This morning I drove across town to pick up my deposit check from my previous landlord. His acquiescence was ensured after I faxed and emailed a lovely document I created, one in which I visually detailed the rat population and the monochromatic display of mildew on my bathroom ceiling. I also pointed out that in the 18 months I lived in that apartment, only one major repair was completed. The kitchen window sill had rotted through and was allowing all manner of water and creatures into the apartment. After two months of repeated phone calls, emails, faxes and personal visits, my leak was finally fixed. WITH DUCT TAPE. As such, my deposit was expected in full. By today.
Late yesterday afternoon I received a response to my email, indicating that he’d be in the office after 9:30 and he’d have the check ready. I refrained from replying back, as much as it killed me. I desperately wanted to ask his pasty red-haired slimy ass if he had any intention of returning my deposit until I threw a giant fit. He should have known better, though. I can throw fits like nobody’s business.
On the way back to the office I pulled out the CD in my dash, half-heartedly looking through my lackluster collection of available music for a replacement. Feeling very uninspired, I made a blind grab for a disc in the middle, praying it wasn’t the soundtrack to “Sliver” I’d bought 1994. Instead, I’d managed to select a burned copy of the Highly Evolved album by The Vines. I know that absolutely no one is interested in how I came by this CD, but if you’re really that bored, click on Yoj to your right and read about man titties.
When I lived in New York I worked at a post-production facility. We took the footage from commercial and short film shoots and edited them down to the 15, 20, 30 and 60 second spots that aired across the globe. Ever seen those Valtrex commercials? The ones for genital herpes? How would you like to eat three weeks of lunches sitting in a room full of ad execs discussing whether they liked the “I NEVER let genital herpes get in my way” take or the “I never let GENITAL herpes get in my way” take. My god, the agony.
In the DVD production office was a tall, broad shouldered guy with a personality that could strip the varnish off a 100-year-old violin. I’m assuming it’s hard to take that varnish off, I have no idea. Point being, he was sarcastic and acerbic and caustic MY OH MY, that’s just how I like ‘em.
Late one night we were lounging in the kitchen, eating Ritz crackers and cream cheese, waiting on an editor to finish cutting the last bit of a commercial so Steven could transfer it to the final DVD reel and I could get in the Towncar outside and head to Long Island, DVD in hand. Amidst our bitching that it was ten o’clock at night and couldn’t these people wait until the morning, we got to talking about music. I admitted to rarely buying CD’s, or even taking the time to burn them. I was lazy at heart and there was just no beating that out of me.
In our discussion, Steven asked to borrow my Silverchair CD, one of the few newer albums I’d swiped from my brother without his knowledge. Obviously I agreed, as what better way to win favor with cantankerous men who haven’t the slightest idea that you exist as a female? I was almost giddy with excitement, as this meant I had a guaranteed conversation starter for the following day. Score one for me.
The next day Steven returned with my disc, as well as a copy of Highly Evolved that he thought I might like. I had the hugest crush on him from that moment forward--until he invited me to a movie with some friends of his and we went to some anime’ premier that made me want to stab myself in the eye, repeatedly, with a lit blowtorch. Suddenly I realized his cutting remarks stemmed less from high intelligence and more from a total lack of relevant social interaction.
Thursday, November 30, 2006
Wednesday, November 29, 2006
Tuesday, November 28, 2006
Notice
I added some links on the side. Please do not hex me if I didn't add yours. I was probably just too lazy to look up the URL.
In other news: My god am I hungry. Definitely a delivery kind of evening.
In other news: My god am I hungry. Definitely a delivery kind of evening.
Why I should just burn more CD's
I realize I’m not really the person to ask about popular music. After all, I’m in love with The Cure, and have been for many, many years. This isn’t a Radiohead or Pearl Jam-esque obsession, because people who get all up in Eddie Vedder’s business are a little insane. Music by The Cure is always relaxing and happy to me, plus it makes me dance in my living room in spasmatic, uncontrollable fashion. Because I’m fairly positive my neighbors lead a boring suburban life and what better way to spice it up than watching the idiot cat-lady through the third floor windows?
It’s just I get confused by some forms of music. I spend the entire length of the song thinking about the circumstances that had to occur to get this idiotic representation of the human race a recording contract and by the time I’m done with my thought process, the song is over times four. Not all of it is bad, obviously. Take the 'popular' music stations, for example. Some of the music is nice, inspiring what I like to refer to as my non-death-metal head-banging antics. Some of it even makes me wish that seats didn’t have to cup your posterior so closely, thereby preventing the posterior from shaking it like a salt shaker should so obviously be shaken.
But the names, MY GOD, the names. A couple of years ago I was totally thrown off by a grown man who went by the name of Chingy. Maybe this is a perfectly acceptable moniker to you, I have no idea. But Chingy sounds an awful lot like dinghy (wee little boat) or dingy (see also: ding bat). These, in turn, make me think of dingleberry, which is what hangs off my cat’s ass after he craps in the litter box and a leftover piece of poo gets stuck in his butt-fur. Hence, I associate Chingy with fur encrusted poopage. Probably not what he was going for.
Now I know I’ve berated some of the more amusing songs on here, ones that verbally express their undying love for strippers with big, brown eyes who twirl around the pole. The song where female genitalia is, I assume, being compared to peanut butter and jelly. Fergie and her inexplicable lyrics about going down on her London Bridge. And now I have a new one to add to the list, per yesterday’s rush hour drive home: a song about a man who’s trying to get to you and that monkey. I’m assuming that, per usual, the never fully described “monkey” is referring to female bits (obviously these men are tired of having penises). Of course, he could actually be referring to a real live monkey, because he’s just kookoo for coco puffs, if coco puffs are the round bits of poop that monkeys will inevitably throw at each other. I seriously doubt he has such animal-preservation motives, however, because the line right before the monkey bit professes how he’s trying to get to you and that booty. This line I totally understand. He’s enthralled with a young woman’s backside and he’s been overcome with the need to get to it, like, right that very second.
Plus, he wants you shake it, shake it, later on tonight.
It’s just I get confused by some forms of music. I spend the entire length of the song thinking about the circumstances that had to occur to get this idiotic representation of the human race a recording contract and by the time I’m done with my thought process, the song is over times four. Not all of it is bad, obviously. Take the 'popular' music stations, for example. Some of the music is nice, inspiring what I like to refer to as my non-death-metal head-banging antics. Some of it even makes me wish that seats didn’t have to cup your posterior so closely, thereby preventing the posterior from shaking it like a salt shaker should so obviously be shaken.
But the names, MY GOD, the names. A couple of years ago I was totally thrown off by a grown man who went by the name of Chingy. Maybe this is a perfectly acceptable moniker to you, I have no idea. But Chingy sounds an awful lot like dinghy (wee little boat) or dingy (see also: ding bat). These, in turn, make me think of dingleberry, which is what hangs off my cat’s ass after he craps in the litter box and a leftover piece of poo gets stuck in his butt-fur. Hence, I associate Chingy with fur encrusted poopage. Probably not what he was going for.
Now I know I’ve berated some of the more amusing songs on here, ones that verbally express their undying love for strippers with big, brown eyes who twirl around the pole. The song where female genitalia is, I assume, being compared to peanut butter and jelly. Fergie and her inexplicable lyrics about going down on her London Bridge. And now I have a new one to add to the list, per yesterday’s rush hour drive home: a song about a man who’s trying to get to you and that monkey. I’m assuming that, per usual, the never fully described “monkey” is referring to female bits (obviously these men are tired of having penises). Of course, he could actually be referring to a real live monkey, because he’s just kookoo for coco puffs, if coco puffs are the round bits of poop that monkeys will inevitably throw at each other. I seriously doubt he has such animal-preservation motives, however, because the line right before the monkey bit professes how he’s trying to get to you and that booty. This line I totally understand. He’s enthralled with a young woman’s backside and he’s been overcome with the need to get to it, like, right that very second.
Plus, he wants you shake it, shake it, later on tonight.
I'm funny how, I mean funny like I'm a clown, I amuse you?
I transferred to the new Blogger Beta last Wednesday, mainly because I was wicked tired of logging in and being greeted by a full page SWITCH NOW!!!! advert. It started off as a lonely little link in the upper right hand corner, quietly hovering, patiently waiting for me to choose the new and improved (and probably untested) version of Blogger over the comfortable and familiar home to which I’d become accustomed. Later, it was a slightly larger and only mildly obtrusive link above the dashboard. Then apparently they decided they’d had enough with this subtlety bullshit, let’s take up the whole page with our reminders about easy template editing, layout design and much, much more! Just click here to switch! Easy peasy!
Only it wasn’t easy peasy and little things like making my yahoo email address reappear on my profile were ridiculously complicated. It only wanted to show my secretive gmail address, and it’s called my secretive gmail address because IT’S A SECRET, DAMNIT. I finally gave up and used the layout design screen, which was alright and all, I was just super annoyed with the whole process by then and couldn’t think of anything nice to say.
Thanksgiving came along and that evening I decided to check out my sitemeter. It’s not something I do all time but it’s kind of festive to look at, especially when I see that someone in Tehran found my site by googling “hot girl but sex.” And yes, they spelled it without the second t. I’ve also enjoyed “fabrication sandwich roll ups,” “mormon hobby lobby,” and “fergie + every time my laundry.” I know I harp a lot on Fergie but she just makes it so easy. Big Bird-yellow ruffle dresses. Peeing on herself during a concert. Meth addiction. Spray tans. Plus, someone out there confused her lyrics of “every time you come around my London Brige” with EVERY TIME YOU COME AROUND MY LAUNDRY. This alone is priceless to me.
But as of 10pm on Thanksgiving, I’d had not one single visitor. Kind of strange, I thought. But it is Thanksgiving. Maybe the whole internet population is just doped up on turkey-sleeptophan. Then it was Friday and Saturday and Sunday, and still not one single hit on the sitemeter. I actually got a touch paranoid, thinking maybe there was some vast internet campaign to keep visitors away from the mindless drivel I spew forth on average of three times a week. Sometimes more if you’re lucky.
By Monday afternoon I’d had it. Something was very obviously wrong with the sitemeter and I was totally going to get to the bottom of it, what with my total lack of patience concerning things I don’t understand. Thirty minutes of my lunch break later, it dawned on me that perhaps when I switched to the festive little Beta version, the sitemeter folks just didn’t know what to do with it and, well, I don’t know. There’s probably some techno lingo I could throw in there but I only know enough to sound reasonably intelligent in my meetings and to know that there’s not enough money in the world to convince me to be a programmer.
Anyway. This is all very anticlimactic at this point, but installing a new meter fixed it. I can now go back to cross-state/country/continent stalking. All is right with the world.
Only it wasn’t easy peasy and little things like making my yahoo email address reappear on my profile were ridiculously complicated. It only wanted to show my secretive gmail address, and it’s called my secretive gmail address because IT’S A SECRET, DAMNIT. I finally gave up and used the layout design screen, which was alright and all, I was just super annoyed with the whole process by then and couldn’t think of anything nice to say.
Thanksgiving came along and that evening I decided to check out my sitemeter. It’s not something I do all time but it’s kind of festive to look at, especially when I see that someone in Tehran found my site by googling “hot girl but sex.” And yes, they spelled it without the second t. I’ve also enjoyed “fabrication sandwich roll ups,” “mormon hobby lobby,” and “fergie + every time my laundry.” I know I harp a lot on Fergie but she just makes it so easy. Big Bird-yellow ruffle dresses. Peeing on herself during a concert. Meth addiction. Spray tans. Plus, someone out there confused her lyrics of “every time you come around my London Brige” with EVERY TIME YOU COME AROUND MY LAUNDRY. This alone is priceless to me.
But as of 10pm on Thanksgiving, I’d had not one single visitor. Kind of strange, I thought. But it is Thanksgiving. Maybe the whole internet population is just doped up on turkey-sleeptophan. Then it was Friday and Saturday and Sunday, and still not one single hit on the sitemeter. I actually got a touch paranoid, thinking maybe there was some vast internet campaign to keep visitors away from the mindless drivel I spew forth on average of three times a week. Sometimes more if you’re lucky.
By Monday afternoon I’d had it. Something was very obviously wrong with the sitemeter and I was totally going to get to the bottom of it, what with my total lack of patience concerning things I don’t understand. Thirty minutes of my lunch break later, it dawned on me that perhaps when I switched to the festive little Beta version, the sitemeter folks just didn’t know what to do with it and, well, I don’t know. There’s probably some techno lingo I could throw in there but I only know enough to sound reasonably intelligent in my meetings and to know that there’s not enough money in the world to convince me to be a programmer.
Anyway. This is all very anticlimactic at this point, but installing a new meter fixed it. I can now go back to cross-state/country/continent stalking. All is right with the world.
Wednesday, November 22, 2006
Dragonflutters
Yesterday was one of those crazy days where the world stops spinning on it’s lovely diagonal axis and you get a second or two to understand what Mr. Clarke was talking about in ‘Childhood’s End.’ Obviously I’m overexaggerating, but that’s what I do. I say things like “This lotion smells like heaven” when what I really mean is “This lotion adequately performs it’s lotionizing duties but I feel I must be excessively exuberant in my appreciation of the lotion.” That may or may not be a good example but I’m counting on you not to judge me and to continue nodding your head in semi-agreement.
A friend of mine got married yesterday afternoon and another one found out she is having a bundle of joy that comes fully equipped with a sausage and meatballs, which means she instantly began debating the name that will accompany this little boy well into adulthood. Here’s hoping they don’t name him Rupert or Otis.
Both of these girls are like balls of hyper-rotating happiness, radiating fields of glowing human sunshine that thankfully does not require one to wear protective glasses to prevent the dancing sunlight from sneaking in and searing off your corneas. It’s a pleasant kind of sunshine, one that leaves chunks of sparkly glitter in their wake because they’ve got so much giddiness stored up they can’t possibly contain it.
On a different note, this means I am the last remaining single female in my office. If I think really hard about it, I may be the only single PERSON left in my office. This is neither good nor bad, it just is. Just like the love of Tom and Katie just is. And the lure of yellow post-it notes just is. And the thirst-quenching effects of water just is. That was all one potential grammatical nightmare but I had to keep going with my analogy. You understand.
So what I’m thinking is this: I’m going to start dressing my cats in clothing, like, really scary clothing. The best kind is usually made for dogs, so I think I’ll just repurpose it for the cats. Cats have four legs and a head. Dogs have four legs and a head. There’s no reason this won’t work. Then I’m going to double, no, triple my efforts to train The Demonspawn in the delights of walking on a leash. There’s really nothing delightful about it but with the use of many, many cat treats and the lure of an open can of tuna, perhaps I can convince them to go along with my plan.
Once we master the leash walking and the clothes wearing, we’re going for very long walks around the neighborhood. I’m going to start waiving at everyone in lieu of channeling my inner New Yorker and refusing to make eye contact with passer-by. So instead of Inhospitable Southern Lady Who Probably Has A Yankee In The Family, I’m going to be the Gracious But Distinctly Crazy Southern Lady Who Smells Faintly Of Cat Litter.
That or I’m going to get some religion in me. So when people ask for the thousandth time why I am still single at the ovary-shriveling age of 26, I can tell them it’s because I’m married to my lord and savior Mohammed Ali.
**Addendum: Just so we're clear, I'm truly not concerned with my ever present single status. Though if I listened to my grandmother, oh, I don't know EVERY TIME SHE SPEAKS, I'd have settled down and hence would have someone available who, theoretically, would readily volunteer to help me move roughly every 18 months. And Carl is right-- marriages and kids take a lot of time and energy, neither of which I'm willing to spare. if everyone listened to their mothers and fathers and truly believed them when they said marriage and offspring are hard work, no one would actually participate in the propogation of the human race. And if everyone listened to me ramble, no one would get married or let their ovaries accept the knocking of some traveling sperm. Unless you're that girl Erica from 'The Bachelor.' Then I will beg you to listen to me and strongly urge that should the situation arise when someone is willing to loan you their DNA, UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES SHOULD YOU BREED.
A friend of mine got married yesterday afternoon and another one found out she is having a bundle of joy that comes fully equipped with a sausage and meatballs, which means she instantly began debating the name that will accompany this little boy well into adulthood. Here’s hoping they don’t name him Rupert or Otis.
Both of these girls are like balls of hyper-rotating happiness, radiating fields of glowing human sunshine that thankfully does not require one to wear protective glasses to prevent the dancing sunlight from sneaking in and searing off your corneas. It’s a pleasant kind of sunshine, one that leaves chunks of sparkly glitter in their wake because they’ve got so much giddiness stored up they can’t possibly contain it.
On a different note, this means I am the last remaining single female in my office. If I think really hard about it, I may be the only single PERSON left in my office. This is neither good nor bad, it just is. Just like the love of Tom and Katie just is. And the lure of yellow post-it notes just is. And the thirst-quenching effects of water just is. That was all one potential grammatical nightmare but I had to keep going with my analogy. You understand.
So what I’m thinking is this: I’m going to start dressing my cats in clothing, like, really scary clothing. The best kind is usually made for dogs, so I think I’ll just repurpose it for the cats. Cats have four legs and a head. Dogs have four legs and a head. There’s no reason this won’t work. Then I’m going to double, no, triple my efforts to train The Demonspawn in the delights of walking on a leash. There’s really nothing delightful about it but with the use of many, many cat treats and the lure of an open can of tuna, perhaps I can convince them to go along with my plan.
Once we master the leash walking and the clothes wearing, we’re going for very long walks around the neighborhood. I’m going to start waiving at everyone in lieu of channeling my inner New Yorker and refusing to make eye contact with passer-by. So instead of Inhospitable Southern Lady Who Probably Has A Yankee In The Family, I’m going to be the Gracious But Distinctly Crazy Southern Lady Who Smells Faintly Of Cat Litter.
That or I’m going to get some religion in me. So when people ask for the thousandth time why I am still single at the ovary-shriveling age of 26, I can tell them it’s because I’m married to my lord and savior Mohammed Ali.
**Addendum: Just so we're clear, I'm truly not concerned with my ever present single status. Though if I listened to my grandmother, oh, I don't know EVERY TIME SHE SPEAKS, I'd have settled down and hence would have someone available who, theoretically, would readily volunteer to help me move roughly every 18 months. And Carl is right-- marriages and kids take a lot of time and energy, neither of which I'm willing to spare. if everyone listened to their mothers and fathers and truly believed them when they said marriage and offspring are hard work, no one would actually participate in the propogation of the human race. And if everyone listened to me ramble, no one would get married or let their ovaries accept the knocking of some traveling sperm. Unless you're that girl Erica from 'The Bachelor.' Then I will beg you to listen to me and strongly urge that should the situation arise when someone is willing to loan you their DNA, UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES SHOULD YOU BREED.
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
If at first you don't succeed, then skydiving isn't for you
Normally I don’t watch the weird reality shows that force people to make-out on camera in tiny bikinis and perfect makeup while frolicking in the ocean surf. I also don’t watch reality shows that force people to hike or fish or swim or swallow living things with exoskeletons. And I really hate the ones that pretend that walking a low-quality metal structure with a camera strapped to your hard hat are meant to entertain me. They make me uncomfortable and they make me feel awkward. Not awkward as in I just burped in front of my boss awkward but awkward as in Holy Catpoop, Batman, did that girl really just eat an uncooked cow penis on national television? My heart hurts for her.
But last night was different. I was bored and feeling very disinclined to get off my couch and find the remote. Granted, I know that the remote is sitting on the left side table right next to the DVD and stereo remotes because this is where the remotes live and god help you if you move them. My arms aren’t long enough to reach them while stretched out on the couch, however, and short of training The Demonspawn to perform such useful acts, I was left watching whatever happened to come on ABC at 8pm.
As it turns out, the 8pm slot was reserved for some kind of catch-up show for The Bachelor. Besides the fact that The Bachelor holds some of the characteristics I mentioned above, I don’t watch it because it is by far one of the stupidest concepts I have ever seen appear season after season on the airwaves. I can’t even be bothered to explain why because it truly just annoys me that much.
Apparently not enough to force me off the couch and change the channel, though. I watched an hour of some reunion episode, where the “most memorable” girls came back to air their grievances and get a short generic statement from Senor Bachelor about why he didn’t choose them to be his most esteemed lifetime companion.
The real amusement came when some dark-haired Prissy McPrisserton named Lisa was asked to defend the fact that she WALKED OUT OF HER BEDROOM WEARING A WEDDING GOWN when Senor Bachelor came to meet her folks. Just in case you missed that: SHE WALKED OUT OF HER BEDROOM WEARING A WEDDING GOWN. Like, one she purchased before going on the show. I’m not sure what message she was trying to send with this display of commitment-readiness. And let’s not even talk about the plethora of wedding planner books and brides magazines and various other Till Death Do Us Part accoutrements. This one, she is scary.
The part I was really looking forward to was the discussion of Erica, the Texas-born rich girl whose comment of “I don’t see any maids around here and I’m a little concerned.” was played on various satirical radio and television broadcasts. I even once caught a scene of Kelly Ripa impersonating the little pointy-chinned twat, and I thought surely, SURELY, she was exaggerating just a wee smidge. But no, she was not. She was by far the most annoying human being I have ever seen on television, and that includes the creepy kid who played Urkel. Her vapid smile made my innards quiver in fear because someone, somewhere will breed with this idiotic specimen of a human being and those genes will yet again be watered down and passed forth to an unsuspecting and ill-prepared generation.
In the end I felt kind of sorry for these girls, and doubly sorry that I had not found the energy to change the channel to a nice viewing of Meerkat Manor on the Animal Planet station.
But last night was different. I was bored and feeling very disinclined to get off my couch and find the remote. Granted, I know that the remote is sitting on the left side table right next to the DVD and stereo remotes because this is where the remotes live and god help you if you move them. My arms aren’t long enough to reach them while stretched out on the couch, however, and short of training The Demonspawn to perform such useful acts, I was left watching whatever happened to come on ABC at 8pm.
As it turns out, the 8pm slot was reserved for some kind of catch-up show for The Bachelor. Besides the fact that The Bachelor holds some of the characteristics I mentioned above, I don’t watch it because it is by far one of the stupidest concepts I have ever seen appear season after season on the airwaves. I can’t even be bothered to explain why because it truly just annoys me that much.
Apparently not enough to force me off the couch and change the channel, though. I watched an hour of some reunion episode, where the “most memorable” girls came back to air their grievances and get a short generic statement from Senor Bachelor about why he didn’t choose them to be his most esteemed lifetime companion.
The real amusement came when some dark-haired Prissy McPrisserton named Lisa was asked to defend the fact that she WALKED OUT OF HER BEDROOM WEARING A WEDDING GOWN when Senor Bachelor came to meet her folks. Just in case you missed that: SHE WALKED OUT OF HER BEDROOM WEARING A WEDDING GOWN. Like, one she purchased before going on the show. I’m not sure what message she was trying to send with this display of commitment-readiness. And let’s not even talk about the plethora of wedding planner books and brides magazines and various other Till Death Do Us Part accoutrements. This one, she is scary.
The part I was really looking forward to was the discussion of Erica, the Texas-born rich girl whose comment of “I don’t see any maids around here and I’m a little concerned.” was played on various satirical radio and television broadcasts. I even once caught a scene of Kelly Ripa impersonating the little pointy-chinned twat, and I thought surely, SURELY, she was exaggerating just a wee smidge. But no, she was not. She was by far the most annoying human being I have ever seen on television, and that includes the creepy kid who played Urkel. Her vapid smile made my innards quiver in fear because someone, somewhere will breed with this idiotic specimen of a human being and those genes will yet again be watered down and passed forth to an unsuspecting and ill-prepared generation.
In the end I felt kind of sorry for these girls, and doubly sorry that I had not found the energy to change the channel to a nice viewing of Meerkat Manor on the Animal Planet station.
Friday, November 17, 2006
Sneezy and Dopey and STUPID
This morning I pulled my one pair of clean but excessively wrinkled jeans off the hangar and resigned myself to the ten extra minutes I was going to have to spend ironing out the crazy diagonal creases that the dryer should have removed, but didn’t. Because while this is our monthly Jeans Day, it’s not our monthly Homeless Lady Staggers In Building With Wrinkled Jeans And Wet Hair Day. For whatever reason I rationalize that if one presses their clothing, others are less likely to judge for walking in bare-faced and soppy-haired.
While the iron was heating up I decided that I would even go so far as to put pretty creases in my jeans. These are not the scary creases that people make on regular generic jeans or the really baggy kind with three cans of starch. These jeans are cut like nice trousers, only made of denim, obviously, because I just called them jeans. So basically I’ve got on the same kind of outfit I wear every other day, it’s just that this material happens to be outlawed during the majority of my work month.
Once I was satisfied with the nice clean lines down the front of my denim trousers I looked at the clock on my phone and realized it was time to get the fear of god and put my ass in gear. So as I’m putting on my pants and hopping around with one shoe and grabbing keys from the dresser and unplugging the iron, I’m also attempting to hook my pants. Like many ladies trousers, the maker has eschewed the button and the snap, going instead for a flat front look with two wide slider hooks and a zipper. I keep grabbing and pulling and attempting to find the hook catching things on the opposite side of the hook part and the thought crosses my mind that maybe I’ve gained some weight since I wore these pants last month. Maybe I need to cinch them tighter.
I pull so tight my belly button recoils in fear, telling me that it will not accept pants that will have to be worn so tight. Finally I put down my purse and keys myriad other accoutrements and look down, exasperated with the length of time it’s taken an adult woman to hook her pants.
It’s then that I notice that while the pants have the two wide hooks on the right tab, they are missing the hook homes on the left. Where is the hook to go, I think? What has happened here?
I give up completely at this point and just take the pants off, staring at the little tabs in confusion, still thinking that these pants are just more complicated than I remembered and everything will resolve itself in just a few moments. But when I bring the tabs under the microscope of my non-microscope eye, I realize there are four wee little holes on the left. Four wee little holes that at some point would have housed the hook homes, BUT WHERE ARE THEY NOW?
Ultimately I had to scrounge around in my junk drawer for a mini snap and some needle and thread. It wasn’t pretty, but I spent three and a half minutes whipping it on because heaven forbid I have a safety pin. Granted, I could have just found some other pants but this is JEANS DAY, people. It comes around once a month, sometimes twice if you’re lucky. We can’t just waste it because of a little thing like keeping your pants closed.
While the iron was heating up I decided that I would even go so far as to put pretty creases in my jeans. These are not the scary creases that people make on regular generic jeans or the really baggy kind with three cans of starch. These jeans are cut like nice trousers, only made of denim, obviously, because I just called them jeans. So basically I’ve got on the same kind of outfit I wear every other day, it’s just that this material happens to be outlawed during the majority of my work month.
Once I was satisfied with the nice clean lines down the front of my denim trousers I looked at the clock on my phone and realized it was time to get the fear of god and put my ass in gear. So as I’m putting on my pants and hopping around with one shoe and grabbing keys from the dresser and unplugging the iron, I’m also attempting to hook my pants. Like many ladies trousers, the maker has eschewed the button and the snap, going instead for a flat front look with two wide slider hooks and a zipper. I keep grabbing and pulling and attempting to find the hook catching things on the opposite side of the hook part and the thought crosses my mind that maybe I’ve gained some weight since I wore these pants last month. Maybe I need to cinch them tighter.
I pull so tight my belly button recoils in fear, telling me that it will not accept pants that will have to be worn so tight. Finally I put down my purse and keys myriad other accoutrements and look down, exasperated with the length of time it’s taken an adult woman to hook her pants.
It’s then that I notice that while the pants have the two wide hooks on the right tab, they are missing the hook homes on the left. Where is the hook to go, I think? What has happened here?
I give up completely at this point and just take the pants off, staring at the little tabs in confusion, still thinking that these pants are just more complicated than I remembered and everything will resolve itself in just a few moments. But when I bring the tabs under the microscope of my non-microscope eye, I realize there are four wee little holes on the left. Four wee little holes that at some point would have housed the hook homes, BUT WHERE ARE THEY NOW?
Ultimately I had to scrounge around in my junk drawer for a mini snap and some needle and thread. It wasn’t pretty, but I spent three and a half minutes whipping it on because heaven forbid I have a safety pin. Granted, I could have just found some other pants but this is JEANS DAY, people. It comes around once a month, sometimes twice if you’re lucky. We can’t just waste it because of a little thing like keeping your pants closed.
Thursday, November 16, 2006
Here's your one chance, Fancy
My parents are such lovely, law-abiding people. They’re good with their finances, they save adequately for retirement and they normally keep their vehicles through at least three presidential terms. They do things like pay off their auto loans and replace the clutch in the truck when it goes out. Even more specifically, my father is normally the one changing the clutch or the engine or the throttle body, because he’s all mechanically inclined like that. And if it gets down to it, he’ll even change the oil.
When I got my first car at sixteen I had to show my father that I was competent enough to be let loose on America’s highways. I’d miserably failed the ‘Driving a Stick-shift’ lesson and it wouldn’t be so much of a stretch to say he wasn’t terribly confident in my abilities. After all, I’d somehow managed to rip the driver’s door off my mother’s van less than six months before while reaching out to open the mailbox with the van in reverse and the door wide open. I still maintain that this is hardly my fault. Had they taken the van into the shop and had them replace the window motor, this would never have happened. I am so not to blame here. *cough
My father-created Driving Test involved me, a 1993 Ford Tempo (white), a lug wrench, a jack and one very hot concrete driveway. My goal: to remove and replace all four wheels by the end of the day. Looking back on this, it seems much more like a punishment and less like a Test. But that’s how we roll in my family. Why change one tire when you can so obviously change four?
I got through two of them before my then latent piss-and-vinegarness rose to the surface. I would not be removing any more tires, I decided. The first one proved I could do it and the second one showed that the first wasn’t a fluke. Statistically, I had a very small chance of blowing all four tires at once and should I someday encounter that kind of circumstance then changing them would not be my chief concern; escaping from the gun-wielding officers after having just run over a police barricade and making it across the Mexico border would be my chief concern.
I managed to stick with Tessa the Tempo until I was two months away from leaving for college. Then came Gidget the Jeep, a 1993 Daimler-Chrysler creation that sported a lovely, if enigmatic, sticker on the rear hatch that read simply: Please Use Tongs.
After that came Anabelle, a Mitsubishi Montero with leather seats. I don’t really need to go into what happens during an Arkansas summer when bare leg meets scorching leather. After my senior year in college, Anabelle languished at my parent’s house during my stint in New York. I guess she knew I’d come back for her.
Then Dulce, a Grand Cherokee that had no real problems other than the fact that gasoline had suddenly risen to a staggering price per gallon. Plus I became less concerned with carting friends around in a vehicle that had headroom. If you want to bitch about it, I decided, you can take your own car. It was time I purchased something sensible and sedan-like. Something that would boldly proclaim to the world that a) I had a steady, reliable income and b) that I was a steady, reliable adult.
I’ve never named the current Accord. Not from any lack of names, more from the fact that this reliable and sturdy sedan was just that: reliable and sturdy. Every other vehicle had strange quirks and dings and behavioral patterns. Tessa the Tempo used to activate her automatic seat belts when I was driving down the interstate. Gidget the Jeep used to fake you out with her lagging starter. Anabelle would screech her locking motors in a chorus of pain if you happened to touch the automatic locks from the driver side.
As of Saturday I will have added another one into the mix. This one will more than likely be just as devoid of quirks as my last one has been. I’m not terribly upset by this, however, because what this new car will lack in quirks, she will make up in gas mileage and warranty coverage.
When I got my first car at sixteen I had to show my father that I was competent enough to be let loose on America’s highways. I’d miserably failed the ‘Driving a Stick-shift’ lesson and it wouldn’t be so much of a stretch to say he wasn’t terribly confident in my abilities. After all, I’d somehow managed to rip the driver’s door off my mother’s van less than six months before while reaching out to open the mailbox with the van in reverse and the door wide open. I still maintain that this is hardly my fault. Had they taken the van into the shop and had them replace the window motor, this would never have happened. I am so not to blame here. *cough
My father-created Driving Test involved me, a 1993 Ford Tempo (white), a lug wrench, a jack and one very hot concrete driveway. My goal: to remove and replace all four wheels by the end of the day. Looking back on this, it seems much more like a punishment and less like a Test. But that’s how we roll in my family. Why change one tire when you can so obviously change four?
I got through two of them before my then latent piss-and-vinegarness rose to the surface. I would not be removing any more tires, I decided. The first one proved I could do it and the second one showed that the first wasn’t a fluke. Statistically, I had a very small chance of blowing all four tires at once and should I someday encounter that kind of circumstance then changing them would not be my chief concern; escaping from the gun-wielding officers after having just run over a police barricade and making it across the Mexico border would be my chief concern.
I managed to stick with Tessa the Tempo until I was two months away from leaving for college. Then came Gidget the Jeep, a 1993 Daimler-Chrysler creation that sported a lovely, if enigmatic, sticker on the rear hatch that read simply: Please Use Tongs.
After that came Anabelle, a Mitsubishi Montero with leather seats. I don’t really need to go into what happens during an Arkansas summer when bare leg meets scorching leather. After my senior year in college, Anabelle languished at my parent’s house during my stint in New York. I guess she knew I’d come back for her.
Then Dulce, a Grand Cherokee that had no real problems other than the fact that gasoline had suddenly risen to a staggering price per gallon. Plus I became less concerned with carting friends around in a vehicle that had headroom. If you want to bitch about it, I decided, you can take your own car. It was time I purchased something sensible and sedan-like. Something that would boldly proclaim to the world that a) I had a steady, reliable income and b) that I was a steady, reliable adult.
I’ve never named the current Accord. Not from any lack of names, more from the fact that this reliable and sturdy sedan was just that: reliable and sturdy. Every other vehicle had strange quirks and dings and behavioral patterns. Tessa the Tempo used to activate her automatic seat belts when I was driving down the interstate. Gidget the Jeep used to fake you out with her lagging starter. Anabelle would screech her locking motors in a chorus of pain if you happened to touch the automatic locks from the driver side.
As of Saturday I will have added another one into the mix. This one will more than likely be just as devoid of quirks as my last one has been. I’m not terribly upset by this, however, because what this new car will lack in quirks, she will make up in gas mileage and warranty coverage.
Monday, November 13, 2006
Paging Dr. L'Enfant
I can remember standing in the lunch line at Wake Village Elementary School and feeling stomach pain like you wouldn’t believe a seven-year-old could experience. Short of impaling yourself on the see-saw or getting a dodgeball to the abdomen, that isn’t really the age for unidentified pain. Certainly a little young for ulcers or reflux, plus we can exclude the rogue ovary theory. Puberty came early but it didn’t come THAT early.
I finally gave in at nineteen and headed for the doctor. No real results, only some concern that I stay away from late-night Waffle House runs and cigarettes. I think I’m going to stop here and admit, much to the possible surprise of my mother, that I smoked for going on a decade. It got heavy in New York and even heavier once I moved back to Little Rock. I gave it up one day, cold turkey, when I finally calculated exactly how much it cost me to inhale two packs worth of cancer a day. That’s not the only reason I quit, however, and as much as I wish I could tell you, that deal is between me and God. Notice this is the capitalized form of God, not the normal god of which I speak. That’s because it’s my personal god and not the First Baptist Church of the One Who Has Risen and Redeemed god.
Over the years there have been barium scans and sonograms and more barium scans and lots of people who really enjoy pressing their fists into my stomach, asking me if it hurts here or HERE, how about over here? The last doctor finally did a scan with a nifty little camera that she slid right down my throat while I was vastly undermedicated. As it turns out, I have a hernia in my chest, which supposedly explains why I have strange pain in my stomach, pain that makes me want to shove a fork in my side in the hopes of having the little pain receptors move to the fork stab wound. I don’t know, a fork stab just seemed more manageable. At least I would have been able to verbally and visually indicate why I hurt in a particular area, making it much less of a guessing game for the medical personnel.
All of this culminated last Wednesday after a lunch of pizza and water. Really tasty pizza, I might add. I rarely eat it because every Sunday night for close to eighteen years my family ordered pizza. Specifically, one pepperoni pizza and one meat lover’s pizza, both with extra sauce. You could say it was because it was easy, that it meant my mother had one less night that she had to cook. In actuality, one of the adults in the household had to drive twenty minutes into town to pick it up. We lived so far out in the country even the pizza guys refused to visit.
As we were waiting on our checks I was completely overcome with the need to leave right then, as in right that very second. Had I been driving, I probably would have gotten up and just left my credit card in the hands of our waiter. But I wasn’t driving, which meant I had to wait for the general leaving consensus. I could have piped up and expressed my Leave Now feelings, but I’m a stoic one. Plus, my Actual For Real Boss was sitting at my table and one just does NOT discuss intestinal difficulties in front of Senor Actual For Real Boss.
After we’d pulled in the parking lot and I’d had to walk eight football fields back into the office, I decided I was definitely leaving. I was nearing the stage where you curl up in a ball of misery and cry, plus the pain was making me nauseated. Not the kind of heave-ho you get after a bad piece of fish, rather, the type of heave-ho one experiences when a bodily part has just been severed.
Unfortunately I do this really embarrassing thing when I have to tell people that something hurts: I cry like a little girl. I hate that I do this, I hate it I hate it I hate it. I could skin my knee and be perfectly fine until my mother asked if I was okay. I can bust my ass and crack my ankle in front of an arena of two-thousand people and not cry until my dance teacher pats my arm and ask if it hurts. Yes, it hurt. It all hurts. But the tears don’t flow until someone asks about it, naturally.
So upon telling my boss I had to leave for the day, my stomach feels like I’m being stabbed repeatedly, need to go to the doctor, I cry. Well, not cry. I tear-up. Which then completely muddles my speech and he thinks I’m telling him that there’s something wrong with my mouse. Obviously, he was a bit confused. I have to try again to form comprehensible words, make my mouth roll around sounds that should be relatively easy for an adult female. He understands, he says, and sends me on my way.
Here’s where it gets moderately interesting: On the way to my doctor I decide that he’s a raging douche and he doesn’t like to give medicine, which seems totally contradictory to being, you know, a DOCTOR. When I couldn’t sleep for months on end, he didn’t want to write me a prescription for Ambien or Lunesta because there was a chance I could get addicted. To which I replied: “Yes, but there’s also a chance I could sleep. Don’t be stingy with the drugs, little man.” So I bypassed the doctor’s office and drove straight to the ER. Almost straight, I should say. I had to pull over half-way there because a wave of pain so intense crashed through my abdominal region and I thought I was going to pass out.
The pain had dimmed from a 9.5 to a 7 by the time I was shown back to a hospital room and forced to don an ugly gown, one that I couldn’t figure out how to tie in the back and eventually just gave up and curled into a ball on the hospital bed. I know I said that thing about here’s where it gets interesting back in the previous paragraph and I may have lied. Because where it actually got interesting was when Doogie fucking Howser walked through the door.
I shit you not, this kid couldn’t have been over nineteen. Maybe twenty on a good day. My first thought was THIS is the guy they let dispense the valium? Plus, he had a wicked nasty scab over a zit he’d managed to perforate and pick at along with some very scraggly just-past-puberty facial hair. Inspire confidence, he did not.
He pushes on my stomach, makes me lift my legs, pushes on my stomach again and tells me he’ll be back. Thirty minutes later he rolls back in, telling me he’s only been at Baptist Medical for two days (really? I’m surprised!) and says he had to consult another doctor about my condition. He recommended a heavy dose of hydrocodone and some rest. Doesn’t want to put me through the cost of a CT scan. I tell him I have insurance, run any test he damn well pleases. He says no, you seem to be able to talk coherently and we’d rather just give you some pain pills.
SO WHAT YOU’RE TELLING ME IS, I’M BEING PUNISHED BECAUSE I WAS TRYING TO ACT LIKE A MATURE, PROFESSIONAL ADULT AND NOT BLATHER ON LIKE A LUNATIC IN THE WAITING ROOM?
Whatever. I went home and took the happy hydro pills, cursed the infant doctor and slept like a kitten.
I finally gave in at nineteen and headed for the doctor. No real results, only some concern that I stay away from late-night Waffle House runs and cigarettes. I think I’m going to stop here and admit, much to the possible surprise of my mother, that I smoked for going on a decade. It got heavy in New York and even heavier once I moved back to Little Rock. I gave it up one day, cold turkey, when I finally calculated exactly how much it cost me to inhale two packs worth of cancer a day. That’s not the only reason I quit, however, and as much as I wish I could tell you, that deal is between me and God. Notice this is the capitalized form of God, not the normal god of which I speak. That’s because it’s my personal god and not the First Baptist Church of the One Who Has Risen and Redeemed god.
Over the years there have been barium scans and sonograms and more barium scans and lots of people who really enjoy pressing their fists into my stomach, asking me if it hurts here or HERE, how about over here? The last doctor finally did a scan with a nifty little camera that she slid right down my throat while I was vastly undermedicated. As it turns out, I have a hernia in my chest, which supposedly explains why I have strange pain in my stomach, pain that makes me want to shove a fork in my side in the hopes of having the little pain receptors move to the fork stab wound. I don’t know, a fork stab just seemed more manageable. At least I would have been able to verbally and visually indicate why I hurt in a particular area, making it much less of a guessing game for the medical personnel.
All of this culminated last Wednesday after a lunch of pizza and water. Really tasty pizza, I might add. I rarely eat it because every Sunday night for close to eighteen years my family ordered pizza. Specifically, one pepperoni pizza and one meat lover’s pizza, both with extra sauce. You could say it was because it was easy, that it meant my mother had one less night that she had to cook. In actuality, one of the adults in the household had to drive twenty minutes into town to pick it up. We lived so far out in the country even the pizza guys refused to visit.
As we were waiting on our checks I was completely overcome with the need to leave right then, as in right that very second. Had I been driving, I probably would have gotten up and just left my credit card in the hands of our waiter. But I wasn’t driving, which meant I had to wait for the general leaving consensus. I could have piped up and expressed my Leave Now feelings, but I’m a stoic one. Plus, my Actual For Real Boss was sitting at my table and one just does NOT discuss intestinal difficulties in front of Senor Actual For Real Boss.
After we’d pulled in the parking lot and I’d had to walk eight football fields back into the office, I decided I was definitely leaving. I was nearing the stage where you curl up in a ball of misery and cry, plus the pain was making me nauseated. Not the kind of heave-ho you get after a bad piece of fish, rather, the type of heave-ho one experiences when a bodily part has just been severed.
Unfortunately I do this really embarrassing thing when I have to tell people that something hurts: I cry like a little girl. I hate that I do this, I hate it I hate it I hate it. I could skin my knee and be perfectly fine until my mother asked if I was okay. I can bust my ass and crack my ankle in front of an arena of two-thousand people and not cry until my dance teacher pats my arm and ask if it hurts. Yes, it hurt. It all hurts. But the tears don’t flow until someone asks about it, naturally.
So upon telling my boss I had to leave for the day, my stomach feels like I’m being stabbed repeatedly, need to go to the doctor, I cry. Well, not cry. I tear-up. Which then completely muddles my speech and he thinks I’m telling him that there’s something wrong with my mouse. Obviously, he was a bit confused. I have to try again to form comprehensible words, make my mouth roll around sounds that should be relatively easy for an adult female. He understands, he says, and sends me on my way.
Here’s where it gets moderately interesting: On the way to my doctor I decide that he’s a raging douche and he doesn’t like to give medicine, which seems totally contradictory to being, you know, a DOCTOR. When I couldn’t sleep for months on end, he didn’t want to write me a prescription for Ambien or Lunesta because there was a chance I could get addicted. To which I replied: “Yes, but there’s also a chance I could sleep. Don’t be stingy with the drugs, little man.” So I bypassed the doctor’s office and drove straight to the ER. Almost straight, I should say. I had to pull over half-way there because a wave of pain so intense crashed through my abdominal region and I thought I was going to pass out.
The pain had dimmed from a 9.5 to a 7 by the time I was shown back to a hospital room and forced to don an ugly gown, one that I couldn’t figure out how to tie in the back and eventually just gave up and curled into a ball on the hospital bed. I know I said that thing about here’s where it gets interesting back in the previous paragraph and I may have lied. Because where it actually got interesting was when Doogie fucking Howser walked through the door.
I shit you not, this kid couldn’t have been over nineteen. Maybe twenty on a good day. My first thought was THIS is the guy they let dispense the valium? Plus, he had a wicked nasty scab over a zit he’d managed to perforate and pick at along with some very scraggly just-past-puberty facial hair. Inspire confidence, he did not.
He pushes on my stomach, makes me lift my legs, pushes on my stomach again and tells me he’ll be back. Thirty minutes later he rolls back in, telling me he’s only been at Baptist Medical for two days (really? I’m surprised!) and says he had to consult another doctor about my condition. He recommended a heavy dose of hydrocodone and some rest. Doesn’t want to put me through the cost of a CT scan. I tell him I have insurance, run any test he damn well pleases. He says no, you seem to be able to talk coherently and we’d rather just give you some pain pills.
SO WHAT YOU’RE TELLING ME IS, I’M BEING PUNISHED BECAUSE I WAS TRYING TO ACT LIKE A MATURE, PROFESSIONAL ADULT AND NOT BLATHER ON LIKE A LUNATIC IN THE WAITING ROOM?
Whatever. I went home and took the happy hydro pills, cursed the infant doctor and slept like a kitten.
Saturday, November 11, 2006
Take exit 5A and head straight into oncoming traffic
Lately I’ve noticed a sudden influx of newly painted, brightly colored vehicles with matching window tint. As in someone took a 1984 Caprice with an original paint job in the dusty brown category, painted it candy-apple red with a hint of glitter and then tinted the windows to match. Red tint. What purpose does this serve? Are you attempting to distract us from the fact that you have windows? It must be some new thing, some new thing that involves the population making an attempt to be more white trash/ghetto/redneck than the previous generation. Perhaps it’s just some interior design fad gone horribly wrong. Someone misread the part in the design book that said keeping the room in the same color scheme makes it look bigger. Or something. I don’t really know what those interior design books say but I’ve watched a hella lot of decorating shows and I’m absolutely positive this is a theory. But them something went horribly wrong and it was applied to a vehicle. In candy-apple glitter red and sparkling green sherbert and fiery crackling orange. ALL WITH MATCHING WINDOW TINT.
Transition
The only time I advocate smoking is when it’s a radio personality. Because maybe one day they’ll get throat cancer and never speak again. Never inflict their nasal laugh or grating dialectical nightmare on the general public again. Never throw in an endorsement for Big Daddy’s Pawn Shop in the middle of the traffic report. Never say that Big Daddy’s will give you cash for all your jewrrry, when it should so obviously be pronounced jewl-er-y. Three very distinct syllables, SAY IT WITH ME NOW. Also, I’d never again have to sit at a redlight and ponder, even for a second, about Deer Widows. And why a nightclub if offering free admission and two-dollar well drinks for the aforementioned Deer Widows. I know I had to have heard that term before because it’s not like my father didn’t spend half my life at deer camp. In fact, he used to bring home the carcasses and string them up to a tree in our backyard and let the blood drain out of them. This probably bothers many people, this image of a limp deer dripping blood into a backyard, and I could not possibly care less. Because my dad can make some killer deer sausage and that deer was going to good use inside my belly. So my first thought when hearing that Deer Widows got in free was “Holy shit, there are that many women who’ve lost husbands in the deer woods to advertise this on the radio?” Followed by, “That’s really kind of sick. Who thought up this promotional crap, anyway?” A few seconds later followed by, “Oh. They mean wives whose husbands have gone off to deer camp. Clever. AND FUCKING STUPID.” Granted, it has never escaped my attention that I live in Arkansas. But I live in a city of roughly 280,000 people and for whatever reason, sometimes I mistakenly get confused and think this is, I don’t know, someplace where people don’t celebrate the first day of deer season with head-to-toe camo and a celebration that outshines Baby Jesus’ birthday.
Also radio related: I keep thinking the Outback Steakhouse jingle is a for-real song and I’ll stop the radio dial to get in a full ten seconds of head bopping only to realize I’ve been conned by the Outback jingle AGAIN.
Another Transition
Last night I went to Movie Xchange and perused their television series section. I love this section, love it like I love cheese sandwiches. They carry everything from ‘Friends,’ volumes 1-infinity, to ‘La Femme Nikita.’ I almost rented ‘Nikita’ last night and, laugh all you want, rented ‘Moonlighting’ instead. Bruce Willis circa 1987, BE STILL MY HEART. I rented season four because that was all they had. Obviously I had no idea what I was getting myself into, though it did suddenly become blindingly clear why my father would casually change the channel during the show. I mean, I always knew what he was doing. Someone was doing something naughty on TV and I wasn’t supposed to see it. Like the tongue-kissing scene in ‘Top Gun.’ Or the part in ‘Troop Beverly Hills’ where the wishy-washy troop leader says “Screw you, Velma!” It must be some strange dad-instinct because he’d always change the channel just as David and Maddie made sexual reference number 5,678. IN ONE EPISODE. Also, and maybe she just went a little crazy in season four, but Maddie was such a raging bitch. Jeez.
Transition
The only time I advocate smoking is when it’s a radio personality. Because maybe one day they’ll get throat cancer and never speak again. Never inflict their nasal laugh or grating dialectical nightmare on the general public again. Never throw in an endorsement for Big Daddy’s Pawn Shop in the middle of the traffic report. Never say that Big Daddy’s will give you cash for all your jewrrry, when it should so obviously be pronounced jewl-er-y. Three very distinct syllables, SAY IT WITH ME NOW. Also, I’d never again have to sit at a redlight and ponder, even for a second, about Deer Widows. And why a nightclub if offering free admission and two-dollar well drinks for the aforementioned Deer Widows. I know I had to have heard that term before because it’s not like my father didn’t spend half my life at deer camp. In fact, he used to bring home the carcasses and string them up to a tree in our backyard and let the blood drain out of them. This probably bothers many people, this image of a limp deer dripping blood into a backyard, and I could not possibly care less. Because my dad can make some killer deer sausage and that deer was going to good use inside my belly. So my first thought when hearing that Deer Widows got in free was “Holy shit, there are that many women who’ve lost husbands in the deer woods to advertise this on the radio?” Followed by, “That’s really kind of sick. Who thought up this promotional crap, anyway?” A few seconds later followed by, “Oh. They mean wives whose husbands have gone off to deer camp. Clever. AND FUCKING STUPID.” Granted, it has never escaped my attention that I live in Arkansas. But I live in a city of roughly 280,000 people and for whatever reason, sometimes I mistakenly get confused and think this is, I don’t know, someplace where people don’t celebrate the first day of deer season with head-to-toe camo and a celebration that outshines Baby Jesus’ birthday.
Also radio related: I keep thinking the Outback Steakhouse jingle is a for-real song and I’ll stop the radio dial to get in a full ten seconds of head bopping only to realize I’ve been conned by the Outback jingle AGAIN.
Another Transition
Last night I went to Movie Xchange and perused their television series section. I love this section, love it like I love cheese sandwiches. They carry everything from ‘Friends,’ volumes 1-infinity, to ‘La Femme Nikita.’ I almost rented ‘Nikita’ last night and, laugh all you want, rented ‘Moonlighting’ instead. Bruce Willis circa 1987, BE STILL MY HEART. I rented season four because that was all they had. Obviously I had no idea what I was getting myself into, though it did suddenly become blindingly clear why my father would casually change the channel during the show. I mean, I always knew what he was doing. Someone was doing something naughty on TV and I wasn’t supposed to see it. Like the tongue-kissing scene in ‘Top Gun.’ Or the part in ‘Troop Beverly Hills’ where the wishy-washy troop leader says “Screw you, Velma!” It must be some strange dad-instinct because he’d always change the channel just as David and Maddie made sexual reference number 5,678. IN ONE EPISODE. Also, and maybe she just went a little crazy in season four, but Maddie was such a raging bitch. Jeez.
Wednesday, November 08, 2006
The Chuck Norris of hair product
For whatever reason I feel like I should get a cookie or something, maybe a big fat one with coconut and chocolate bits and caramel drizzle. And some icing, white buttercream icing that tastes like creamy fairies in a blender.
I should get this cookie because I have converted yet another person to the wonder that is the fifty-dollar bottle of hair conditioner. I know, fifty dollars for hair conditioner, what kind of madness could this be? But I have hair that lands well below my bra strap even when I leave the blow-dryer under the bathroom sink in the morning. Hence, there is no screwing around with hair product selection. I say selection like I had a choice in matter, though obviously I did not. No one looks at a bottle of seemingly over-priced hair goop and exuberantly whips out their checkbook. We need affirmation that the week of ingesting cans of fifty-nine cent Campbell’s tomato soup is totally justified because our mane has suddenly transformed itself into hair-tossing, shine glinting under studio lights, Pantene commercial-type hair.
My hairdresser, who is also my friend (like the Hair Club president, who is also a client) gifted me with the shampoo/conditioner set for my birthday many, many months ago. That night I went directly home and smathered the new conditioner all over my head because obviously I have a rocking social calendar. And like the elusive Perfect Couch, I had suddenly found my Perfect Conditioner. It miraculously tamed my unruly locks into luscious waterfalls of dark silk and I found myself gently stroking the newly smooth strands for many days afterwards, still in disbelief that the lightly scented pink cream could perform such a mighty transformation.
Seven months later, when I’d finally scraped the last of the conditioner from the insides of the container, I happily drove over to my friend’s salon to hand her a fifty-dollar check. And then two weeks later I justified a thirty-dollar bottle of shine serum because when she fixed my hair with this product, the angels wept tears of baby kittens and sunshine. The pain from all those years of buying products even more generic than Suave had finally burst forth from my chest cavity and I felt the shame, OH THE SHAME, just melt away. I had officially crossed the threshold into a Person Who Can’t Quit Their Job and Move to Maine Because They Have Expensive Maintenance Charges. I must forever rely on my paycheck to keep me in the manner to which I’ve become accustomed, expensive hair products and all. Oh, and shoes. Mustn’t forget the shoes.
I should get this cookie because I have converted yet another person to the wonder that is the fifty-dollar bottle of hair conditioner. I know, fifty dollars for hair conditioner, what kind of madness could this be? But I have hair that lands well below my bra strap even when I leave the blow-dryer under the bathroom sink in the morning. Hence, there is no screwing around with hair product selection. I say selection like I had a choice in matter, though obviously I did not. No one looks at a bottle of seemingly over-priced hair goop and exuberantly whips out their checkbook. We need affirmation that the week of ingesting cans of fifty-nine cent Campbell’s tomato soup is totally justified because our mane has suddenly transformed itself into hair-tossing, shine glinting under studio lights, Pantene commercial-type hair.
My hairdresser, who is also my friend (like the Hair Club president, who is also a client) gifted me with the shampoo/conditioner set for my birthday many, many months ago. That night I went directly home and smathered the new conditioner all over my head because obviously I have a rocking social calendar. And like the elusive Perfect Couch, I had suddenly found my Perfect Conditioner. It miraculously tamed my unruly locks into luscious waterfalls of dark silk and I found myself gently stroking the newly smooth strands for many days afterwards, still in disbelief that the lightly scented pink cream could perform such a mighty transformation.
Seven months later, when I’d finally scraped the last of the conditioner from the insides of the container, I happily drove over to my friend’s salon to hand her a fifty-dollar check. And then two weeks later I justified a thirty-dollar bottle of shine serum because when she fixed my hair with this product, the angels wept tears of baby kittens and sunshine. The pain from all those years of buying products even more generic than Suave had finally burst forth from my chest cavity and I felt the shame, OH THE SHAME, just melt away. I had officially crossed the threshold into a Person Who Can’t Quit Their Job and Move to Maine Because They Have Expensive Maintenance Charges. I must forever rely on my paycheck to keep me in the manner to which I’ve become accustomed, expensive hair products and all. Oh, and shoes. Mustn’t forget the shoes.
Monday, November 06, 2006
Dear Internet,
I SWEAR TO GOD IF YOU PEOPLE DON'T GO VOTE TOMORROW I WILL PERSONALLY BREAK YOUR KNEES.
And if you live in Little Rock and want to whine about not knowing where to go, then click here and shut your pie hole.
Love,
Robin
I SWEAR TO GOD IF YOU PEOPLE DON'T GO VOTE TOMORROW I WILL PERSONALLY BREAK YOUR KNEES.
And if you live in Little Rock and want to whine about not knowing where to go, then click here and shut your pie hole.
Love,
Robin
Sunday, November 05, 2006
Pretty? Or Pretty Special?
The other night I woke up to the distinct sounds of the alarm sirens, the ones that go off every Wednesday at noon. Only this was Thursday morning. Specifically, Thursday morning, roughly 2am. For a solid five minutes I laid in bed and tried to comprehend the rising, falling, rising, falling sound outside my window. I even had one of those discussions with myself where I asked exactly how important it was to get out of my warm bed if a disaster was imminent. Because it would totally be easier for people to find my body if it was right where they thought it would be, rather than hanging over a tree limb somewhere. In the cold. Outside of my warm bed.
I’m very focused on this warm bed situation because the temperature has decided to take a sudden nose dive into the chilly region. So chilly, in fact, that my thermostat clicked on several times in the night just to keep it from going below sixty degrees. This is a sure sign that I should have turned up the dial a bit but I’m telling you, it just wasn’t that cold when I finally got to bed. I should know because I made three lengthy trips into the dark abyss of the basement laundry in my flip flops and never once felt the bone racking chills that attacked my body every time I pushed a nostril out from beneath the bedcovers. And that was at 10pm, so what happened to the weather in a mere four hours?
Eventually I decided it was probably in my best interest to get up and at least check the television for the inevitable anchorwoman, calm and collected, telling me to pack my shit up and get the hell out of dodge. I grabbed my robe off the hook, cursing it’s thinness and my avoidance of washing the heavy one that evening because it meant I’d have had to run to the store and get more quarters. Damn me and my laziness.
But as I flipped through each station I noticed a total lack of calm anchorwomen and a plethora of infomercials. This is very odd, I thought, that even the local stations refuse to run a ticker on the bottom of the screen. They run tickers if a thunderstorm in northern Missouri threatens to bring an extra gust of wind through the Ozark Mountains . I’m contemplating how I’m going to get two unruly cats into the back of my Honda and these newsie people don’t even have the courtesy to tell me why someone has decided to turn on the city sirens.
So I head back to my bedroom, where I can still hear the rising, falling, rising, falling siren. I crawl back in bed and point my still half-asleep eyes out the window. I feel my brow crinkle in confusion and a fleeting thought crosses my head that I forgot to rub on my moisturizing wrinkle-keep-away cream and what if my forehead gets too dry and permanently creases? Apparently I’m very vain during the wee small hours of the morn.
Not a single porch light, vehicle light, garage light is visible, which causes my brow to crease further in confusion. But I’ve moved on from my vain midnight wrinkle obsession and I realize I’m more awake now than I was ten minutes ago, which brings me halfway through my normal twenty minute awakening period. It’s then that I notice the sound I’ve been hearing is decidedly fainter than it was just a few minutes past. I focus more intently upon the sound, trying to make out any idiosyncrasies, half-heartedly attempting to remember if the siren has different sounds for Tornado Imminent warnings and Air Force Base Bombing, Time to Load Up On Out warnings.
Perhaps the cold was a factor in speeding up the awakening process, I really have no idea, but it suddenly dawned on me that the sound I was hearing was the slow moving street cleaner. Not the disaster sirens. Not even a chorus of tortured cats. Just the normal, average, weekly street cleaner.
I’m very focused on this warm bed situation because the temperature has decided to take a sudden nose dive into the chilly region. So chilly, in fact, that my thermostat clicked on several times in the night just to keep it from going below sixty degrees. This is a sure sign that I should have turned up the dial a bit but I’m telling you, it just wasn’t that cold when I finally got to bed. I should know because I made three lengthy trips into the dark abyss of the basement laundry in my flip flops and never once felt the bone racking chills that attacked my body every time I pushed a nostril out from beneath the bedcovers. And that was at 10pm, so what happened to the weather in a mere four hours?
Eventually I decided it was probably in my best interest to get up and at least check the television for the inevitable anchorwoman, calm and collected, telling me to pack my shit up and get the hell out of dodge. I grabbed my robe off the hook, cursing it’s thinness and my avoidance of washing the heavy one that evening because it meant I’d have had to run to the store and get more quarters. Damn me and my laziness.
But as I flipped through each station I noticed a total lack of calm anchorwomen and a plethora of infomercials. This is very odd, I thought, that even the local stations refuse to run a ticker on the bottom of the screen. They run tickers if a thunderstorm in northern Missouri threatens to bring an extra gust of wind through the Ozark Mountains . I’m contemplating how I’m going to get two unruly cats into the back of my Honda and these newsie people don’t even have the courtesy to tell me why someone has decided to turn on the city sirens.
So I head back to my bedroom, where I can still hear the rising, falling, rising, falling siren. I crawl back in bed and point my still half-asleep eyes out the window. I feel my brow crinkle in confusion and a fleeting thought crosses my head that I forgot to rub on my moisturizing wrinkle-keep-away cream and what if my forehead gets too dry and permanently creases? Apparently I’m very vain during the wee small hours of the morn.
Not a single porch light, vehicle light, garage light is visible, which causes my brow to crease further in confusion. But I’ve moved on from my vain midnight wrinkle obsession and I realize I’m more awake now than I was ten minutes ago, which brings me halfway through my normal twenty minute awakening period. It’s then that I notice the sound I’ve been hearing is decidedly fainter than it was just a few minutes past. I focus more intently upon the sound, trying to make out any idiosyncrasies, half-heartedly attempting to remember if the siren has different sounds for Tornado Imminent warnings and Air Force Base Bombing, Time to Load Up On Out warnings.
Perhaps the cold was a factor in speeding up the awakening process, I really have no idea, but it suddenly dawned on me that the sound I was hearing was the slow moving street cleaner. Not the disaster sirens. Not even a chorus of tortured cats. Just the normal, average, weekly street cleaner.
Thursday, November 02, 2006
Bloody smashing, dah-ling
On my way to a Halloween party last week I was listening to the radio, something I can’t stand to do in the morning due to all the incessant chatter and forced hilarity. But this was evening, obviously. Have you ever been to a Halloween party before noon? No matter. It was evening and I was driving and I wasn’t wearing a costume because moving is expensive and my bank account needs money for things like automatic car payment drafts and cell phone bills, not Slutty Cop costumes or Skanky Nurse outfits.
In lieu of a costume I’d paper-clipped a small note to my shirt with the previous date stenciled in my very best handwriting. All night long people asked what I was, to which I replied, “Yesterday.” It wasn’t really that funny, at least not as funny as the time in college when I stapled a note to chest that simply read “Thirsty?” Because I wasn’t sporting a toga or recognizable Star Wars costume, I got puzzled looks followed by a confused reading of the index card. “Thirsty??” they’d say. To which I’d reply, “Why yes, I am. Could you be a kitten and get me a beer?”
The ensuing party and my non-costume were the last thing on my mind, however. As previously stated, I was listening to the radio, one of the generic radio stations this town produces that spews out American Idol emoti-ballads and bleeped-out rap songs. Got to keep it clean for the kids, you know. *cough.
The song for the evening was one by Fergie, the lone female addition to the Black Eyed Peas. I don’t really have any problems with the Black Eyed Peas, besides the fact that their name makes me think of rubbery bacon stewing in a pot of actual black eyed peas. The bacon makes the peas taste good but it always looks pale and trembling, as if to say it had prepared itself for the hot crisping frying pan but this slow, painful and watery death is just more than it can bear.
Fergie apparently struck out on her own with this new CD and really, who can blame her? If someone is stupid enough to fund your debut solo album then by all means, take that check and run. Should I end up hating your efforts, I’m old enough to change the radio and you’re rich enough to buy a radio station. I’d say that makes us pretty much even.
What confused me about this song is that I finally took a moment to listen to the lyrics, lyrics that are a direct contradiction to the video I saw on MTV the other day. Those lyrics are: “How come every time you come around my London Bridge, wanna go down like London Bridge.” I’ve omitted many, many instances where words are used twice and sometimes thrice to fill the beats of the song because someone, somewhere was just too fucking lazy to write out a whole verse that made actual sense.
In the video we see Miss Fergie making clear intimations that her sole source of happiness stems from a certain act performed on her knees. The London Bridge Gatekeeper people, who have special English names and special furry tall hats, are oblivious to her groping and ass rubbing, but you can totally see the struggle in their reserved British eyes. Should I abandon my post of duty and allow this scantily clad American to fondle my private bits, they seem to say. And then we cut to lots of other scantily clad non-Fergie people dancing around and making more ass rubbing movements. It’s great fun, really.
My first problem stems from the fact that the video seems to say that the London Bridge she’s referring to lives on these lovely British men, the ones who repeatedly get her face buried in their crotch. But the lyrics imply she’s empowered with her female-ness and the London Bridge lives in her pants and that the men are so crazy about this bridge they want to, ahem, go down. Hence, I feel she should obviously fire her creative video director and take some lessons from Janet “Ms. Nasty” Jackson.
My second problem relates to dear Fergie and how she used to be such a cute little bugger. You see, I remember Fergie as Stacy Ferguson, the blond, annoying and slightly chubby kid on Kids Incorporated during it’s mid-eighties run. She was the one who followed Jennifer Love Hewitt around and always got into trouble because, dangit, she was just so fumbly and clumsy and cute. What happened to that Fergie? When did she take a turn for neon wearing, eyebrow piercing, heavy lipliner sporting Hoochie? WHERE IS THE FERGIE OF MY YOUTH? And why does she sing nonsensical lyrics that somehow manage to rhyme the following:
Grey Goose got your girl feeling loose
Now I’m wishing that I didn’t wear these shoes
It’s like every time I get up on the dude
Paparazzi put my business in the news
In lieu of a costume I’d paper-clipped a small note to my shirt with the previous date stenciled in my very best handwriting. All night long people asked what I was, to which I replied, “Yesterday.” It wasn’t really that funny, at least not as funny as the time in college when I stapled a note to chest that simply read “Thirsty?” Because I wasn’t sporting a toga or recognizable Star Wars costume, I got puzzled looks followed by a confused reading of the index card. “Thirsty??” they’d say. To which I’d reply, “Why yes, I am. Could you be a kitten and get me a beer?”
The ensuing party and my non-costume were the last thing on my mind, however. As previously stated, I was listening to the radio, one of the generic radio stations this town produces that spews out American Idol emoti-ballads and bleeped-out rap songs. Got to keep it clean for the kids, you know. *cough.
The song for the evening was one by Fergie, the lone female addition to the Black Eyed Peas. I don’t really have any problems with the Black Eyed Peas, besides the fact that their name makes me think of rubbery bacon stewing in a pot of actual black eyed peas. The bacon makes the peas taste good but it always looks pale and trembling, as if to say it had prepared itself for the hot crisping frying pan but this slow, painful and watery death is just more than it can bear.
Fergie apparently struck out on her own with this new CD and really, who can blame her? If someone is stupid enough to fund your debut solo album then by all means, take that check and run. Should I end up hating your efforts, I’m old enough to change the radio and you’re rich enough to buy a radio station. I’d say that makes us pretty much even.
What confused me about this song is that I finally took a moment to listen to the lyrics, lyrics that are a direct contradiction to the video I saw on MTV the other day. Those lyrics are: “How come every time you come around my London Bridge, wanna go down like London Bridge.” I’ve omitted many, many instances where words are used twice and sometimes thrice to fill the beats of the song because someone, somewhere was just too fucking lazy to write out a whole verse that made actual sense.
In the video we see Miss Fergie making clear intimations that her sole source of happiness stems from a certain act performed on her knees. The London Bridge Gatekeeper people, who have special English names and special furry tall hats, are oblivious to her groping and ass rubbing, but you can totally see the struggle in their reserved British eyes. Should I abandon my post of duty and allow this scantily clad American to fondle my private bits, they seem to say. And then we cut to lots of other scantily clad non-Fergie people dancing around and making more ass rubbing movements. It’s great fun, really.
My first problem stems from the fact that the video seems to say that the London Bridge she’s referring to lives on these lovely British men, the ones who repeatedly get her face buried in their crotch. But the lyrics imply she’s empowered with her female-ness and the London Bridge lives in her pants and that the men are so crazy about this bridge they want to, ahem, go down. Hence, I feel she should obviously fire her creative video director and take some lessons from Janet “Ms. Nasty” Jackson.
My second problem relates to dear Fergie and how she used to be such a cute little bugger. You see, I remember Fergie as Stacy Ferguson, the blond, annoying and slightly chubby kid on Kids Incorporated during it’s mid-eighties run. She was the one who followed Jennifer Love Hewitt around and always got into trouble because, dangit, she was just so fumbly and clumsy and cute. What happened to that Fergie? When did she take a turn for neon wearing, eyebrow piercing, heavy lipliner sporting Hoochie? WHERE IS THE FERGIE OF MY YOUTH? And why does she sing nonsensical lyrics that somehow manage to rhyme the following:
Grey Goose got your girl feeling loose
Now I’m wishing that I didn’t wear these shoes
It’s like every time I get up on the dude
Paparazzi put my business in the news
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