbian nor an Islamic terrorist, the kitsch of the name alone is making me seriously consider forming such a group--you know, just for fun. Can you imagine if Dubya could market the War on Terror as a struggle against both Islamic terrorism AND lesbians? Such an epic and noble mission would surely earn him enough spiritual points to sway the tetchy evangelical vote into electing him into a third term. If only he could find a way to work in a quest to defeat abortion, evolution and environmental laws he could rule forever!

summer reading

2006-07-24T23:04:00.000-05:00

During the move I snagged a few books off my mom’s bookshelves for some light bedtime reading. One was on the diplomacy of Henry Kissinger and the other was The Scarlet Pimpernel. Of course, the tumultuous nature of moving soon swept one of my finds away to the depths of some mysterious box, not to be seen again until the next move, no doubt. Fortunately, considering how brain-dead lugging heavy boxes around in 100 degree heat can make you, I was left with Pimpernel and not the tome on diplomatic intricacies (Sorry, Henry!). I’d never read it in school and had always shied away from it due to its title’s similarity to The Red Badge of Courage, upon mention of which my mom would always roll her eyes and gag, having been forced to read it in high school. But what with the cable being out I settled into it and was pleasantly surprised.

The story follows the tragically uncommunicative and distrustful relationship between a French woman and her husband the Scarlet Pimpernel, an English nobleman who risks his life to save members of the French nobility from the clutches of the bloody revolution. I was deeply immersed in a condemning chapter about the dirty French revolutionists when my brother spotted my reading choice.

“Isn’t it awesome?” he said. “It made me feel all conflicted. I didn’t know whom to cheer for.”

This caught my attention, because if you know anything about my brother it is that he rarely read any books assigned in high school and even when he did he refused to remember or absorb anything useful from them. But I immediately realized why he’d remembered it so well—why the preachy text about the evil injustice of the French nobility’s savage beheadings had stuck with him through the mish-mash of forgettable school-assigned novels: growing up in France, we’d been taught the opposite perspective of the gory revolt. To us, the storming of the Bastille and the mass executions of the nobility were glorious feats of victory, not repulsive acts of insurgence or terrorism. On Independence Day we marched tirelessly through the streets of our town alongside our classmates, proudly clad in the bleu, blanc et rouge fashion of the revolutionists. Somewhere my mom has pictures of our first patriotic parade to the town’s center—me in a lace cap and striped skirt, my two brothers in red rooster caps and ragged blue, white and red trousers. I want to say that our faces were smeared in red paint to denote the blood that the French patriots shed during their epic battle to overthrow the monarchists, but that may only be the impression that I’m left with. One thing I’m certain of: we knew all of the verses to La Marseillaise and chanted them boisterously in our march through the streets.

Arise children of the fatherland,
The day of glory has arrived,
Against us tyranny's
Bloody standard is raised!
Listen to the sound in the fields,
The howling of these fearsome soldiers,
They are coming into our midst,
To cut the throats of your sons and consorts!

To arms, citizens!
Form your battalions!
March, march!
Let impure blood
Water our furrows!

Talk about the swelling pride of patriotism! It’s one thing to sing the tame American anthem at the start of a Little League game, it’s quite another to feel your young blood boiling at the battle cry of the revolution. The guillotine was our instrument of freedom, our equality the currency of brotherhood! Forget national monuments or Masonic symbolism, before the Euro came along French cash was emblazoned with the bloodied faces of its liberators, its most prominent feature an imposing woman who managed to convey nationalistic pride while simultaneously flashing everyone with her large rebellious breasts! What could be more French than that?

By chance, I followed the reading of Pimpernel with a public television broadcast on the British royal family. Its emphasis on its haughty royalty and stoic fortitude in the face of war and scandal made me understand for the first time exactly what separates the Brits from the French, and made me wonder at the interpretation of history that we’ve chosen. I’m not sure which one is more accurate, but at least I’m still questioning my own.

home again, home again, jiggity-jig

2006-07-23T22:05:00.000-05:00

Well, I’m back from my Week of Terror in DC and despite my initial anxiety about the laundry list of moving my mom and finding an apartment and securing a moving company for our own move, things have turned out pretty well. In fact, I consider this last week nothing less that a big fucking success. Here’s why:

1. I rented the very first and only apartment I looked at. I know, I know, it sounds really dumb, but I’d done my research. I’d scoured the newspapers and craigslist, called several places beforehand, and even made a three-ring binder with over twenty places that I was planning to scope out during my gigantic apartment quest. But then none of the places I called the first day panned out, except for this one—and it was cheap, and clean, and close to my work, and included all utilities, and air conditioned, and the management was competent. I won’t pretend that I wasn’t more than a little nervous to sign the lease right off on the first and only place I’d seen, but my mom’s and brother’s assurances (‘this is divine intervention’ and ‘SCORE!’, respectively) and the fact that the rent is the same exact amount that we are currently paying in San Diego soon won me over. It seemed like a sign that this apartment was ‘the one’. So I sucked up my nerves, signed the lease the following day, thanked my lucky stars, and gave an imaginary high-five to Jesus. Done.

2. My mom delayed her move by two days, just in time for my brother Bear and his naïve friend to get back from their trip and help out. This circumstance was especially fortuitous because my mom has waaaaay more stuff than she’ll admit to. By the third day of her insisting that ‘there’s really not that much stuff, really there’s not’ I was shoulder-deep in boxes of knick-knacks and fortunately too exhausted to do her any real violence. All I can say is, God bless the construction crew foreman for lending me Carlos and his two hombres for an hour. They saved us from certain failure and solved the conundrum that we’d been trying to resolve all week: what to call the levels of my mom’s new three-story house that begin on the ground floor, but not with a basement. Thanks to the exhausted yet good-natured Hombre #1 who had to haul the double-wide dresser up two flights of stairs, they are now christened: ‘downstairs,’ ‘arriba,’ and ‘arriba arriba’. I rewarded them with ice-cold Cokes, cold hard cash and effusive thanks. I had originally intended to pay them with booze and loose women but they still had a full day of work ahead of them and the whorehouse didn’t open ‘til noon. Whatever, they seemed satisfied.

3. My mom picked the two hottest days of the year to move. It was nearly one hundred degrees outside and extremely humid, which made it feel like one million kajillion degrees. Add a bajillion boxes, heavy furniture and a quadrillion stairs and you get a pretty miserable result. I’d forgotten what it was like to sweat like a hog from the moment you wake up until—well, actually you just sweat every second, except for the few minutes spent in a cold shower. Anyway, it was awful, but apparently I lost two pounds in the process, so whoohoo! Screw dieting and exercise, all weight loss really takes is abject misery. This revelation has tempted me to launch the most unpopular dieting movement ever, but I’m busy so I’ll resist for now. Besides, salad and celery is almost as good.

4. And last but not least, we’ve found a moving company that will load, transport and unload all of our junk for a reasonable price. Also, certain unsuspecting friends of ours will be arriving next weekend, just in time to help us pack boxes and sleep on our bare hardwood living room floor. Haha, suckers—bring your own pillows!

move again, move again, jiggity-jig

2006-07-14T00:28:00.000-05:00

It’s official—I’m freaking OUT.

Tomorrow I fly back to the DC-area for one week during which I must help my mother move house and find an apartment in time for our own cross-country move in 3 weeks. While I am gone, my moving partner will be researching moving companies and auto-shippers—making sure that they are legitimate businesses who won’t dump all of our stuff somewhere in Idaho or blackmail us before relinquishing our possessions. Ugh.

See? Right there. I had to stop typing for a few moments to calm my blood pressure. The thought of packing a suitcase, much less two households in two weeks, just gives me the vapors. What the hell is wrong with me? I need a brain-clearing slap to the face. Or some gin.

No. I just need to have faith in my ability to plan, and faith in my contingency plans when the first plan craps out. Planning is my strength. I’ve even been lifting weights for the past several weeks in anticipation of this month’s moves. Now that I think of it, maybe I should have practiced lifting our 4-ton couch instead. Damn—hindsight 20/20. Whatever, I’m feeling buff. Strong like locomotive. Big like ox. I can lift multiple boxes at one time, leap over obstacles while balancing antique furniture on my head, pack plates and silverware with lightning speed. I run through the moving game plan in my head: office, bedrooms, kitchen, living room. Oh shit. I frantically dial my mom.

“You’re getting someone to move the baby grand piano, right?”

“Umm. Oh yeah, I should do that.”

“Because that thing’s heavy. And it won’t fit through the door.”

“Yeah, I’ll call them.”

“Is Bear ready for the move?”

“Well, he’s actually going to be out of town this weekend. And your other brother just had knee surgery, so…”

“It’s just us?”

“Yup. Oh, and my Bible group, but they can only come on Saturday.”

God forgive me, but the words “Bible group” don’t exactly inspire any confidence in me. I remember our old Bible group, a rag-tag bunch of pale weaklings. It took them an entire day to move a single person’s studio apartment two miles down the road. And as I recall, she didn’t own any 4-ton couches—not like my mom. A few years ago she bought new living room sets, one for the upstairs and one for the basement. They were really nice couches—full sized and plush—but heavy as all hell. Of course, I can’t expect her to know that since it was Bear and I who moved them in. A week later she decided she wanted them switched around—the red couch downstairs and the gold couch upstairs. I can still hear her cackling at our grumpy faces. But she wasn’t there for the epic struggle. She wasn’t there when Bear and I had to trudge around the entire row of townhouses through a foot of snow with the enormous couch balanced between us, only to discover that the back gate had frozen nearly shut and the only way to get it into the house was to lift it over the 6-foot fence into the back yard. And now Bear is gone (Judas!), cruelly replaced by my midget mother. But the midget isn’t worried. She has more faith than I do. Maybe I should pray for strength and sanity. Maybe then God won’t let the couch crush me. Maybe then He’ll give me an apartment. Who am I kidding? I’ll bet He’s just like my mom. I’ll bet He thinks this shit is hilarious.

Screw it. Tonight I won’t lift any weights—no more good can come of it. Instead, I’m going to practice my swearing.

we've come a long way, baby

2006-07-11T01:17:00.000-05:00

Tonight Cartoon Network started re-running episodes of Pee Wee's Playhouse. I never watched it as a kid--its crazy sets and schizophrenic tempo didn't appeal to me at the time, but I decided to give it another go as an adult because of the brilliant promo featuring Pee Wee and his "giant underPAAAANTS!". After a disturbing parade of clay-mated toys, the announcement of the day's secret word (door--scream when you hear it), and the departure of what appeared to be three homeless children, Cowboy Curtis arrived.

Oh yeah--it's him

What was I thinking? I can't watch this damn show. It's too fucking weird.

good clean fun at good's expense

2006-07-08T14:32:00.000-05:00

Some of us have deep, dark zealous pasts that we'd rather forget. We don't want to remember the self-righteous superiority we felt at the holiday food drives, stakeouts at the local abortion clinic, or motivational prayer retreats. It's too painful. Too embarrassing.

Well I'm tired of running. I want face my humiliation, remember my ignorance, embrace my shame! Join me--let us cleanse ourselves of our sordid pasts!!

No really, it will be fun, I promise.

Onward, former Christian soldiers, into the dark heart of the religious political agenda--organized conservitism! First stop, the wacky antics of the Family Research Council! Next, Focus on the Family. Pro-abstinence? Flag protection? Anti-pornography? Wow, these people are CRA-zy! Anti-gay marriage? Anti-HPV vaccine? Overreporting of hate crimes? Oh God, this is getting kind of depressing. Oh God.

Maybe we should take baby steps--you know, ease ourselves into this cesspool. You can't just suck it up and dive right in and suffer through the shock like the first frigid day of swim practice. That might just give you hypothermia, but this could kill your soul. Slowly it is, then.

Actually, why don't we take a break and go see a movie? Don't forget to check the reviews first, though. It won't just cost you ten bucks and an overpriced 600 calorie popcorn snack--it could morally bankrupt you as well. So check here for some guidelines and current movie reviews and ratings. It's easy to use and FUN: the quality ratings go from POOR to EXCELLENT and the acceptability ratings from EXEMPLARY to ABHORRENT. Also, check out the content abbreviations, but be warned--they're spoilers! (My favorits are "AP", "Fe" and "RH".)

Whew. I'm pooped. That's enough for today.

Almost. If you're looking for some reading material after the movie, check out Margaret Mouse's Moral Picture Books for Children. MM is a great role model for you and your offspring. Check her out.

Always be kind and obey your parents, children. Or I'll eat you--rawwrrrrr!

constant vigilance

2006-07-04T23:33:00.000-05:00

You may be a terrorist if:

a) Your phone records show a suspicious pattern of calls to/from suspicious people

b) Your bank records show a suspicious number of large deposits to/from suspicious people

c) Your voting records show a suspicious lack of patriotism and/or a desire to destroy American freedom or traditional way of life (Beware: This can also indicate Communist loyalties or homosexuality.)

d) Your 4th of July barbecue contains no beef, pork, dairy, or potatoes, but instead looks like this:

Mmmmm, terrorism is delicious!!

oh good, now we can blame mother

2006-06-29T10:32:00.000-05:00

New research suggests that mothers may be responsible for their sons’ homosexuality. The research shows that younger sons in a string of brothers are more likely to be gay, not because they are around so much manly influence, but because their mothers’ bodies may develop some sort of immunity to male children with each son’s pregnancy. This research raises a couple of interesting issues:

1. If gay men don’t have control over their male gaiety, if it’s part of their biological make-up, this might explain the high failure rate by those Christian homo-recovery centers to convert them to good ol’ red-white-and-blue-blooded heterosexuality. Also, along these lines, this makes homosexuality a pre-existing condition, so logically it can no longer impede gay rights as it takes the responsibility for male sexual orientation out of the realm of voluntary conduct. (No word yet on how the unnatural abomination of lesbianism comes about—but let’s hope it’s dad’s fault so things even out.)

2. A mother’s guilt at her son’s sexual orientation now seems somewhat legitimate. Although, since it is an involuntary influence, there’s really no need to dwell it. There’s plenty more to blame one’s mother for anyway. And although there may be some overlap on these issues, it is still okay to blame her for signing you up for ballet lessons.

3. If this research path develops into scientific fact, will prenatal therapies be developed to prevent/promote the gaytrification of one’s sons? What would parents’/government’s/society’s motivation be? Fear of hellfire? Population control? A larger consumer base for assless chaps?

4. And finally, it cheers me to no end to think that all of those procreation-crazy, gay-bashing religious zealots are just shooting themselves in the foot with their 15-kid families. Any bets on whether the prevention of homosexuality will beat out the perpetuation of world poverty, overpopulation and AIDS as the reason why the Catholic Church will finally endorse condoms? I know my money’s on irony.

california melts your brain

2006-06-24T18:57:00.000-05:00

This is Autumn. Although her name might imply otherwise, she is a puppy, not a stripper.

I must confess: despite the fact that she is a teacup Chihuahua, I find her extremely cute. I know, I know—Chihuahuas are disgusting. They shiver constantly and they have bulbous heads and large bulging eyeballs that look fit to pop any second. And they are toted around like living accessories, imprisoned in large pink purses and clad in bejeweled collars and tiny outfits. But Autumn is different. Well, sort of. Yes, her owner carries her in her purse. Yes, she has a fluorescent pink gem stone-studded collar. Yes, she arrived to work today wearing a hideous flowered dress, like a deformed time-traveling midget from 1986. BUT, her head is pleasantly proportional and her eyes stay put in her little head. She does shake a bit, but only when she’s being held (I think she’s nervous about being dropped, as I would be if someone dangled me twenty body-lengths from the floor). But once she’s on the ground she’s all wiggly and adorable.

She has enchanted most everyone in the office, except for a few men too insecure in their masculinity to admit that her cuteness balances out her lack of practical purpose. Today my office mate and I even made her a ghetto toy out of an ID badge string, a ball of paper and a rubber band to distract her from cutting her puppy teeth on our fingers. Passersby were unimpressed at our skills, but Autumn thought it was the most awesome thing ever. That is, until she pooped on our carpet and we had to use a whole roll of paper towels to clean it up—then she thought the empty cardboard roll was the most awesome thing ever. Later, in a stroke of genius, we gave her the flowered dress to chew on. She mauled it with great relish and even growled a little. I’m thinking of instituting this as a daily Two Minute Hate. She may only be a dog, but I believe that she deserves some dignity and an opportunity to avenge her humiliations.

Oh my dear sweet Jesus, I’ve posted two entire paragraphs about a Chihuahua. I fear I’m being sucked into the strange vortex of genial absurdity that is California. I can’t wait to get back to the DC area, with its muggy weather and its bitter racist filling. Only it can save me from this sunny abyss.

program pajama party

2006-06-21T01:32:00.000-05:00

Engineer Man #1: I heard that Nestlé just bought Jenny Craig.

Engineer Man #2: Really? Does Jenny Craig still have an office here?

Engineer Man #1: No, I think they moved it to Carlsbad.

Engineer Man #2: Who is their spokesperson? I can’t remember.

Engineer Man #1: Hmm... Oh, yeah! It’s that lady from Cheers. What’s her name again?

Me: Kirstie Alley.

Engineer Man #2: Right, Kristy Alley.

Engineer Man #1: I can’t remember if it’s her, but in one of my wife’s Hollywood magazines—you know, the ones about the movie stars and their babies and stuff—I read that she had the largest shoe collection in the world, or something.

Engineer Man #2: Oh, yeah, I remember hearing about that. Like, she has thousands of shoes— just rooms full of shoes.

Engineer Man #1: Ha ha, she’s like my wife, then. She has a closet full of shoe boxes. Each one is color-coded for evening wear and everything. I spend my weekends just arranging all of those damn boxes!

Engineer Man #2: Yeah, my wife is the same way.

Engineer Man #1: I think it’s hereditary because her sister is the same way too.

(Side conversation)
Engineer Man #3: This is the girliest program review we’ve had in a while.

Me: It’s all going in the meeting minutes.

Engineer Man #3: I still have questions about the software design.

Me: That’ll butch things up.

mazel tov

2006-06-16T00:37:00.000-05:00

Congratulations to Scott and Suzanne, who stomped the glass last weekend! Everyone had a really great time and left with the desire to have a Jewish wedding themselves sometime in the near future. Guys, just hold on to those complimentary yamakas.

Here are some weekend highlights:

First, Phoenix is motherfucking hot, yo. Why do people live in this city? It was at least 150 degrees the entire time we were there. This was exacerbated by the fact that we rode around in the Mustang convertible that Will rented—with the top down. The front seat passengers, though warm I’m sure, were engulfed in a small pocket of air conditioning, while the backseat passengers (Meatsweats and I) were blasted by inconceivably hot gusts of air while speeding down the roadways. In the words of Sweaty: “It’s like driving through a fucking convection oven! Uggghhhhh!!” The 90-mph trip down the highway to the dueling piano bar didn’t help either. When we got there I had to check to make sure I still had a face.

Second, I was pleasantly surprised by the Hampton Inn. It was clean, it was air-conditioned, the bed was gigantic, and the décor wasn’t overwhelming. I was shocked. I’d expected something slightly horrific, à la Great Falls, MT Holiday Inn. You know, artful arrangements of animal carcasses or some such. They had a pool, too, which we never checked out because I’m pretty sure we would have been boiled alive.

Channeling David Brent at the Hampton Inn

Third, the wedding! Having never attended an orthodox Jewish wedding, I didn’t know what to expect. I knew that there would be a bride and groom and a chuppah and the stomping of a wine glass and that’s it. Therefore, I was immediately unnerved upon arriving at the hotel when a smiling hotel staff member promptly separated me from my all-male group. As luck would have it, the only person who entered with me was a woman in a sari, so neither one of us knew what the hell was going on. We were ushered into the bride’s waiting room (the name of which I have forgotten) where we were served iced tea and lemonade and mingled with other lost gentiles while family and friends greeted the bride. At one point someone dropped their glass of ice water and it broke all over the carpet to a cry of “Mazel tov!” but it turns out that wasn’t the planned glass breakage—someone was just being a smart ass. Then the men swarmed into the women’s quarters carrying Scott on their shoulders. After narrowly avoiding a beheading by low-hanging chandelier, he veiled his bride and was paraded back out again. I met up with Sweaty for those two minutes. Turns out the guys got free yamakas and booze. Bastards. However, I’m not going to complain too much, especially since this is a much better set-up than the Muslim wedding I attended several years ago where all of the women gathered in one room to sit and stare at the bride for three hours before the actual wedding ceremony. Nothing makes you feel more conspicuous than being dressed like a giant meringue while having to stare down your entire family and religious community. Cree-py.

Then came the wedding ceremony. The lights were dimmed and the candles lining the aisle glowed cheerfully. The guests seated in the aisle seats did their best not to catch on fire. I waited anxiously, convinced that one of them would eventually catch alight and I’d have to jump in and save them. My plan was to snatch the yamaka off the victim’s head and use it to smother the flames on his jacket. I contemplated using one of the flower arrangements as well—the head gear looked like a small pot-holder but who knew how well it would manage the heat? I hoped that I wouldn’t catch fire myself during the rescue operation. How embarrassing would that be? Anyway, soon the ceremony began and the bride, groom, their parents and the rabbi piled under the chuppah and vows, contracts, and rings were exchanged. Scripture was read and speeches were made. Finally the fun part—Scott dutifully smashed a wine glass to smithereens. Mazel tov! The wedding party filed out and someone tipped over and broke one of the glass hurricanes placed over the big candles lining the aisle, almost setting the hotel ablaze. More mazel tov! I didn’t get to save anyone from a fiery death, but I did help them spot and pick up the stray pieces of glass on the dark floor. Heroics come in many shapes.

Their parents rub their hands together triumphantly

(Yeees, it's all going as planned--we'll have grandchildren in no time!)

Next, cocktails, appetizers, and small talk. All were pleasant, some extremely delicious. Fried avocado pieces? That sounds… scrumptious. You know what would go great with this? I thought. Bacon. But I kept this thought to myself.

After the preliminary feeding we entered the ballroom where frantic Jewish dancing ensued for a full 45 minutes. These Jews, I tell you what—what they lack in grace, they more than make up for in enthusiasm. There was twirling and circling and hopping and jumping around. People were hoisted up onto what looked to be the most cumbersome chairs ever made and tossed high up into the air. When Scott’s parents were perched upon their rocking thrones I could see his mother chanting: Letmedown letmedown letmedown! This apparently means “Go faster and higher!” in Hebrew. The cheering crowd obliged.

Traditional newlywed torture

After everyone collapsed at their respective tables there were more speeches and then some more dancing. I was hesitant at first, but apparently my boyfriend is a dancing machine, so I eventually gave in. (Please note: Anyone who posts pictures of said event will be unceremoniously executed at the next group event.) Hours later, after dinner and dancing and cake and drinks and more dancing, the band reached the end of its set and we set off for the Hampton Inn. Determined not to go to bed by midnight we headed out to find a bar where we could continue the festivities a little longer. But it being Sunday night, none were open, so we fell back to the old standby and went to In-and-Out for the second night in a row. The original plan to only order a basket of fries instantly disintegrated and so we ate burgers for our fifteenth meal that day. Then, finally, it was bedtime, followed too soon by the farewell brunch with the newlyweds the next morning.

Dancing Ma-CHEEEN

So congratulations, bitches! We had a really good time and we really hope you enjoy your new life in NY.

And I really really hope my seared face grows back.

softball wisdom

2006-06-04T13:34:00.000-05:00

Resist your soccer instincts. Although trapping the ball with your shins may seem like a functional idea, it is extremely painful and should be avoided if you value a normal life that includes legs and walking.

As in life, in softball there is no mercy rule, so you must set your own goals and limits. And although losing a game by ten points may seem bad at the time, losing by fifteen is worse, and losing by twenty is just humiliating. When you get to the twenty-five point discrepancy mark, next season you should sign up for bumper bowling instead.

The umpire does not appreciate a player who makes the calls before he does, especially if the opinions differ and the home plate ump takes the player’s side on the call. Pumping one’s fist in celebration and yelling “In yo’ FACE!” is also frowned upon.

Playing with co-workers outside of work can be a fun bonding experience. However, resist the temptation to high-five them at the office. Besides potentially making non-team office mates feel uncomfortable and excluded, you risk looking like a giant tool.

Curb your impulse to scream “Fucking balls” or “Cheating ass-monkey!” during heated game moments. You may offend your teammates' children in the stands and your boss will never look at you quite the same way again.

Despite popular opinion, beer does not give you softball superpowers. You’ll need that depth perception for the game, you twit.

Don’t throw like a girl. It will embarrass you and everyone in the vicinity.

Generally speaking, if your boss is a man he will remember that awesome play you made at second base in the bottom of the ninth inning during the fourth game of the season but won’t remember the revolutionary accounting system that you developed to save the company from bankruptcy. That’s okay, he’ll still make a really good work reference.

saturday morning fever

2006-05-27T13:56:00.000-05:00

On Monday we plan to see the final installment of the Hugh Jackman trilogy, even though the titles of its reviews suggest that it may lack the chutzpah of the previous two movies. But we both watched the X-Men cartoons as kids, and then as teenagers, and now occasionally as adults, and by now we’re hopelessly addicted. When I turned on the TV this morning, I was pleased to see that the fame garnered in recent years had led network executives to air old school episodes of The X-Men in the Saturday morning line-up. However, these were not the episodes I watched as a kid. These were the old episodes, of a crappy animation quality that I was unfamiliar with. (Not surprisingly, Cyclops is a worthless tool in this series as well.) I only caught the last three minutes, but boy oh boy was it exciting!

When I tuned in, Juggernaut was already bearing down on Professor Xavier, Wolverine, Cyclops, Storm, Angel-Guy, Fire-Star and Ice-Man. First, Storm jumped in and tried to rain him to death. When that failed they retreated and the Professor took over the command role: “Follow my mental commands! Cyclops and Wolverine, you will be the second wave of attack!” (That was it—that was his mental command. Maybe he should have included a little more direction.)

Cyclops and Wolverine went after him, but Cyclops couldn’t browbeat Juggernaut into submission, so Wolverine jumped in to slash him up. Unfortunately, Wolverine was retarded, and Juggernaut merely juggled him high into the air and then tossed him into a nearby brick wall, where he got irretrievably stuck, claws first (“I’m stuck!” he cried helplessly).

Then Ice-Man and Angel-Guy had a go—Ice-Man built a wall of ice that probably only served to refresh Juggernaut as he pummeled through it, and Angel-Guy flew around or something. Juggernaut confronted the Professor, stranded in his wheelchair, and cackled: “Ha ha! Now there is nothing between us!” At which point Fire-Star surrounded Juggernaut with a wall of flame (“How’s that for nothing!?”) which he promptly walked through, unharmed.

No one was left to defend the Professor—Juggernaut raised his giant foot to crush him where he sat! But then, suddenly, the Professor was surrounded by netting and lifted to safety, just in the nick of time. I was like, what the hell? Is that one of Fire-Star’s powers? Netting? But then they revealed the unexpected hero—Spider-Man! And I was like, What the hell?! Spider-Man?!! But there was no time to think, because the Professor was giving our hero some mental commands: “We must remove his helmet—the source of his power! Spider-Man, use your special skills to remove his helmet!”

Ha-HA! Juggernaut was doomed! He was no match for Spider-Man’s special skills! Ice-Man quickly froze Juggernaut in place and Spider-Man jumped onto his head and used his "special skills" to defeat the enemy—namely, by trying to rip off Juggernaut’s helmet with his renowned brute strength. Finally—success! Juggernaut mocked them heartily, boasting that his helmet was not the source of his strength. But then Professor Xavier paralyzed him with the power of his brain. Hurray!

A short while later they all gathered in what seemed to be a college student’s living room. Professor Xavier thanked Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends for their help in defeating their foe, and Fire-Star delivered the final zinger: “Usually class reunions are boring, but Juggernaut made this one un-for-gettable!” Cue uproarious laughter. Roll credits.

Cheesy, yes. Awful dialogue, yes. Under-developed action sequences, yes. But I still enjoyed it. Just as I’m sure to enjoy this third X-Men movie, even if it sucks. Probably. Well, especially if Storm gets killed off. And Cyclops cries like a little girl again. And the sexual tension between Professor Xavier and Magneto finally gets resolved.

Boy, I can’t wait.

happy memorial day weekend

2006-05-26T22:05:00.000-05:00

I was lost
drowning in a sea of boredom
sulking in the dungeon of early Friday afternoon despair
wishing I were home
or shopping
or dead
anything but sitting in my office
staring at financial status spreadsheets

Then you swept into my life
like a pale bird of paradise
clad in bermuda shorts and a Hawaiian shirt
your legs glowing like mighty alabaster pillars
anchored firmly in leather loafers
to save me from the void

Those beautiful, magical words poured from your lips
"are you familiar with the phrase 'power outtage'?"
I nearly swooned with happiness
"yes!" I cried "yes, I DO! I mean--I AM!"
and you winked and strutted out the door
your chicklet teeth gleaming like tiny beacons of freedom

New Boss Man
I love you

give this man a cape

2006-05-24T21:28:00.000-05:00

A few days ago on a flight to Los Angeles Dr. Robert Rey (or “Dr. 90210” as he is called on his plastic surgery/big boob reality show on E!) helped restrain a passenger who caused a disturbance before the aircraft was scheduled to land. This article reports the terrifying event:

Dr. Robert Rey, a plastic surgeon who practices martial arts, told The Associated Press he got out of his seat and intervened when he heard the man make a "big noise" as he pushed a female flight attendant toward the cockpit.

"When you get a black belt, at that stage your brain just clicks into action," the doctor said. "I restrained this gentleman in a very aggressive way without hurting him."

The elderly non-English speaking gentleman who caused the ruckus was described as “very frail” and somewhat mentally unstable.

Thank God there was a plastic surgeon on board.

did you get the memmo?

2006-05-24T21:26:00.000-05:00

"Typing and writing always brings out my poor spelling."

Semper Slo, Department Manager*

*Name has been changed to protect the innocent. And the Department Manager.

the rules of kickball

2006-05-17T00:46:00.000-05:00

Question for the guys: Do you rub up on other guys at work? You know, squeeze or rub their upper arm, shoulder or back? I’m curious. I need to know.

Because based on personal observations, I suspect that the overwhelming majority of men do not do this to their fellows, but I wanted to check with you guys first just to make sure. You see, there is a man at my workplace who regularly touches, squeezes or rubs the arms, shoulders and backs of the women in the office. In fact, it happened to me yesterday—he walked into my office to talk to my co-worker, and rubbed my shoulder on the way in AND on the way out. Twice in 10 seconds. I know what you’re thinking—how is this guy still walking around? Why isn’t he hunched over in pain or writhing on the floor coughing blood? Well, considering my tried-and-true method of the past, by all rights he should have been. But for once I restrained myself—you wouldn’t believe how much kicking someone in the balls is frowned on around here.

This brings me to my dilemma: How to convey to him my vomitous rage over these unwanted touchings while still maintaining an amicable working relationship? Now before you jump in with some “just explain that it makes you uncomfortable” HR harassment training bullshit, let me first inject a bit of real world background. From experience I know that making a formal complaint does not work. A male manager sits down with the male offender to explain the complaint, the offender signs a statement that gets filed away in his work record to document the complaint, the complaint is stamped “resolved” but the offending behavior continues and the very next week the offender is sent out alone on a long-distance business trip with one of the young women who contributed to the complaint about his inappropriate workplace behavior. Meanwhile, she gets branded as a whining bitch who can’t take a joke and doesn’t have the thick skin required to make it in this business. The ‘good ol’ boys club’ is still alive in most workplaces and thrives in others, so even “physically abusive hard-ass” is better than “whining shrew.” That rules out filing a complaint with upper management.

Second, addressing the issue directly with the offender (the HR-recommended route) poses the same risk as filing a complaint with a manager. Except that instead of everyone whispering behind your back you get a profuse, overly sincere apology followed by a denial of bad intentions and an extensive survey of the office to loudly demand everyone’s personal feelings on the matter: You don’t mind when I put my hand on your shoulder, right? I’m just being friendly, I don’t mean anything by it. You know, we’re friends, we all work together! There’s nothing wrong with that, right? That’s what I thought, too!

Third, the guy in the background complaint-fiasco scenario is a sleazeball, while the guy at my current workplace is merely a bozo. This factor, more than anything, makes me rethink the traditional genital-kick course of action. Whereas Sleazeball definitely deserved pain and suffering for the blatant abuse of his female co-workers, I believe that Bozo is oblivious and his inappropriate behavior is just an outlet for his nervous energy and need to be loved by his officemates. (Of course, this was my initial diagnosis of Sleazeball, so we’ll see how this hypothesis pans out.) So, I can’t kick Bozo—not yet, anyway. Pre-emptive strikes without evidence of wrongdoing can be messy, and I prefer to reserve my nuclear option for a sure thing. Thus, it’s a no-go on kickball until more intel comes through on the rogue agent.

So, what option is left? I don’t want to risk my career by filing a complaint or ruin my work environment by confronting Bozo. Do I just sit tight, grin and bear it? Or change jobs to avoid any course of action to deal with this particular bozo/sleazeball? Or chalk it up as a character-building exercise in the School of Life Isn’t Always a Party?

Of course, all of my bitching and whining might be moot depending on how the guys answer the question above. If guys DO rub up on other guys, and not just on women, then fine—obviously there is a breed of man out there who feels the need to convey his sense of comraderie through touchy-feely displays of workplace affection.

But if guys only rub up on women, then we have a problem: If you are a creep, you better wear a cup and avoid splayed-leg stances because I’ll figure you out sooner or later. And if you’re just a friendly guy, you should realize that every woman you touch probably has you pegged as a creep. Some women might not mind the occasional pat on the back or arm squeeze, especially if you look like George Clooney or that cute guy from that one band. But most of them do. And—just to warn you—some will kick you in the balls.

belated

2006-05-12T19:07:00.000-05:00

Jed's head courtesy of Alice.

a beautiful day in memoryhood

2006-05-12T00:04:00.000-05:00

This article got me thinking about He-Man and all of the other shows I wasn’t allowed to watch as a tender kindergartener. At the time my family belonged to an evangelical church that believed in banning all things magical and/or Communist, and instilling a healthy fear of hellfire in young, overactive imaginations for the good of their souls. As a result I was not allowed to watch He-Man, She-Ra, My Little Pony, The Smurfs, or The ThunderCats—basically, 90% of what I desperately wanted to watch. I was also limited to only one hour of television per day. This posed somewhat of a problem since I was obsessed with three TV shows: Sesame Street, Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood, and Batman.

Batman was my absolute favorite and since every other episode ended with a tune-in-next-time-same-bat-time-same-bat-channel cliffhanger with an image of Batman and Robin trapped in an ironclad room with a ticking time-bomb or dangling precariously over a vat of boiling acid, I simply couldn’t afford to miss it. Perhaps taking a cue from my favorite feline super-villain, I soon devised an ingenious way to watch all three shows every day. As in many Batman episodes, the scheme was deliciously simple—I just watched Sesame Street at my house and then walked across our adjoining back yards to my friend’s house to watch Mr. Rogers. I thought I was so incredibly clever. Such underhanded conniving was surely deserving of a sequined face mask and cat-ear headband. Alas, I’ve since discovered that my mother knew all along that I was sneaking out to disobey her, and simply let me go. Drat! Such overwhelming powers of perception have no place in the imaginary TV show of my romanticized childhood—fire her and eject her from the set immediately! Get her, boys!! Raaawrrr!

I’m still not sure if watching these shows led to or is a result of my lifelong obsession with Muppet-humor, kind old men, comic books-turned-action movies, and—let’s face it—Batman. (My patient love for the Caped Crusader has weathered painfully kitschy tributes by Michael Keaton, Val Kilmer and George Clooney and has finally been rewarded with an appropriately dark portrayal by my beloved Christian Bale, singing and dancing superstar of The Newsies.) Now that some of these older shows have been released on DVD, I’ve contemplated re-watching them. But I don’t think I will. I’ve moved onto another Wayne, re-watching Sesame Street would literally take another lifetime, and I can’t watch Mr. Rogers without sadly remembering that he’s since passed into the Land of Make-Believe. But it’s okay. These shows are probably best remembered in the glow of childhood, not scrutinized under the harsh light of adulthood. And the cartoons that were forbidden to me as a child hold little appeal now. They lack nostalgic relevance and I’ve outgrown disobeying my mother.

Besides, they’re probably complete crap anyway.

For some interesting results from Googling “He-Man” images click here and here. For unfortunate results click here and HERE.

no more pasta before bedtime

2006-05-10T01:11:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I read a Slate Magazine article on the woeful demise of a timeless television classic, 7th Heaven. I am being facetious of course, because a mere glimpse of a 7th Heaven 10-second spot ad, let alone a detailed description of the cast and show premise, nearly nauseates me with its cheesy fumes of creepy Christian family perfection. And really, I think it’s the whole religious tilt that pushes me over the edge—it warps my entire perception of the family. There are many wholesome shows and movies that feature a big family with a stay-at-home mom, quirky sibling interaction and toothy all’s-well-that-ends-well finishing smiles. But unlike its wholesome counterparts, 7th Heaven emits an undeniably creepy vibe. It’s hard to put your finger on, but it’s definitely there. In the father’s overly concerned gaze, the mother’s sad clown smirk, the sunny shots of the house and the slow-motion depictions of slack-jawed gasps and beaming happiness—all infused with a chilling WWJD undertone that lurks just beneath the smooth veneer of good ol’ fashioned family values. It’s like that feeling you get when Dr. Phil talks about sex or when Bill O’Reilly steps over your grave. Eeeiiish.

There's no way the finale was as exciting as it could have been. Screw the triple twin pregancy surprise, nothing says 'drama' as well as worm-like alien life forms tearing out of each family member’s chest cavity during a touching church scene where the pastoral father weds one of his children to some unsuspecting yet impeccably coiffed victim. Then he rips off his own face to reveal the crazy demon grimace that has become Tom Cruise’s sole expression. RA-wrrr!!!

Or, it could be something like my dream last night: The Camden clan (father, mother and their 7 kids) are sitting around a large round table (think King Arthur) in a dark, country-decorated living room and shuffling through piles of manila file folders, looking for the perfect kid to adopt into their ever-expanding family. Four of their previously adopted kids—a mixed race girl, a teenage Yao Ming look-alike, and a pair of pre-teen Hilary Swank clones—sit around the table with them, weighing the pros and cons of each candidate’s case. Finally the adoption agency arrives, hobbling up the front path in the pouring rain followed by a line of four crawling toddlers. The Camdens inspect the children while the adoption broker lists the attributes of each baby, like a used car dealer trying to unload a lemon. Mixed Race Girl secretly calls the birth parents on the phone, needling them about their family psychological history. When the agent discovers what she is up to he gets angry but the whole family erupts in raucous oh-dear-isn’t-she-cute laughter. Meanwhile, the Swank twins won’t stop spitting chatter through their extensive mouth gear long enough to hear Young Yao Ming Look-Alike’s concerns about adopting the Asian baby (What if the baby doesn’t grow up to be a basketball superstar like him—won’t that scar him emotionally? All he’ll be left with is violin! Maybe we should just go with the Romanian kid.). Feeling the deal slipping away, the broker quickly pulls out the latest in adoption technology—Pasta Babies. These bundles of pasta may seem like regular spaghetti but once you add boiling water and simmer for 10 minutes—BHAM! Instant baby!! The Camdens are all enthralled. Maybe a pasta baby is the best way to go. Everyone smiles. And then I wake up screaming.

Thank God—it was all a dream.

rhymes with 'orange'

2006-05-09T01:01:00.000-05:00

I find this pure genius and don't care who knows it.

the stabbing pain of stay-at-home illness

2006-05-05T15:30:00.000-05:00

I'm home sick today with a head cold. After putzing around in bed long enough to finish a mediocre suspense paperback about (what else these days) the deceitful secret workings of the Vatican, I stumbled into the living room to watch some TV. It being early in the afternoon, there isn't much on besides soap operas and re-runs of the Cosby Show. But then I came across Grease on CMT. Over the years I've heard several people profess their undying love for this movie and its signature dancing numbers. So, since I've never seen it and have some strange and unholy attraction to John Travolta's bouffant, I watched what turned out to be the closing musical numbers: "You're the One That I Want Ooh Ooh Oooooh" and "We Go Together Like Shama-lama-lama-landi-boogie-a-ding-ding-dong".

It was like watching a fucking train wreck. The skin-tight black outfits, the wholesome smiling and carnival atmosphere. I just couldn't turn away. This is--by far--the DORKIEST thing I have ever seen in my entire life. Christ. It's physically painful. John Travolta's grinding hips and what can only be described as "the gayest jump off an elevated platform ever" are forever seared into my corneas. I must find a way to dull its awfulness. But what could possibly help? For once Animal Planet isn't showing any gory puppy abuse and I'm too weak to drive myself to the theater for a matinee showing of Flight 93. Who will save me? Where is U-571 when I really need it??

Oh, thank God--a Savior. A NyQuil caplet and one dose of Maury Povich's disgraceful self-serving righteousness should do the trick. Ugh. I never should have gotten out of bed.

home again, home again jiggity-jig

2006-05-03T23:47:00.000-05:00

It seems that every time I stop working for longer than two days I become sick. In fact, it never fails. This time I felt it as soon as I boarded the plane for home. Hence, I’ve recently rekindled my love affair with NyQuil. It insulated but did not completely shield me from last night’s rowdy upstairs neighbor sexcapades. Or this morning’s. No wonder I dreamt of home-remodeling demolition and falling ceiling tiles. Damn those young hooligans and their insatiable noisy libidos!

san francisco treats (parts II & III)

2006-05-03T23:42:00.000-05:00

A long walk through Chinatown yielded a satisfying haul of bubble tea, hot pork buns, spicy noodles and cheap souvenirs. At House of Nanking a belligerent hostess bullied us into ordering much more food than we could handle and everyone but the South American tourists received forks instead of chopsticks. Note: Moon cakes are tasty, but I couldn’t bring myself to eat the yolk. Blegh.

Guys, do you ever want to wear low-cut pants to show your tantalizing ass-crack at the club but aren’t slutty enough to feel comfortable shuffling about with your pants around your ankles? Then the Castro district has the perfect pair of pants for you! Equipped with a cinching strap to fit across the top of your buttocks, these extremely low-cut pants allow for optimal ass-viewing without that irritating waistband-slippage. Also, ample crotch room allows for prominent frontal asset display as well.

Here’s a tip: If you are a hobo and you want neither my money nor my pity, you should definitely insult me after I politely refuse your patronizing question about whether or not I need to hear your “long, sad story” beforehand. Only if you already hold a job in customer service can you afford to be so surly.

I am confused as to why many of the promoters standing outside the clubs and adult show theaters are dressed in three-piece suits, trench coats, shiny wing-tips and fedoras. I assume they’re supposed to look like snazzy mobsters, but they really just skew ‘mobster’s accountant’ or even ‘hasidic Jew.’

$12 standing room tickets at the Giants stadium will buy you a clear view of Winn’s flying third-out catch on the fence in the eight inning and Alou’s winning home run at first at bat in the ninth. A couple bucks more will get you a four-flavored bag of cotton candy and a sugar high.

The only effects of the May Day marches that I witnessed were that buses throughout the city were delayed or held up completely. And the only people I saw this affect were the elderly Chinese shoppers and baby-toting mothers waiting with us at the Chinatown bus stop.

san francisco treats (part I)

2006-04-29T03:00:00.000-05:00

The lecherous, entirely un-seductive looks that the waiter at Ghiradelli's kept giving me. And my boyfriend.

The awesome old houses scattered everywhere in the city.

The hills--when they're not making my companions feel violently vomitous.

The sea lions lounging around Pier 39 like fat broads on a beach.

The she-man who tried to pick Jed up while I was in the bathroom. Back off, bitch/man-ho!

The joys of a hookah, apple-flavored tobacco, hot tea and baklava.

The horror of eastern European chest hair tangled in gold chains.

Funky Feroshus Sizzle sax solos.

Pimps and hos in the Tenderloin district.

Bouncing from hotel bed to hotel bed. If you know what I mean.

thoughts of shopping

2006-04-24T01:13:00.000-05:00

The secret to renting from Blockbuster is to not frequent it very often. A long hiatus allows time for desirable movies to pile up on the shelves, creating the illusion of good selection.

God I hate Best Buy. I can never focus on any one thing without feeling woozy and the giant spots of colored linoleum in the corners of the store’s walkway overwhelm and disorient me. Everywhere you look there are over-priced television sets, computer systems, gadget phones and Gwen Stefani music videos, but the coolest thing by far was the seven foot tall sales rep in the kitchen appliance department.

I have forgiven In-n-Out Burger for its hamburger evangelism. But only because I like the fries.

I stepped in something at Target. It was squishy but not slippery. I scuffed it off my shoe onto the carpet in the underwear section. It looked like mashed bologna. I’ll bet it was dog barf from one of those annoying little yippy chihuahuas these Cali bitches are always toting around in their purses. I don’t think it was from a kid. They usually spray puke everywhere instead of leaving it in neat little piles.

Aron Ralston sure is a hard ass. But his book came out really fast. He must have had help typing it.

cruel amusements

2006-04-18T01:14:00.000-05:00

softball tip

2006-04-14T00:47:00.000-05:00

If you show up halfway through the season, having begged out of previous games due to an ankle injury sustained on the putting green 2 months ago, and you break out the full softball regalia complete with jersey, overtight pants and Red Sox hat, and you drink 3 Heinekens within 30 minutes right before the game, and you brag about your awesome skills and try but fail to blush sheepishly when your girlfriend brings up your countless softball trophies and shiny new bats, and you strut around the infield during warm up, whipping balls as hard as you can just to show everyone how tough you are--you better bring it. Because there's nothing worse than disappointment. Especially when it flies over your head, or bounces into your chin, or misses your glove by inches over and over, or whizzes by the first baseman (missing him by four body lengths), or hits you right in the ass when it ricochets off third base.

Not that I expect you to show up again, considering that we lost by a humiliating 19 points and that just isn't your style. I just thought you should know.

four magic beans

2006-04-12T23:10:00.000-05:00

When I started working at this company 6 months ago I was told that because we were small we had to think on our feet and take direct responsibility for hands-on problem solving. Great, I thought—room to think, room to grow, room to do my thang.

For the first three months I was left pretty much alone. I was given tasks and allowed to run free—FREE!—and develop my own processes, create my own financial tracking systems and accomplish whatever I thought needed to be done. Every once in a while my supervisor (Kat) or my boss (Tim) would stop by and bless whatever I was working on at the moment, but I was essentially autonomous.

One of my duties was coordinating reports with the engineers, which basically means that I was authorized to annoy them until they gave me all of the information I needed to submit the deliverable to the customer. Because they’re so caught up in the technical aspect of their work and get distracted when it comes to writing things down in plain English, I allowed a full week time-cushion in the schedule for them to submit their stuff. Combined with the usual 3-day delay that Fred (Tim’s boss) takes to actually submit the report through formal channels, this leaves just enough time to get things out on time.

Shortly after the beginning of the year Tim asked Kat and me to start coordinating with each other on all of the reports. Since we were already doing this we just nodded and smiled and continued on our merry way.

Then he asked us to send him the reports for approval before we forwarded them to Fred. This was annoying because we’d just grown accustomed to Fred’s upper-management time delay in getting the reports out on time, and we knew that Tim never read his email and takes forever to respond even when he does. Whatever. I added a couple more ‘delay’ days to our report schedule and we pressed on.

Then two weeks ago Tim told us that Linda (Fred’s boss) had directed him to appoint a liaison between Kat & me and the engineers. This is SUPER annoying because the only person available for this position is Bobo, the smarmy office idiot who doesn’t know anything about what the reports are about or what the engineers are working on and never shuts up never never oh god he just keeps talking.

Tim claims that he fought this extra layer of bureaucracy but we don’t believe him. He’s been fishing around for work to keep Bobo out of his hair for weeks and this is the perfect opportunity for him to foist this clown onto someone else. This added another couple days delay to the whole reporting schedule (for the patented Bobo approval process, which basically consists of hitting the ‘email forward’ button to me and Kat two days after receiving the reports from the engineers without actually approving, reading, or understanding anything in them). This now means that the engineers must submit their monthly reports two full weeks before the month that they are reporting on is actually done. Oh, the glories of management bureaucracy.

So, in sum, I have lost my independence and may soon lose my mind. Between Linda and Fred and Tim and Bobo and Kat and me and the engineers I wonder how anything will EVER get done ever again. In fact, today I got so frustrated by the snippy emails shooting back and forth between Kat and Tim, and Tim and Bobo, and Bobo and the engineers, and the engineers and Tim, and Tim and Fred, and Fred and Kat, that I nearly strangled them all during the staff meeting hosted by Lupe, the high-strung technical manager who is friends with Kat but whom Fred, Tim, and Bobo hate with thinly-veiled passion. I momentarily panicked when I saw the veins in my green-tinged hand bulging threateningly, but then I realized that I wasn’t turning into The Hulk, I was merely clutching my green pen too tightly.

God bless the person who left a gigantic bowl of Jelly Belly beans in the common room. I snagged four beans and barricaded myself in the darkest bathroom stall to enjoy them in peace: strawberry, bubble gum, piña colada and blueberry.

Fred, Tim, Bobo and Kat unknowingly owe them their pitiful bitching lives.

SMA-shing, Gromit!

2006-04-10T19:59:00.000-05:00

Forgive me, readers, for I’ve been extremely lazy. It’s been 24 days since my last post. I don’t have an excuse either. In fact, I’ve been soooo bored at work for the past few weeks that I was sucked into the delusion that I could write the next great American novel in my down time. I got about twenty pages in before I looked up the standard novel word count: a minimum of 70,000 words. Christ. That means I have 180 more pages to go. If I write a thousand words a day everyday I won’t be done until… mid-June. Considering the fact that I only embarked on this venture to keep my head out of the office’s mini-microwave oven, maybe I should just find another job instead. Food for thought, I guess.

Anyway, bitching wasn’t supposed to be the subject of this post. Rather, I was going to write something cheesy and/or humorous to mark our 6 year anniversary today, but then something better came up: (Jed, I’m sure you won’t mind being bumped. I’ve known you long enough to understand the priorities in our relationship. I’m sure you’ll agree with me.) A gigantic rabbit.

That’s right. Apparently a GIANT bunny rabbit has been terrorizing a farming town in England, eating all of its best produce—à la Wallace and Gromit: Curse of the Were-Rabbit. If it sounds ridiculous and unbelievable, that’s because it is. Except there’s this picture:

Did you scream? Cuz I almost did when I saw it. It’s not that it’s hideous, or anything. Not like those obese cats you sometimes see smothering their owners on the Animal Planet channel, anyway. It’s just so shocking and… well, shocking. After viewing all of the pre-Easter pictures of baby bunnies on CuteOverload I was lulled into the tiny-baby-sized rabbit stereotype. I wasn’t expecting something that looks capable of driving a Volvo.

Did anyone have the book Ride a Purple Pelican as a kid? We’ll there’s one illustration in it that features a tiny woman riding a mouse with a saddle and harness. I was all about riding horses when I was five (until ol’ Blanco tried to scrape me off his back using the short doorway in the barn) and the thought of riding something fuzzy and mild-tempered that doesn’t wish to kill me is very appealing. This breeder-guy could be a genius!! And a multi-billionaire if he plays his cards right. Who wouldn’t want to ride a cute bunny around? They’re fluffy and speedy and cute and fuel-efficient and easy to reproduce. They could revolutionize the American highway system. Not only would there be a decrease in the need for fossil fuels, but there would be less road rage! Sure, you might still be stuck in traffic for 2 hours, but how can you get angry when you’re staring at a fuzzy cottontail instead of a GODSGR8 license plate or Vote Kerry bumper sticker? Of course, on a more serious note, this would cripple the American car industry for sure. I mean, GM might be able to scrape itself back from the edge of obscurity with some kind of SUV-hybrid, but if the Japanese start exporting Bunnyobiles GM’s screwed. Even though these cuties might poop droppings the size of basketballs, they’d still have the market advantage. Because there’s nothing that the Japs do better than Cars and Cuteness.

PS: Oh, and Creepy. (Japan-san, sorry to temper my glowing compliment with that last minute addition but I’d momentarily forgotten about tentacle rape. Seriously, though—what the fuck??)

tap, tap! who’s there? it’s the NSA!

2006-03-17T21:52:00.000-05:00

Naturalized American citizens from ‘rogue’ countries are usually aware that they are being watched and listened to by the government, especially if they still maintain close ties with their country or somewhat unsavory characters from its past. It’s acknowledged and shrugged off—even expected. The sporadic phone noises from a badly-installed wiretap give it away. Or the FBI agents snapping photos from the hill above the family’s reunion party. My best friend growing up was a part of such a ‘foreign’ community and we always joked about it—apologizing to whichever agent was listening on the phone for the boring quality of our calculus homework conversation, or jokingly searching for the surveillance team at community events in order to politely offer them something to eat from the buffet. It was all fun and games until the 9/11 terrorist attacks, when the government started pounding down doors and hauling people off into the night without any explanation or warrants. Some of these people were asked questions and released. Some were shipped to other countries so that they could be ‘asked’ questions. And some disappeared completely and have been missing for years.

So I’m understandably disturbed by the government’s circumvention of established wiretapping protocols to hunt down terrorists within our own country. This whole business rubs me the wrong way, and despite the administration’s assurances that are hunting ‘terrorists’ using legal channels, I’m still extremely wary. But I’ll give them a chance to explain themselves, so let’s look at the facts:

In June of 2005 President Bush discussed the successful break-up of a terrorist cell in California with Neil Cavuto of Fox News. Bush stated:

"I was very impressed by the use of intelligence and the follow-up. And that's what the American need to know, that when we find any hint about any possible wrongdoing or a possible cell, that we'll follow up — by the way, honoring the civil liberties of those to whom we follow up. In other words, we're just not going to pick up the telephone and listen to somebody without a proper court order. That's protecting the civil liberties of Americans."

Right. Moving on.

Bush is now asserting that he informed the (minimum) number of people in Congress about the warrantless NSA wiretapping, and therefore had an ‘executive’ right to conduct it. This issue is already pretty damn shady, and I personally doubt that this NSA operation was on the up and up, but a bigger problem looms on the horizon. If this warrantless wiretapping and circumvention of court approval is deemed ‘legal’ by the review panel, the lines of legality will go into flux. There were already adequate processes in place for the government to perform wiretapping on foreign-US calls, but they were not used (as he claimed in June 2005). Why not? I suspect it had nothing to do with process and everything to do with whom the government wants to listen in on, free of documentation and review: no warrant = no paper trail (at least not one that can be followed through the usual channels). I don’t mean to sound like a paranoid conspiracy theory nut, but this should certainly set off alarm bells in anyone’s brain. Not that I’m naïve enough to believe that this sort of undocumented listening-in didn’t happen prior to this. It’s just that before we’ve always acknowledged and called it what it actually is—under the table, illegal-yet-conducted surveillance. Now the administration is gerrymandering the rules and labels mid-game, and that’s just unacceptable. If someone stopped the NCAA Championship game at half-time and changed the height of the hoops and length of the court, people would be extremely upset. And that’s with a mere five bucks on the game—not their civil liberties. In fact, if we could only find a way to link the NSA wiretapping scandal with the Final Four we might finally be able to rustle up an appropriate amount of popular outrage over this issue. It’s ridiculous, but the idea has merit. Maybe the Democrats should divert some of that 2008 campaign money to hiring an Evil Genius. Considering how the last couple elections have gone, it might be well worth the investment.

See this for an analysis on the implications of the secrecy surrounding illegal eavesdropping by government agencies.

And see this for more reasons why re-directing power from the courts might not be such a good idea.