The Life and Times of Surly Temple

Oh well.

2011-09-30T22:08:00.003-06:00

So The Boy and I are reading Laurie Notaro.

She makes me happy. Not just for her admission of leaving lipstick on teeth during a date, but also because self-deprecating humor is ALWAYS good for me...if I can relate. And she does her very best, which turns into her best at disclosure. I'm pretty sure I could confide in her pubic sideburns, and she would not just accept, but go a step further and admit the things I was in NO WISE going to admit to...except she said it.

And it's true.

She makes the hunt for panties on a bedroom floor at least realistic, if not commonplace, and warns those huns who don't think 1:00 a.m. an acceptable time to, bleary-eyed, toast the chef.

A bleary-eyed chef accolade happened to me less than a week ago.

Eff, yeah.

Doesn't matter what they are preparing and serving; a chef knows what is going on, and where he/she stands in the world. A chef is not afraid of letting someone else make suggestions.

The Boy and I are reading 'The Soul of a Chef." I confess. All I am focusing on is the ways in which I can let him down; despite a tremendously auspicious beginning, I can't do it.

I really can't.

Nope. Not kidding.

I mean it really, seriously, means I can't do it.

jh

Reasons That, Well, Make Me Cackle.

2011-09-27T01:06:00.003-06:00

I'm still not sure what it was.

"There's soup?" K. asked, incredulous. "He never told ME."

Three people peered into the murky depths of the warmer.

"What IS it?" I finally asked, again.

Nobody knew.

It takes a special kind of culinary gift to create a dish devoid of any defining characteristics. It had several kinds of, well, I am going to say macaroni rather than pasta. There were red flecks. They were not red pepper flakes, they were not tomatoes. Were they pimento? Were they...my imagination was woefully inadequate to the task.

The loser of 'One, two, three, NOT IT!" sampled the witches brew (also, he was not there for the inaugural peek; that may have contributed to his willingness to submit to ptomaine treachery).

He still couldn't say what it was.

"What's your soup of the day?"

"I'm not sure. Kitchen Sink Stew, possibly; I just know I can't recommend what I haven't tried."

"I'm feeling brave. I'll try it."

The Majesty's Taster was procured a small sample and spoon. Later, I casually drifted back and posed the real query:

"And how was it?"

"Not...bad."

"And...WHAT was it?"

"If it had hamburger, I would say it was gazpacho."

I had to hear it again, sure I had misheard or misinterpreted.

"I'm sorry, it was like what?"

"Gazpacho."

"Hamburger...in...gazpacho?" I said, sure that maybe if I said the word the woman with whom I was speaking would realize she was saying the wrong thing, kind of like when my mother talked for a good ten minutes with a college professor on how someone was attending a scientific suppository (instead of symposium).

"Yes," she said.

I left her to her side salad.

I freely admit I am a Food Snob. It requires capitals solely because Food Snobs insist upon it.

And yet, I get nowhere near the glamour of that title.

When called upon, I will eat absolutely nothing at any place The Boy reveres; even if the dish seems safe enough, they add some level of yuck (to me and my pedestrian tastes). A basic search will turn up the fact that, owing to my pickiness about eating seafood (if it came from the water, I'm not interested) very few appetizers remain. Even entrees result in a dish including your basic corn-fed cow turning into "I'm not eating beef cheeks. The word 'cheeks' is disgusting. Your industry should find a better way to market to hick consumers like myself."

I kinda suck when it comes to refined palates and, well, anything he's really exceptional at.

Not just kinda.

I wish I liked more things. Believe me, in a world that I fully believe is designed fully for visceral experiences, and a world that contains white and black, I guess I'm not fully prepared for either.

All I can say is, The Boy...is a force to be reckoned with.

Life, and Why It's Weird.

2011-08-04T16:55:00.002-06:00

Frankly, that's a use of hubris. I have NO idea why life is as weird as it is. If I knew, would I have even gotten into the career track? Because really, Yeats' poem The Isle of Innisfree speaks to me on every level. Do I want a career? I mean, a career like the Real World dictates, a Career?

Not so much.

There are very few authors who can boast that they make a living doing so. John Grisham is one. Stephen King is another (an how awesome are we that we are a ph, rather than a v?). Robin McKinley is far and away one of my favorites.

And she is a loon.

Complete, total, utter, loon.

I'm pretty sure she's living the life I would if I could be her. Her blog most recently discusses bats. Knitting. Bell-ringing. Roses. Her husband (also a major and fantastic author in his own right). She puts up with silly crushes from fans. She wears Converse (sparkly, no less). She has no qualms about being August Majesty to Chaos and Darkness, also in some worlds known as gorgeous, beautiful, perfect doggies.

I'm probably, based on the royalty checks thus far, never gonna make it as a writer.

Just so you know, it took me 32 years to say that.

Only because I couldn't write cursive until first grade...

But I'm not going to stop. I love the world. I love the written word. I love the way the world looks when created by someone who actually loves language. I spent my entire life enthralled by the world as it OUGHT to be, based on descriptions, instead of the way it was. The mundane, prosaic, prozac world can be enough for some.

It's not for me.

Ah, I Understand.

2011-02-11T19:10:00.003-07:00

It's not the first time.

No, I've actually spent my whole life doing everything I could to undermine the whole V-day thing.

It isn't just V-Day, you know.

Parts of the world, at one point upon a time, spent their time flogging nubile maidens prior to their subsequent entertainments.

It was de rigeur, in the day.

Me, not so much.

While I don't subscribe to anything legitimate to the Pink Holiday (as it was known to the more Delicately Ascribed members of my coterie), I have a few things to say about its moments that make the rest of us look like dilholes (accuracy left to what you SHOULD have said):

"You are the Best! Thing! Ever!"

"Holy &^%*! Oh please, please, let me *%^&*(!!!!!!"

"Oh, hey, mind if I spend the whole rest of my life doing everything I possibly can to make you realize how wonderful you are, how desireable you are, and how much I wish I could spend every second with you?"

The Light of Elendiel Ain't Gonna Save Us Now, Precious

2011-01-10T17:36:00.002-07:00

"THERE WAS A WHACKING GREAT SPIDER IN MY ROOM THAT JUST TRIED TO KILL ME."

"Yikes! Did you destroy it?"

"It is currently trapped under a bowl and a puddle of Raid," I informed The Boy shortly thereafter via Skype.

"I am sorry. I wish I were there. I would kill it for you." He proffered.

Look, I know.

I know in this day and age I am supposed to pick up a copy of Euell Gibbson's Stalking The Wild Asparagus and squash the fellow with little more than a sniff and flexed bicep; or that I should broil him in a sumptuous array of port wine, strawberries, and cucumber. Or array myself in appropriate hunting attire and refuse to let the little rapscallions get the better of me. Stiff upper lip, being British, and all.

Then I remember that I am NOT British and there is not a single reason petitioning to which I should be. Which is as British as you can get for saying I AM AN EFFING AMERICAN MUTT, EIGHTCRAWLERS, AND I AM TERRIFIED OF YOU.

The true American response would be to find several compulsively-loaded guns, wait around corners, and go out blazing only to inexplicably win through because Truth, Justice, and the American Way always prevail. Barring that, I could fall in a hail of ineffable justice-free wrong-person-running-the-show-and-that'll-show-them hail. Since really it's me versus Shelob in there, I have come to realize that I am a crappy American and a worse Bearer of the Ring. Either of those require sense of self, a willingness to persevere. Me? I may have given myself some sort of heavy poisoning from leaving that eight legged predator in half an inch of poison.

I want to have the stiff upper British lip. Believe me. You sound so much more erudite quoting Chaucer in Middle English with a Modern British accent. Frankly, you sound more erudite yelling at the milkman about his current delivery in a British accent than you do American; it moves from vulgar to sublime.

But I have yet to meet an arachnid of Charlotte's composition, who no doubt would have embraced the bicoastal thrills of international interaction, but probably also would not have died by drowning in half an inch of Raid.

Either way, I am so not taking to my bed tonight. You win, arachnid. The field is yours.

A Heist For Help

2011-01-08T09:25:00.006-07:00

Christmas was...well, the Best! Christmas! Ever!

I had to first reassure my dad that the Best Christmas Ever was now officially different than the one his kids reference, sadly the one where he was too sick to emerge from the bedroom. No. Really. Best! Christmas! Ever!

I guess I had never got to share a Christmas officially with the Boy I Love, so naturally we were as disgusting as expected. We were, apparently, not as disgusting as my mother wished, since she expressed a thwarted desire to shoot us with the kitchen hose while shrieking "PDA! PDA" (which rumor has it she does at high school lunches, rumor being truth held from her mouth).

The Boy I Love has officially announced his intentions toward me, which despite common belief do not include him strangling me and trying to hide the body, so all is well.

I decided not to send pictures until my sister, who does AMAZING photography, sent us photos of us. We took them, but I may have behaved badly. Oh. There is a shock.

Speaking of The Sister, her current pet project, Project Elevate, is looking for sponsors or fundraising ideas. If anybody has any great ideas or sugnificent dying relatives or anything, wouldja letme know? This is an incredible resource. Please visit their website for additional thoughts.

Random Gifts of Joy

2010-11-22T15:02:00.004-07:00

Out of nowhere I got a package. The return address is listed as O. M. Banta in San Francisco...now he had been playing the game of him knowing something that I did not (my critics would argue that is probably true of most people). But inside...oh, the magic! The wonder of it all!

1. A tea towel that says "Caffeine is not a drug. It's a vitamin."

2. Pens with vile slogans like "Verdant Fields Nudist Camp...get in touch with your OUTER self! Enjoy ping pong, volleyball, and our famous bottomless buffet!"

3. A card in-joke that made me laugh.

4. Douchebag Citations. Oh, they are breaktaking! There are probably fifty choices for your citation; everything from Crunchy douchebag to Smug douchebag to International douchebag. You can check off as many of them as you like, and then it ends with "But you're [ ] my [ ] somebody's douchebag. Unfortunately we have already discussed that we both know at some point he will get one.

5. And then...a book. It's out of print now and I couldn't find my copy of it. So he found it for me. And wrote a perfect inscription in the front.

Oh yeah. Totally made my day. He kinda makes a good week and a good life.

And I am totally going up to Coffee Garden to use my new pens and my new pad of citations. I may not be able to control myself.

I Can Not Kill All Of You.

2010-11-21T04:05:00.002-07:00

Once again realizing my frailties in my inability to not kill the world. All the world. All of them. Every last effing one of them.

But hey. I have plans for Thanksgiving, and not just minor ones. One of my oldest and dearest friends have reappeared, not to call her old in the slightest.

Got that goin' for me.

At Least I'm Not An Angle This Time.

2010-11-11T17:09:00.002-07:00

Yeah...this would be a paean to the Boy.

You have been warned.

So yesterday I was yanking mail out of the mailbox and recognized both handwriting and then address of a Certain Boy of Whom I Am Extremely Fond.

It is, sans doubt, the sweetest and most beautiful thing I have ever gotten from a boy. This includes my boyfriend from when we were 16 who said "Can I show you something?" and ignoring my response of "Have I already seen one?" raised his sleeve to show my initials inked onto his arm.

In retrospect my reaction was probably not called for or well thought out; but shrieking "You DUMBASS!!!!! Are you KIDDING me? We aren't going to be together past high school, what were you THINKING?!" In no way, shape, or form actually excuses me.

Yes. I was that rotten of a person.

So I really, really don't deserve the incredibly sweet and heartfelt sentiments that were expressed to me. But I do appreciate them and may in fact have to carry said card with me for future reference, any time I need a smile.

Oh. The card on the front reads "I'd better get a library card. Because I'm checking you out."

I promise what was written inside was much, much sweeter. But no less any part of The Boy, whose head cock, evil point, and smarmy delivery is rife every time I look at the front of that card.

Yep. Love him.

I left my heart (and my toiletries) in San Francisco

2010-10-19T06:02:00.003-06:00

Best way to travel: People with whom you have common interests.

Which is pretty much why we ate our way from one end of the city to the other and back again.

I still remember when things were up in the air with The Boy and I was discussing them with a friend..."He's a chef," this friend said. "Nobody talks about food more than you do. The only person in doubt about this working out is you."

Fine. I am a shallow human being, and I love to eat. And yes, I am in love. That being said, I offer the following travelogue.

We got in Friday night. I had threatened Ricky on at least four separate occasions that if he checked a bag I would actually skewer him; we were trying to make The Boy's restaurant before close so we could all adjourn from the same place with A Plan In Place. That being said, immediately upon setting foot in the airplane I was informed that they had run out of overhead space, and I would have to check my carryon bag. Kill me now.

I am not sure what Delta's thought pattern is, but for future reference, if ever they tell you to check a bag which by rights you had packed as a carryon, MAKE SURE YOU GET THE NUMBER FOR THE BAGGAGE CLAIM. When I disembarked I looked at my ticket and discovered that they had listed my flight number. Nice. I knew what flight I was on, what I needed to know is which luggage claim was the one where I could retrieve my carry-on-now-checked luggage. You will be pleased to know that it was eventually located on an unlit, unmoving, and unmarked baggage thingie. Which only took me 45 minutes and a stream of epithets normally used by Sigourney Weaver in Aliens 3 to locate. During the interim of which Ricky's plane landed and we started the Marco-Polo game of trying to find each other in the San Francisco International Airport.

By 10:00 p.m. we had found each other and a taxi, although it had become close and at one point Ricky had already observed that this airport had become our Waterloo.

Made it to the restaurant, made it to the B&B, made it home to fall into a deep and abiding coma.

Saturday.

We had brunch at a place called Stackers. I went for the bacon waffles, which were *exceptional*. They were crispy all the way through, with a delicious helping of bacon in each savory bite. Then we went to the Farmer's Market, where we ate our way through...twice. Of particular note was the prosciutto and cheese sandwich with dijon mustard, and the apricot conserves (which Ricky promptly bought and we later figured out would have to be shipped to him owing to the magic of 9/11 airport security. More on this later.), and the cheeses. Apparently the salmon candy was lovely as well, but I was having no part of that.

We then moved on to Union Square and got to play dress up with The Boy, which was fun. Ricky needed to do a little shopping, and at one point in Ben Sherman while slumped on the dressing room waiting chair we suddenly heard a lot of yelling going on in the dressing room. "What did he say?" I asked.
"Something about Chinese finger traps," Jed responded.
"No he didn't."
When Ricky finally emerged, he had a tale of woe; apparently the shirt he had tried on had sleeves too small for his biceps, and in trying to remove it he had become trapped with his arms behind his back. And was, apparently, yelling about Chinese torture traps.

I hate losing.

Then on to Jed's restaurant. We had reservations and because we were In The Know with a Very Important Sous Chef got the coveted #32 table...apparently this is coveted because it has a window and you can look out and comment on all the jackasses walking past. Which, naturally, appealed to us. So, on to dinner...what can I say, except this was exactly the moment where I left my heart and replaced it with ten pounds of extra fat? And that it was completely and totally worth it? Absolutely incredible meal, there is no going back from food like that. I had the tri-tip with port-red wine sauce, blue cheese mashed potatoes, and grilled beans. Jed had the jumbalaya, which Ricky couldn't stop eating, and Ricky had the wild mushroom ravioli with truffled mascarpone. I threatened to stab him with my fork if he didn't quit eating my mashed potatoes. It didn't stop him. *I* didn't stop him; I would have had to get another fork and that might have taken too long for me to pause in shoveling food into my mouth. The wait staff spoiled us senseless, and I have to say it was one of my favorite parts of the entire trip.

We will not discuss one of the more popular gay bars in the disco, except when I leaned close to Jed and shrieked into his ear "I am pretty sure this is violating the fire code!"
"Absolutely!" he roared back. "This many flamers in one room?"

(Interesting side note: a large and burly guy there took umbrage that an openly heterosexual couple would dare to show themselves being publicly affectionate there. Ah, irony, apparently a straight couple snuggled into each other was in fact the black fly in his chardonnay. He sat there making snide comments and being outraged that we were putting our arms around each other and kissing one another IN PUBLIC LIKE THAT. "Why didn't you say something to him?" I asked Jed, who said "Because he was bigger than Ricky and I combined, and I figured jail would seriously cut into our weekend time together." Point, set, and match.)

Sunday was a less exciting brunch. I can't remember the name of the restaurant. Jed and I had croque monsieurs, for which we both have a passion. It was...okay. Not great. Just okay. I didn't hate it, but also didn't want to weep with joy over it either. Then we walked through the park in the rain, which was fun--the rain had driven off all the hippies and the entire drum circle, which was something of a Christmas miracle. Yes, I ran from the dive-bombing circling pigeons. Yes, I was mocked for my fear of having a pigeon poo on me from above. And yes, I whined nonstop about how many stairs we were going to have to take in order to cross the park to make it to the museum.

In the course of the museum, at one point Ricky became disgusted. "Oh, there would be an awkward pause in conversation, but let's kiss and that will make up for it," he sneered. "You two make me sick. I'm going to go be installation art." Whereupon he started posing in one of the upper windows for the benefit of the milling masses below.

It was in front of a John Singer Sargent painting that things really fell apart. I got started on modern art and my philistine opinions thereof. "Now THIS," I said, gesturing at it, "Has got to be harder and require more talent and discipline than somebody painting three stripes, gluing a spoon to it, and adding a handful of the artist's shit and calling it 'Untitled'."
"Stripe, stripe, glitter, FLING!" Jed suddenly volunteered, demonstrating the modern artist's development of a painting. Which is when he and I completely lost it, and laughed for probably ten minutes, to Ricky's intent disgust. Nobody finds this as funny as we do. I don't care. Every time I see a Rothko now I will just picture 'Stripe, stripe, glitter, poo-FLING!' and feel better about it. And probably snicker.

Ricky flew out Sunday afternoon; after we had said our goodbyes, Jed and I wandered around Haight-Ashbury loathing the hippies and everyone there, then went downtown to establish our hatred of those people, too. Then back to his place to watch a movie and talk all night, and then home.

It was one of the better weekends of my life, I must admit. Food, fun, laughter, attack moths, showers in a claw-footed tub so far off the floor it was trying to kill me (or at the very least cause me to strain a groin muscle), shopping, friends, dancing, movies, some actual sleep, holding hands, nature in a man-made construction way, running from pigeons, fat tourists, Nike runners, caffeine, and general mayhem. I need more of those kinds of vacations.

*The "more on this" portion: in going through security they confiscated my lotion because it was 4 oz. and not 3.5. However, my 15-inch solid steel wicked sharp knitting needles didn't do so much as cause a raised eyebrow. Please explain this to me. .5 oz of lotion cannot possibly be allowed, but something that could run two people through at once and they are fine with it? Also, I can take scissors with a wicked sharp point if they are under 3.5 inches, but a contained thread cutter is not allowed? Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining--I am glad they will let me bring knitting. But...really? REALLY? 4 oz. of lotion might be terrorist driven but 15 inches of pointed steel isn't dangerous in the slightest?

Mama T Can Kick Your Heinie

2010-09-29T11:14:00.002-06:00

So there I was. Alone. Bereft. Single without purpose, if you will...and then I saw it...money.

A lot of money.

So when I talked to Mama T I pointed out that, in fact, she had left lots of money.

"No, I didn't." she said sweetly. "I left the seed money for the Jed And Delanie Perpetual Travel Fund."

My mother? Best! Mother! Ever! I dare you to deny it.

They Make Me Tired.

2010-09-24T16:12:00.005-06:00

I didn't used to be tired. The vim and vigor of hating an entirely new species or subcategory of species always seemed to rejuvenate me.

But the hipsters.

Oh, the hipsters.

How tired they make me.

It doesn't help that I live in an area which is overrun by the vermin; nor yet does it help me that I can't ignore them when they are shrieking into their mobile phones to their friends about how they have a great life, they spend $X on $X and if *they* (whomever the hell they are) are planning to go to Provo to X, *they* had better plan on a million zombie people already being there.

I am getting old, people. Boundless rage takes more effort than it did. After hearing the above-referenced coversation I had to go home and almost take a nap.

So for future reference, my dear loathed subspecies of human, please try to do it when it is not later than 10:30 at night, because I will then be forced to walk hom listening to you behind me, also walking, and realizing that even if I killed you there are far too few places to hide the body.

Sometimes, I miss the days when I only knew about Rocky Horror and Sundance.

Creeping in our petty prints from day to day...

2010-09-06T15:46:00.006-06:00

Wheresoever they burn books, they shall also, in the end, burn human beings. --Heinrich Heine
What if they don't necessarily BURN the books, but they, in perhaps a "fit of pique" (euphemism for Complete And Total Temper Tantrum of the First Order) they, say, are looking for a particular book on bookshelves that are crammed this way and that, doublestacked, loaded to the ceiling, and generally in disarray, and can't find said book?

And what if they, at that particular moment, leap to the next step of logic which works only in their own particular psyche--not that they should enlist someone else to help them, or perhaps engage in a catalogue of book locations--but rip every goddam book from the shelves and decide to start over, screaming like Rodan the whole time?

Three weeks later, the piles have been...lessened.

In yet another "fit of pique" (euphemism for Another Full Tilt Temper Tantrum, Wild Hair and Screeching Included), I (oh, fine, forget they, we all know it's me) pulled out a card table and started hauling books out. The sign for the card table read "Free Books. Seriously. Take One. Take Ten. Take Them All. I don't care. Just cart them away and feel good about the fact that you are helping me to not die under the rubble of 15,000 paperbacks."

At the end of the day, there were nine books left on the table.

I love this neighborhood.

We will not discuss how many books remain on the floor to be disposed...or shelved...but hey. I got rid of at least 100 of them! J. said that it had nothing to do with the kind of books or the genre, but the beating of the heart that is quickened by the word "FREE." Anyone can tell J. from me that just because I am the literary equivalent of an intellectual savant doesn't mean that people just picked things up because they were labeled free. I saw them out there. They perused. They looked. They selected things that might be interesting, or at least look like something they might want to give to someone as a Christmas present.

You see, you can always tell the books I have either (a) loaned out, or (b) bought used. If it is a book I bought new and read, it looks exactly like new. I owe this talent to my mother's original bookstore owner employer, Marie. She owned Bittercreek Books in Vernal, Utah. Very early on (fifth grade or so) she noticed that I was a voracious reader, and that there was no way my parents could keep up with my junkie-level reading habit. I had already devoured everything in the grade school library and the public library as well; so she decided to help out. She taught me how to read a book so that it remained looking like new. Don't open the book too wide (it breaks the spine), don't rumple pages, don't besmudge the cover. Once those basic rules had been established and vetted, her entire bookstore was my jungle gym...and I have been unable to ever break the habits in which she trained me.

Basically, it means that if I talk about a book with someone and promise them I will loan it to them, I will bring it to them and they will say "This looks new! I can't read this!" And I will reassure them it'll be okay, and that yes, I really have already read this specific copy of the book before. They will then suffer massive guilt over violating said pristine-looking book, even if it has been read three or four times by yours truly, and I will feel guilty for them feeling guilty when said book comes back with cover whacked, spine suffering scoliosis of bibliography, and general wear and tear.

I never know what people do with books that trashes them; the only real incidents I've had have involved me reading in the bathtub, and even then I usually already have a duplicate of said book in question. I have intimations, however. My mother takes the paperback, curls back the cover and pages she's read, and proceeds from there. I suffer heart palpitations even thinking about it.

Downside to getting to read everything you can get your hands on in a public bookstore; you really can't ever feel like a book is your own. It's just on loan and always needs to be kept treasured and carefully.

Meh. I got rid of a hundred books. 14,900 left...anyone care for a tour of the reorganized Librarinth?

P.S. No. I did not find the book for which I was looking. I also did not find two other books which it suddenly occured to me should be there. Dammit. So much for the checking books out of the private library.

Turn and Face the Strange Changes

2010-08-25T10:55:00.005-06:00

Today is my last day of indolence, as tomorrow begins a new and hopefully long term job. It's been a while, so when I got word I immediately texted everyone I knew with the good news--my personal favorite response was from N., who texted back "Congratulations. Sorry you are being forced out of retirement."

Which made me laugh. In honor of his commiserations (though I am extremely glad to find work, trust me) I offer the following things I will miss about being forced out of retirement:

1. Comfy clothes. There is something tremendously satisfying in getting up each day and wearing exactly what you feel like wearing. I have not missed the waist-strangling swampass of panty hose, I can tell you, nor yet the moments where you think you are having a hot flash and perhaps The Change of Life has come upon you, only to remember you are wearing a wool suit and the HVAC has crapped out. Converse sneakers v. hammer-toe-inducing high heels and/or having to find socks that match your outfit? I can't even find socks that match each OTHER half the time. No contest.

2. Self indulgent reading. I suppose, were I a true retiree, I should have spent my time napping on the sofa with an afghan (also one of N.'s longstanding pursuits). But I am a lousy napper, unless I am in the presence of Rachel Who Rolls (because if she doesn't get put down for at least one nap a day she gets cranky. You can tell if she's had a nap because there is less slapping and pinching than otherwise. Notice that I said less, not the complete absence thereof.) So instead I have had the luxury of perusing my overburdened and drastically overstuffed bookshelves. This, of course, led to a particularly fine temper tantrum when I was looking for One Specific Book, couldn't find it, and started pulling everything off the shelves in order to properly organize them into sections. For future reference, this is a very, very bad idea. Thigh-deep piles of books through your bedroom, the "library," down the hall, and into the kitchen can only result in stubbed toes, knocking things over, and a level of cursing previously undreamt of in your Horatio-like philosophy when you can't figure out which section a particular book falls under. I was also going to do my traditional and limited to books and CDs anal retentive sorting (genre, then alphabetically by author/artist and then chronologically within the artist) but at this point I still haven't finished and have taken to shoving stuff back on the shelves. How lovely to end up where I started, except for all the calories I burned with my white hot rage.

3. Standing at the living room window judging passersby. This has long been one of my all-time favorite activities. It used to just be limited to Halloween (Rocky Horror attendees traipsing by) and during Sundance (fashionistas trudging by in their designer clothes and Ugg boots), but having been home during the day I now see how much I have been missing as far as people whom I can judge harshly and find wanting. The dogwalkers without baggies for their sordid animal leavings...the girls in their shorts so short that even the old Nair commercials would rethink the choice (really, ladies, if your shorts are miniscule enough to be showing your chicken salad to the world it becomes a question of hygiene and where have you been sitting so I can know not to sit there without bringing a towel)...the hippies with their hempen glamour...and the hipsters. Oh, you effing hipsters. There is a special place in hell for you and since I am probably going to be in hell anyway and my version of hell would be being anywhere with you, I plan to spend my time there making you unhappy to the best of my abilities--which are considerable, just ask any of my exes.

Side note: Never got around to wearing a wifebeater and sitting on plastic webbed lawn chairs holding a 40 and yelling at the Parade of Hipsters. Added to the list of things yet to be achieved.

The number one favorite Hated Passersby category, however, is the bikers in Special Outfits.

I hate them so, so very much. First of all, nobody should wear spandex in public. I do not want to see anyone prancing around in plum smugglers (or clam baskets, the female equivalent). I don't make you look at me wearing a nothing left to the imagination ensemble, what makes you think you can just trot out in public wearing your moisture-wicking Special Outfit that is tight enough to reveal what only your spouse and doctor should have to see? Furthermore, and this is a message to every one of them, YOU LOOK STUPID. Just plain stupid. You with your clip-in shoes and your ergonomically streamlined racing helmet, shaving your legs to achieve an aerodynamic advantage. YOU ARE NOT LANCE ARMSTRONG. Wearing a professionally designed team oriented fruity ensemble and pedaling like a bipedal upright shaven hamster on a wheel is not going to make you Lance Armstrong. You are not training for the Tour de France. You are riding around on a vastly overpriced bike on the streets of Salt Lake City. There is absolutely no reason for you to spend that kind of money on your hobby so that everyone can see you and know that you take it seriously--it is flatly impossible to take you seriously when I am having to look at your hindquarters as you hunch over with your Special Outfit Sunglasses and reveal the butt padding stitching on your Special Outfit because your bike seat is the size and apparent comfort level of sitting on a spatula.

And those of you who roam in packs (I believe, much in the vein of a murder of crows, a gaggle of geese, and a business of ferrets, the proper terminology is a douchebag of bikers)...I have so much to say that I can't say it at all. No doubt you go home and discuss that weird, frizzy-haired clearly special needs girl hammering on her living room window and shrieking unintelligible things as you ride past every day.

There are more things I will miss, I am sure, but to be honest I am looking forward to getting back into the workaday world. I think much of the enforced solitude has contributed significantly to me getting even more odd. But then I remember the comment one friend made as we were discussing someone we both knew. "I don't think he's getting weirder," she said. "I think he's just got more time to be weird."

We'll stick with that for now.

I Cave If I Must, But This Was Not! The! Plan!

2010-08-16T16:07:00.003-06:00

So rethinking the three-to-five year plan. Considerably. Originally three to five years being here before fleeing to more temperate climes seemed reasonable...but, um, no. Not gonna happen. So making a new game plan. That's what I love about life; as the video I posted dictates, in five years' time who KNOWS where any of us will be or what we are doing? In a way I really kind of love that, the whole expanding feeling that anything in the universe could be possible. John Lennon said, "Life is what happens to you while you're making other plans." So make those other plans, and then let the chips fall where they may.

It's not entirely a bad place to be, finding hope in a future enrobed in a mystery enwrapped in an enigma, as they say :)

And yeah. Still going to make it to Comicon one of these years, dammit.

Noah and the Whale - 5 Years Time - Official

2010-08-16T16:05:00.001-06:00

The Hell.

2010-08-05T19:27:00.002-06:00

Just when you figure out life everything changes. Unlike the bears from whom we refuse to acknowledge the little orange sticker.

Yeah. I am that much of a geek.

Boys who say things like "when we go to comicon..." oh hell. Right there. If they are pale and tragic there is no hope whatsoever. Damn those comicon geeks.

What is a friend? A single soul which dwells in two bodies. (Or maybe more than two. I don't know.)

2010-07-03T02:59:00.003-06:00

The best quote of the evening:
R is on the phone with R Who Rolls (hereinafter RWR). I cannot hear what RWR is saying...I just know that R says "You canNOT call an infant of under one an ahole!"

Friends matter. Some friends drift away, some excuse themselves from this mortal coil, and some decide to set fire to bridges and quit the play, because by gar that will show everyone. But by and large, the true friends in life are the ones with whom time doesn't matter. I have very few friends to start with, but my most cherished are the ones with whom I can pick up the telephone after three years and start a conversation and have it be as though we had talked to one another yesterday. It really does happen that way. And I love it.

So yes. I have spent the past few days absolutely reveling in the magic of friendship. Viva la shut-in detectives and those who will tolerate learning the Sparky Polastry dance from start to finish!

The Who Never Had to Deal with The What.

2010-06-24T12:44:00.002-06:00

As I sit here, watching the youngun play Xbox and particularly The Who, I so question everything that life has offered thus far. He makes me happy, and that's all that matters. Right? Right? I mean, he takes life seriously. One shouldn't ever take life seriously past the age of 25. So he makes me doubly happy by asserting his will on the world. I buy stuff based on what he will like. Hopefully this will make the grade.

Bruises Are The New Rehab.

2010-06-19T20:13:00.002-06:00

So there I was...carrying an armload of laundry and heading down what are admittedly some fairly steep, fairly dark stairs. There is a lightbulb for the stairs area, except that it has burned out and I am too short to reach it. Nevertheless, I persevere. Go me. Except for the part where I think I have reached the bottom of the stairs and haven't, so that the next step sends you flinging into space until you reach the bottom...which is full of things like milk cartons, wire baskets, a stage spotlight, an old telephone, etc. Yeah. Which means that right now it looks like I have been beaten with a tire iron. I would publish said bruises, but many of them are not for public consumption. My mother has taken to calling me her "Little Munchausen Kid." She finds it funny.

Wait until she has to look at all of the bruises in person. ALLLLLLLL of them.

The Shut-In Detectives...Part Deux...

2010-05-12T05:26:00.003-06:00

"What Happened?" demanded Detective #1.
"NOTHING happened!" opined Detective #2.
"When you say nothing, are you questioning my abilities?"
"Absolutely not. Would you like to tell me where these bruises came from?"
"Not sure."
"Not sure? You have no idea, do you?"
"Nope. Do you?"
"Frankly, no. This doesn't end well, does it?"
"Nein."
"Would it help if I called you Sheisskopfh?"
"Since you can't spell it, no."
"Shit."

Time Wounds All Heels

2010-03-04T19:32:00.003-07:00

I've been watching Jeopardy. I'm NEVER a good person at Jeopardy; I tend to adopt my parents' friend's strategy and yell out "Frank Sinatra!" or "San Francisco!" whenever I don't know the answer...which is frequently.

But tonight I am finding myself questioning the validity of being the Powerhouse of Pointless Knowledge (my previous most-secretly-coveted title). Today I spent the afternoon reviewing a letter written by a person whom I list among my most-admired; a letter which addressed the recent Olympics and its extravagence with a view toward the humanitarian. Her points not only hit home, they created within me the voluble need to DO something. The general summation of her letter was simply that, as a whole, spending millions of dollars on a torch for the Olympics is simply a vanity when one compares the number of destitute, homeless, and/or underpriveleged to the cost of creating a symbol that the world would remember for...what, three weeks? Four?

(I'm not entirely sure. As a non-sports person, I don't tend to pay attention to these things.)

So really, I find myself as an arist voicing the query: When does art supercede the needs of humanity as a whole?

Oh, wait, it shouldn't.

Art is created when a civilization has enough of the Basic Human Needs that it can relax a bit; when gathering pinenuts no longer supercedes the need to draw antelope on a clay pot. The only civilizations which have the time to create "art" are the ones for whom survival are not in question. As a child of the West, I frequently looked at the areas through which we were settlng (read settlng without validation) and wondered how I would feel were that the only future I had to offer the world, that of one defined by the current definitions of femininity. I would look at the sagebrush, the pinenut trees, the harshness of the land and wonder how anyone could have found any joy whatsoever in an existence that appeared to be based entirely on survival.

So is "The Beloved Ostrich" really the way to go?

Frailty, thy name is technology.

2009-08-19T18:43:00.002-06:00

Okay, first of all let me start off by announcing that I hate technology.

While doing so in a blog is a lot like Terry Pratchett described, which is standing on a hill in wet copper armor shouting "All Gods Are Bastards", so be it. I've installed the new modem as near as I can tell, and it seems to be working--other than the computer keeps constantly telling me that I do NOT have any internet connection. Even though I do. Even though it is blatantly obvious by the fact that I am able to post this, there are two little icons; one has a wireless signal emerging from its computer-like signal, and one has two computers with a big red X over them. I just want to get rid of that one. Is that so much to ask?

'Cause I Know A Habit Is A Hard Thing to Bear...naise...

2009-08-13T00:24:00.005-06:00

I'm watching station 11-4. I don't know what that is on digital TV, I just know that on my digital converter box it's 11-4, and there is currently a man on it winning my heart with a French accent, seared steaks, sauteed thyme, and a new and exotic way to make bearnaise sauce. Sweet crunchy cracker, I don't even know what to say. Who knew? Who knew that bearnaise could be wrestled far more simply than I have ever dreamt possible?*

I am spending the week in the company of family. Family can, from time to time, be far more fun than anything on the earth save the board game Encore**. The Whit, Bighead Ethan, Destructicon, and Smiley Kylie spent last night with me. Moments like this make me wish I weren't so confident that as a woman living alone there is no reason for extraneous room, as I will just fill it with crap; gracious as they are, I can't help but wanting to apologize every fifteen seconds for the fact that I live in approximately 800 square feet, and that when the boys try to write a report on Pilgrims, they can reference weeks like this as they try to write their Magnum Opus, "What It Felt Like To Cross On The Mayflower." They are all exceptionally kind, though, and make me feel like I could host a thousand. I can't help but adore each of them, and the Best! Thing! Ever! Is that now they live close enough that it is entirely probable I can show up randomly on a weekend and touch their stuff and smell funny. Just like they do to me.

I love those kids. I love them so much that if I were to try and express it, I'd turn into Creepy Aunt who Pinches Cheeks or Kisses Noisily When Not Invited. I'd wrap my arms around them and snuggle with them for a thousand years and refuse to let them go, not even for bathroom breaks. (We all know it's just a matter of time, but leave me my illusions.)

This evening was no exception, as the Nutz Brothas continue to grow and expand in their gorgeousness.

Tomorrow is the wedding of the eldest sista of the Nutz Brothas, and I am sure all will be resplendant and on their best behavior. In the interim, however, I will remind myself that I need a pedicure but won't have time for one between now and tomorrow night, that Chris Isaak loves pedicures, and that no matter how much time you take off work, it's just going to suck worse tomorrow.

Got that goin' for me.

*Probably every chef in the world knew. Well, shut the hell up. Unless you told me, your knowledge does NOTHING to help me at this juncture, so I will continue in my crush on the French guy with the bad hair and the suggestion that bearnaise can be handled by whisking the egg yolks and butter together, then sauteeing the vinegar, wine, tarragon, and shallots, bringing them to room temperature and combining the two. How come that seems so much easier than every version I've ever tried? Is that authentic? Is it NOT authentic, but TASTES authentic, differentiated only by pretentious wieners who insist they can taste the difference if they know that it was prepared differently?

**Which nobody will play with me. I tried it once, figuring I was in a room full of music afficionados and geeks. The insufferable malaise of watching them deign to try and suffer through such a plebian game nearly was their undoing, never mind mine.

KILLIN' me, Smalls.

2009-06-25T19:30:00.002-06:00

"So I got 50 texts about Michael Jackson dying," the text read.
"Just wondering how that's supposed to affect my life."

Yeah, you and me both, as it seems.

Really, dude? Really? The most momentous event of a world in the past three weeks is that a former chimp-owning, kiddie-diddling alabaster-skinned habitue cacked it? REALLY?!

Well, fine. I will acknowledge that my own attempts to glamorize [the] hoi polloi have resulted in nil, of late. I am willing to accede a recent skirmish with my dress size, which I (both humiliatingly and definitively) lost. I may even, under duress, acknowledge that I am a bit of a cynic. But C'MON, PEOPLE. Really?

REALLY?!

My little sister called me today. "Hey, Michael Jackson died," my boss announced, moments before.

"Yeah? Were you just on the phone with my little sister?" I shot back, only to have the receptionist interrupt.

"You have a phone call," she said, and Emily Mr. Beaned it across the room. "That's your sister, calling to tell you Michael Jackson died," she said, and I mugged at her and answered the call.

"Michael...Jackson...is...dead," my sister intoned eerily.

"Hey, Whit," I said, ignoring the greater sin of ruining her news; "Michael...Jackson...is dead."

The entire assistant pool cackled uncontrollably.

"WHAT?! You already KNEW?!" Whit howled.

"The boss told us."

"I will never forgive...you tell him I can't...I have to go!" She shrieked, and hung up on me.

Stupid Twitter.

The boss only cares about Lance Armstrong ("LA"), to be sure; but since he absolutely has to know to the very second what ounce of pressure LA is exerting at any given time, he's ascribed to Twitter and never mind the fact that each update (read: Nugget of Joy, heavy on Facetious Intonation) is heralded by a 'ping' seldom heard outside of the soundtrack for Hunt for Red October; each ping might mean that LA has exceeded all previous expectations that he will pedal faster than a mongoose in heat at the Mongooses for Potential Mating Extravaganza bazaar. And only a cad and a bounder would fail to recognize this achievement as Top Drawer Stuff, By Gar.

I dunno. Life was certainly simpler when Whit would call me, and in tones enigmatic report "Heath Ledger is dead. Remember, you heard it from me first." and then hang up. And then it would be true.

As it is, life is far from perfect. I have planted all sorts of (and I quote) "easy to grow, prolific" plants such as zucchini and tomatoes, only to have them turn on me like rabid bastard plants. If I had known this was an option from such purportedly easy-going vegetables and fruit, I might have stuck with cross-stitch as an expression of contempt for modern society. (Okay, not really.) Extensive internet research tells me that I may or may not have aphids, beetles, some sort of sucking bug, or a lack of appropriate soil in which to plant my zucchini. If it had powdery white mold, I'd know what to do, because EVERYBODY IN THE EFFING WORLD seems to come down with powdery white mold on their zucchini; however, this shilly-shallying is indicative more of a reflection of my personality, and everybody knows that a mirror is annoying as shit if it means it doesn't leave you at least 10 pounds skinnier in its reflection.

At least my latest gadget for cheese-making is scheduled to arrive sometime before the next New Moon. Hormones notwithstanding, I and those I love most might never make it past the coming four days if I didn't have the hope of draining, aging, and cagily manipulating the fate of several gallons of milk currently residing in my fridge.

Viva la cheesemakers!

It Can't Get No Worse

2009-03-25T17:51:00.004-06:00

I just finished reading the latest biography of John Lennon this afternoon; for those who might wish to follow up on things that make me swoon, it's by Philip Norman. Far less acidic than the aforementioned and not religiously understudied biography written by Albert Goldman (easy to accomplish; all one would have to do is not mathetimatically try to equate genius with asshattery and then contain one's verbal expulsions), it still made me teary-eyed. I'm not gonna lie; there isn't much (outside of Ono) that doesn't make one particularly sensitive. If I were going to be truthful, even the Ono crap makes me melt inside...you cannot possibly watch The U.S. vs. John Lennon and not for a second believe that the man, whatever lunacy included, wasn't completely and totally entranced by the concept of love. And not even the concept; he actually found love, how tremendous is that?! He found a partner who felt the same. How often can one of we lesser-crawling maggots find validity? Even how less frequently do we find not just validity, but sympatico?

Not a whole hell of a lot, I am willing to conjecture.

And by that conjecture, I have to point out the following;

One), that questioning mortality is possibly sexy but more importantly ineffective; and

Two), that love is what it is, and who are we to declare differently?

Apparently Yoko isn't a fan of this latest recount, citing the fact that the author "wasn't nice" to John. Well, the hell with her, I say. The hell. We aren't always nice. And a man well into his second formal relationship deserves the ability to shake his wiener at the earlier parts of either. It doesn't discount the importance of what that man has done; it simply reminds the world that he had a wiener. Is that such a terrible sentence for any man?

I'm Just Sayin.

2009-02-01T18:49:00.005-07:00

"NO!" I yelped. "Stop! No! Absolutely not, no! You're not--you're not really--NO!"

And Nutz Brotha #2 continued to pee into a bottle.

Seriously. At this point I appeal to parents, to youth caseworkers, to juvenile delinquents everywhere. What do you do? You can't slam on the brakes, for fear of everyone being baptized with aqueous effluvia. There is absolutely no answer for "Public Urination, Moving Vehicle, Adolescent Perpetration Thereof," anywhere. If there is, I WANT IT. Please. Not even want.

NEED.

The Nutz Brothas and I drove to Nevada this weekend to take in a play directed by Mama T.
They are all directed by Mama T; notwithstanding the fact that she's the only game in town, she's a damn fine good one.

Some years are better than others. Coaches understand this; although we approach things from different ends of the spectrum, I can't imagine that sport coaches feel any differently. Some years are "growing" years. Those are the years that you train kids, you search desperately for that wheat that makes all the chaff worthwhile, and you inevitably have to give way to the fact that the high school football team needs the auditorium for its pre-game assembly. And then...it's like alchemy. Out of nowhere, one of the kids has real talent. They are relatively normal, and they bring their friends to the fray. Suddenly you have half-a-dozen with Real Talent, and you're not sure where to put them all. You pray to Dionysus, hoping all the time that a Greek god is going to understand the plight of the modern-day drama teacher (Rick Riordian notwithstanding), and you cast your show. Grade check, sports seasons, and residual trauma ensue. And at the end you're left standing, wild-eyed, five-nights-of-sleep deprived, and giddy because "THEY EFFING GOT THAT LAST CUE RIGHT!!!!!! YOU CAN'T! BEAT! THAT!!!!!"

I spend my whole life wishing to be even an eighth of the drama coach that Mama T is.

This time she let me be a part of cast notes.

"The crowd scene as you're all coming in to the camp," I said, and was horrified to feel the tears not just pricking but threatening to erode what little was left of my eyeliner. "The Nazi guard that picks up the little boy and hauls him away as he's screaming for his family...I mean this in the nicest possible way, but you're a bastard!"

The girl I know is both sweet, kind, and gentle. She loves theater--she, as near as I can tell, is a total Drama Geek--and her mission in this current production is to be as unlikeable and realistic as she can be. I respect her. I envy her to a certain level; as an adult you can't produce that kind of trauma and terror when technically you can be classified as a Little Person. (We as Little People tend to get head pats and the ever-so-sweet nod that lets us know that we are set, as long as we want Victorian dolls and verbena-smelling underpinnings.) And yet never, even once, did I get the sense that she was anything other than totally committed to where she was, when she was, and everything that it meant.

I don't know; maybe it means more when you see someone behaving totally differently than you know them to be. Maybe it imbues you with a completely different sense of reality, one which allows them to be Total Bastards and yet still be some of the most charming, sweet, kind, and considerate people you'll ever meet.

Great show, White Pine! You can't. BEAT. THAT!!!!!!

NEVER WATER THE CHRISTMAS TREE NUDE.

2009-01-04T10:52:00.012-07:00

Since everybody knows I don't do New Years' Resolutions, but because I am loathe to let the holiday go quite yet (although that tree MUST come down, no matter how prickly and temper-flaring a task it may be, it's started giving me the stinkeye and no longer glows, it glowers), I've been pondering on what I learned throughout the past year of my life On This Planet. I may not set goals, but I do learn. So in no particular order, they are as follows:

Men Who Fix Cars Do Not Find Me Funny. I know nothing about cars. I don't care about knowing about cars. I know I should. I know that, like Dane Cook, when I drive in to get my car fixed they will say to me "It looks like you had unicorns in your muffler." "Really?" I will say. "Unicorns? Imagine that. I wondered what that noise was." "Yeah, it'll cost you $700." "Goody. That's about what I figured it would be for a unicorn extraction. So reasonably priced, too." And the guy will smile, and throw away my old wiper blades, and I will drive away and the car will still make that noise, and I will decide that the unicorn probably had a baby, but it must be nothing to worry about or they would have caught it. So when we had a giant snowstorm and I signaled that I was turning left and then sailed majestically forward into oncoming traffic despite pumping of said brakes, I figured it was time to get new tires.

"When did you last replace your tires, ma'am?" the Tire Guy asked me.

"I dunno, I think about the last time I had a bean sidhe in my carburetor," I told him, and he just looked at me.

"And what kind of tires do you want, ma'am?" he asked.

"I don't know," I said. "Ones that I can drive on in the snow."

"Any particular brand or model?" he asked, rubbing the bridge of hise nose with that impending-migraine look.

"What do you recommend?"

"Well, what sort of driving do you do?"

"Cautious," I said. "Like old people having sex level of cautious. I'm not a very good driver."

"I mean, where do you drive?"

"Um, you know. Work. The store. Over medians sometimes."

"Right," he said, resting his head on the counter. "We'll take care of you. Can I have your keys, please?"

I handed them over, and he glared at the eight inches of red-polka-dot scarf tied around them.

"I lose them," I explained. "I lose them a lot."

"I'm really surprised, lady," he said, and went into the back room while I wondered what I did to get demoted from ma'am to lady. I didn't see him again. Someone else came and helped me, someone younger and presumably without a daughter so he didn't have to imagine her fifteen years hence, having this conversation with the Tire Guy.

I Find Once Boring Things Exciting. Now, I'm not talking about the stuff that SOME people think is boring. (I'm primarily thinking of Whitney and Kirk, who love to play the game where they pick the Most Boring Thing On TV and wait for me to come in. "Oh, wow, this is that special on Jules Verne," I will enthuse, and they will both cackle and then change the channel.) No, I mean wish lists. In the days of yore I always had a wish list a mile long; this year, though, when mom and dad asked me what I wanted for my birthday..."I'd really like some food storage," I said.

And I meant it.

The Great Mouse Hunt of '08 took quite a bit out of me; having discovered evidence of nasty, filthy, hanta-disease-bearing vermin prancing their way through my vermicelli, bouillon, and Ghiradelli bars (BLASPHEMY, DARLING!) I commenced to toss everything that couldn't be washed in bleach. Then I had to live like a shopkeeper with canned food perched on counters while I played Lucrecia Borgia to Fievel the Marauder.

It's not bad enough that I have no idea what to do with most food storage. I don't EAT most of those things, because my theory is that those things are there for when there isn't REAL food and then they will taste better. My food storage has vanilla beans, and artichoke hearts, and tomatoes...and very little else. I should quit worrying about skills for Bartertown, because I won't MAKE it to Bartertown. I will have expired when I tried to make a casserole and didn't check the dates on the cans of soup. Anyway, if someone had presented me with canned chicken breast, thirty pounds of sugar, and evaporated milk ten years ago, I would have been grateful for the thought that counted. Now I'm just delighted. I open the cupboard doors and coo at my bounty.

Never water the Christmas tree nude. You'd think I'd remember, but every! Damn! Year! I get a very pointed reminder, as well as a few wounds in places I can't show anyone and get symathy.

Time really will deliver the genetic betrayal that is your legacy. I don't like to exercise. In fact, that's probably the biggest understatement that I can say without involving the words "Daniel Craig" and "attractive". I don't like anything about it. I don't like to sweat, I don't like to wear the special outfits, I don't like to jump around or run or jog or jazzercise or do any of it. In fact, I have long maintained that exercise goes against our very genetic code. Seriously. Thousands of years of human history, and everything we do is designed to MAKE LIFE EASIER. If it was so much fun chasing dinner with pointy sticks and eating dirt and scavenging, why aren't we still doing it? Because it's not fun. People want to relax. They don't want to walk ten miles to find wild carrots, they figured out that sucked and planted gardens and raised farm animals so they could sit down at some point and not have to constantly be moving around in order to survive. Every invention has been to lessen man's need to be involved in the work process. So when faced with physical activity, what is my natural instinct? TO STOP WORKING SO DAMN HARD. I get on the exercise bike and start working away, and look down and realize that I've slowed down because I was getting overheated. What is the point, I ask you?

Or I would have asked you before realizing that my ability to consume my own weight in dairy products and bacon meant that i was eating MORE dairy products and bacon, to make up for the additional body weight. Stupid, stupid mid-thirties. They are clearly working against me.

The family is going to do the Biggest Loser game. Originally, I said I'd participate, if by participating it meant not doing anything. "But don't you feel like it inspires you a little, you know, to have someone else to answer to?" Whit said.

"Nope. I have NO SHAME," I said. "I don't care if someone knows I didn't exercise, or if I ate a pound of bacon last night by myself."

"You didn't."

"Fine, have it your way."

So I'm on the game, largely because I can't get into those Chinese-red silk cigarette pants that I love more than...well, apparently more than bacon.

Home Isn't Always Safe. Your BED isn't always safe. My ankle still hurts. On the plus side, I can now Basil Fawlty it and scream about how I'm getting twinges from the old war wound to distract people during conversation. This will be a nice counterpoint to my usual feigned narcolepsy.

You can never have too many books. This can also be listed under the subset of "She Who Dies with the Most Books Wins." I'd like to at least be in the running someday. Shelf space is currently at a premium, but I cannot stop myself. No interventions, thank you very much. I'm a junkie of the printed word, and there are very few things in life more satisfying than having a stockpile of Things To Read.

A Random Sampling of Favorite Books I've Read 2008: I Capture the Castle, by Dodie Smith. If you haven't read it, READ IT. I love it. I heart it. I would put it under my pillow except that space is already occupied by a box of crackers (in case I get hungry in the night) and whatever book I'm reading at the moment. (That way you get to screech through the whole place looking for it, yelling imprecations and tearing books off of shelves until you remember you were reading it last night and fell asleep with your finger marking your place.) I'm just angry I never read it sooner, but I attribute that to the crappy, crappy, innocuous book jacket description. DON'T LET IT FOOL YOU.

Tam Lin, by Pamela Dean. I read this as a kid (okay, late teens) and couldn't for the life of me remember much about it, other than it was set in a college and I liked it tremendously. I found it again and devoured it. Full of literary references and very little Magic until the last...oh, fifty pages or so, it makes me happy and feel like I could have pretended to be a Brainy Classics Major at some upscale private university.

Confederates in the Attic, by Tony Horwitz. I am not a nonfiction reader, generally. I don't know why I'll read a contemporary novel set now if it's fiction, but refuse to pick up anything about anyone in history outside of the Tudor period...but there it is. Nevertheless, this was recommended by the Great Carriesnow, and I could not put it down. I read it on my way to visit The Brother in AlaBAMA (as it must be said, a la Forrest Gump) and it's on my read and re-read list. Hysterical reenactors? C'mon, that's my bread and butter! They may not say "milady" and whack each other in the park with padded PVC pipe swords...no, these are the HARDCORE. Absolutely not to be missed.

The Lodger Shakespeare, by Charles Nicholl. See my aforementioned caveat regarding nonfiction...but, as GOB says, "COME ON!" It's Shakespeare. It's history. It's researched history about Shakespeare. What else would you expect? DON'T LOOK AT ME LIKE THAT.

And as a final note, I have achieved my heart's desire. Santa Claus brought me...a Kindle. For this, I might need an intervention. Those of you who question technology...or its place in the world...clearly, you are the people who have not been forced to give up packing socks and underwear, because you require at least five paperbacks on the "getting there" portion of your trip. And then you buy two in the airport wandering around because they looked interesting, and when you get to your destination you find your host doesn't have ANYTHING worth reading, and while you'll read John Grisham because there's nothing else there, when you're out at the supermarket you inadvertently buy two more paperbacks waiting in the checkout line, and then you talk them into visiting a bookstore, and then on your way home you realize you packed the one you were reading in your big checked suitcase and the ones you have with you don't look interesting, so you are forced to buy a few more and you return home with 15 new paperbacks and a walking pattern Igor would envy due to the extra weight in your carry on. As it is, I can have 200 books at my fingertips. If I don't want to read what I have, I can use the Whispernet (don't ask me what it is, I can only relay terms like a parrot) and download a new book in under a minute. I can read periodicals. I can check the NY Times. I can verify my claims to my seatmate using Wikipedia. It is, in short, a means to an end. They will pry it out of my cold, dead hand, and even so I will be annoyed that I didn't get to finish whatever book I was reading. It doesn't relieve the intense pressure of acquiring more of the printed word, but it does mean I will have clean underwear when I arrive at my destination.

Provided I did laundry before I left, that is.

Oh what a world, what a world - a political thought process, so avoid it if you're not in the mood

2008-11-05T03:26:00.003-07:00

I spent the most historic night in my personal American history recollection on the phone with my parents.

"It's a part of being a revolution," my dad said. "Every election, we're a part of something historic."

"Have you gotten into the cooking sherry?" my mom asked me.

No, seriously. "I never in my life imagined this could happen," she said, softly, and I was struck anew by what a magnificent process actually exists.

I am, to put it lightly, a cynic. I live in a state where my vote didn't matter--other than to prove that 37% of the population thought the other 63% had a Really Bad Idea on what to do with the future. Practically speaking, what does the purported Head of Our Country have the ability to do? They can all promise whatever they want, but that doesn't mean they can persuade Congress or Senate or even states to do much of anything. They can pick up a red phone, and if we're lucky, they can avoid making a total ass of themselves and not foul up foreign policy more than we've already managed.

If possible.

It's all we can really ask of anyone, including ourselves. Short of sending a telegram to everyone up on The Hill that reads "As a part of this American Republic, you have failed to meet my expectations. As you are in my employ, please consider your contract terminated. Have your bags packed and vacate the premises no later than 4:00 p.m. today." And then what? I hear there are some monkeys at Hogle Zoo looking for an opening...

It's the first year in the entire year of my life--almost 18 years--that I've voted FOR someone instead of AGAINST someone. As I said, I don't hold any illusions. I just hold the hope that someone can at least uncrock politics slightly. And even if they can't, for it's a slippery slope, as Grayson Spaulding pointed out before taking that plunge off the New York Ferry, I can at least still hope for the next four years that someone will TRY. As I said to my mother, this is the closest thing to feeling like a part of the 60's revolution I can ever get. The times are a-changin', and whether you're for or against you're part of something unprecedented. "So flower power didn't work," John Lennon said. "We'll find something else."

Here's hoping, John. Here's hoping.

Of Ankles and Ankle Biters

2008-10-12T20:13:00.002-06:00

In a moment both proud and pathetic, a week ago I arose victorious from my bed only to discover that, in fact, my ankle hurt like hell. Also, it was swollen to the size of a particularly creepy-looking cankle, cornered as well as a Winnebago, and did nothing to alleviate the rumors at work that I am the reincarnation of Francois le Clerc (can I help it if lax security in cubicles leads to plunder of staplers and post-its?).

Apparently that dream about having my foot caught in something had been based in reality, or perhaps unbeknownst even to myself I had taken up midnight jogging. In Via Spigas. (Because that's primarily what I have in my closet, aside from a large number of things I am not getting rid of because I'm Going To Lose Ten Pounds And They'll Fit Again, but that's neither here nor there at the moment.) How completely ridiculous is that? Who sprains their ankle alone in bed asleep? I'd love to claim a particularly heroic deed, something Indiana Jones-ish, or at the bare minimum that I was active, but the truth is that I was supine and am outdoing myself in levels of heretofore unsupposed klutziness. Oh well. I could be a cutter, I guess.

I have returned this evening from the seething pit of humanity known as Las Vegas. My nephew was being baptized, and I had supposed in capital letters that it was Important I Be There. His baptism itself was unbelievably sweet, as is said nephew; watching a tow-headed, blue-eyed little boy blink away tears while singing "I Am A Child Of God" is enough to make even my grinchy heart take a stab at growing at least half a size. Also, the other kid from his ward getting baptized looked like Ralphie from A Christmas Story, minus glasses and with a really stupid Spanky haircut. You can't beat that.

During the course of the visit, I got put on time out. Again. It wasn't even my sister this time; it was my sister's mother-in-law, who told all of us that we Knew Better.

Well, I do now.

Six boys and one girl under the age of 12 make for wild times, my friend. Wild times, indeed; especially when you have a sign over your head that reads "Pied Piper/Punching Bag, No Training Required". I don't know what I do, but they all want to destroy me. I walk into a room, they point, and voices scream "Get HER!" What do you do that that point? Get overrun by germbags? No, survival instinct kicks in and you Run Like Hell. Which is when I got put on time out for plunging down the stairs with the entire melee following. Adults can feel as superior as they want, but there's something about not having kids that allows you to wind them all up to high-pitched, wired like a hummingbird-on-crack vibrating hysteria, and then send them home. Parents hate it, but if it's a choice between listening to the weather and plans for house renovations or getting shot between the eyes by Wyatt Earp, I know which I'm gonna pick.

Plus, I still owe Tanner for telling the adults that "the big one" was the one who started it all. Your day will come, Tanner. Oh yes. It will come.

James - How Was It For You

2008-09-14T19:48:00.001-06:00

For inspiration.

The way it was

2008-09-14T19:06:00.004-06:00

I came of age in a totally retarded time period. The grunge scene hit it big, the Cold War ended, unprotected sex equaled death, and the vice president couldn't spell potato (ironically, considering he had all the appeal of one). Riots ran rampant after the police offers were aquitted, the presidential candidate appeared on national television playing a saxophone, and a bald woman ripped up pictures of the Pope. Douglas Copeland had an underground hit with Generation X, which of course we refused to accept as defining our generation, since our generation was all about refusing to be defined period, even by something as innocuous as an X-standing-for-nothing.

You know what I miss?

It's definitely not the bad perm, although something is to be said for extra-large men's t-shirts and boxers as a daily wardrobe choice (saucily accessorized with thermal underwear when the cold weather hit, of course). Absolutely not those wild dot-matrix printers, and PARTICULARLY not The Real World, no matter how true the story of seven people living together might have been at the time.

No, what I miss is the dancing.

While there are those who will subscribe to the early-nineties affinity magic of 2 Legit 2 Quit, and/or the lingering after-effects of applying an Ice, Ice Baby to their homecoming, I am talking about the absolutely free-form dancing.

It's hard to describe; it's not as hippie-ish as the Deadhead Twirl, and certainly in no way choreographed as the completely idiotic Electric Slide. It has nothing to do with Busting a Move, or even appearing sexy; the best way to describe it is a sort of weird, giving yourself up to the music spasticated seizure.

It's not the dance moves--or lack thereof--that really sway me; it's that feeling of just letting it all go, galloping around the dance floor because you FEEL like it, riding on pure exhilaration and joy. It's the fun of holding the entire world in disregard, because it's got no place in where you are at that moment. It's release and happiness and relaxation and celebration all in one; a total suspension of reality.

Also a suspension of coordination, I'm not gonna lie.

Don't care. It's all about the exuberance. Where do you get to have that as an adult? I'm picturing myself galloping through the office tomorrow, twirling and dipping and flailing as the mood strikes, bouncing down stairs and flinging myself into chairs to talk with people; is this before or after property management sends out a team for deportation and possibly exorcism? Because I can guarantee they're gonna take me down, and it will be painful. (When the office goes feral and everyone starts hunting in packs, I figure property management will be the legal department's biggest opponents; architecture will be hunted for meat, like the slothful and weak creatures that they are, and accounting will simply set up its own empire with which we will have to establish trade. Property management, man. Biggest problem. It's why I'm campaigning so heavily for development to be on our side; it's the only way we can hold our own against property management. They're big, and they move fast, and they're ruthless.) So inbetween being tackled by property management and fitted for my straight jacket, will anyone listen to me? The capacity for ultimate, soul-expanding joy is there; we just don't have anyplace to express it anymore. We're caught up in the throes of adulthood, and Playing the Role. Grownups don't gallop, or turn cartwheels, or drop on someone from out of a tree and butter them. It's a tragedy, really it is. Do those urges really ever go away? I defy you to respond in the affirmative when faced with the company's fantasy football leagues. There are the same heartfelt exchanges about people's mothers and innuendo that there is when they're 15; if the urge really died after adulthood would people be sneaking around logging onto other people's computers so they can change said other people's teamnames to "The Teabaggers"?

So this week I'm going to regress. This week my plan is to live three inches outside my skin, the way I did before climbing into the adult equivalent of ten pounds of baloney in a five pound bag, and ENJOY. Try it.

I dare you.

For inspiration: James - How Was It For You

If Not For You - Dylan/Harrison Duet

2008-08-23T00:28:00.001-06:00

Neither Master nor Blaster

2008-08-12T18:30:00.002-06:00

I went to lunch today with two of my former students. Both are bright, funny, witty, self-possessed, well-read, pleasant, and responsible. These gorgeous creatures are making their way through the world, not sure what their mark will be but bright eyed and energetic and epic enough for possibilities to be limitless. And they really are limitless for them. It's breathtaking to see.

I used to think I could keep up with the treacherous little darlings, you know? It was the final vanity before an ever-expanding waistline and the "Naw, you go out, there's a really cool Nova special on PBS tonight." was accepted as reality. Now, of course, while I have always, ALWAYS been old to them, I'm old to myself as well.

"WHAT ABOUT BARTERTOWN?" I demanded of them.

First of all, they've never seen Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome and have no idea what I am talking about; secondly, halfway through the conversation it occurs to me--they have nothing to worry about. Adaptable, resilient, resourceful, Bartertown can come as it pleases, they'll survive and do beautifully. I, on the other hand, have absolutely no skills for Bartertown. I'm too right-brained for any applicable scientific knowledge like how to create energy from methane, have never been big on camping/survival skills (roughing it is one-ply toilet paper), and neither young nor limber enough to make it as a prostitute. Somehow I don't think Bartertown is going to be interested in a dilettante chef or knitter with 15,000 paperbacks who can recite the entire lyrics catalogue to the Beatles' Help album by rote.

If I don't cack it, since I have never actually been young in their eyes perhaps I can prevail on one of them to take pity on Auntie Del and she'll bring me food. It'll make for a good minute-and-a-half scene in the movie.

Her August Majesty, Sublimator

2008-08-05T18:23:00.006-06:00

I recently staged an intervention for myself.

For those in the betting pool, it was not about Trashy Romance Novels, yarn (or its subsequent three-quarters-finished-never-to-be-completed projects, which actually isn't a bad idea either) or my compulsive need to use my refrigerator to house more dairy products than a herd of incredibly dedicated cows from around the world could produce in a fortnight.

Okay, I may have lied about the last one.

Genetically speaking, there's nothing I can do. I come from hearty Icelandic stock, which in point of fact I'm not sure actually has anything to do with dairy. I think living one's heritage at that point includes wearing aquatic fowl as evening wear and putting umlauts over important vowels. Maybe something to do with sheep and yarn, which at least might excuse another of my Very Bad Habits (dealing with yarn, not sheep, filthy-minded people). Also, somebody in the not-so-far-back family line was Danish or Swedish or something, and somewhere the Scottish enter into it with Clan Farquarson, which I think means we fight for the Jacobites, although I'm not sure who they are until I reread Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series later this year, having already missed the local Highland Games for the year.

Anyway, it's still not my fault. Whatever our history, we are a dairy-based people. My great-grandfather handed down a recipe for cream candy. Minus details like INSTRUCTIONS ON HOW TO MAKE IT. For my entire childhood I could count on Thanksgiving tradition, which produced men roaring incomprehensibly at football players on television, Aunt Pat playing the first Christmas carols of the season on a piano while we all sang along, Aunt Jane's divinity, and someone's attempt at cream candy, which could either be chipped from a block or sucked up with a soup spoon, depending on the year. For those who might be wondering, the ingredients are as follows:

Heavy cream

sugar

nuts (optional)

It has a fudge-like consistency, only not gritty or filled with marshmallow fluff. It's quite possibly one of the most magical creations on this earth. I will proudly state here and now, my brother cracked the recipe. In high school, no less, as a thug baby gangsta taking home ec. He can take a rainbow and sprinkle it with dew if he damn well feels like it, for he is the Candyman. Cream candy for everyone, HUZZAH!

So, back to the intervention...

Costco, you see, is the devil's playground. I know, for I cannot escape Costco without at least one item, roughly the size and bodyweight of me. What item, you ask yourself? IT DOESN'T MATTER. IT'S EFFING COSTCO. EVERYTHING THERE IS THE SIZE AND BODYWEIGHT OF ME. I am an impulse buyer, and I am over 30 and live alone. I have no business ever getting anywhere near a 300-hectare store like Costco, because once inside insanity reigns. "It may seem like a lot of olives," I will reason, "But it's only $6.99. That's how much I'd pay for TWO bottles of olives in a regular grocery store. And they are not even a THIRD the size of this bottle!" Never mind that I do not need olives. Never mind that there are so many olives in that bottle that when I die, my mother will place them over my eyes instead of coins. It's in bulk, and it's cheap. Thus is my true American heritage shown in full, vivid, no-place-to-store-olives-in-800-square-feet-of-duplex-but-they-were-$6.99-and-you-can't-beat-that Technicolor.

So, ladies and gentlemen, we approach the Costco cheese aisle.

It used to be easy. Cheddar for 300? No problem. Swiss for a dinner party of 95? Check us out. Slowly they eased us along. Suddenly one could find fresh mozzarella...fresh, mind you, hermetically sealed in its own colostomy bag of mozzarella water. Then it was quarters of parmesan, and a saucy flirtation with feta and maybe a whisper of brie.

Now? SWEET CRUNCHY CRACKER, WHOSE CRISPINESS CANNOT DECIDE WHICH CHEESY GOODNESS WITH WHICH TO BECOME LADEN! What is a person to do?

Pecorino romano...smoked gouda...manchego, Irish Dubliner, emmantaler, jarlsberg, gruyere, even a Tillamook 3-year white cheddar. At prices far more reasonable than one should hope or dream. I was good, I swear it. I had a friend with me who helped me maintain an iron-clad rule: "No more than two cheeses," she reaffirmed after I explained to her what I needed and what was best, although not what I wanted. "You are a single woman. You will die alone, and you will rot faster than the cheese. Do you want those bastards to eat your haloumi?"

"No!" I roared. "Those bastards won't cook it right!"

"EXACTLY!"

"NO MORE THAN TWO CHEESES!" I howled. "I WILL BE GOOD! I WILL BE A RESPONSIBLE CONSUMER!"

"YOU KNOW IT!" she screeched and kicked a passer-by.

And then I saw it.

Neither of us knew what it was, what it would do to us.

We took it home, we read the label. Delice de Bourgogne, it said, Triple creme cheese. Imported from France. "What does that mean?" I wondered. "It means it was imported from France." "Shut up." We set out a crispy French baguette, and planned on an evening with a few friends, watching 30 Rock and having something new and different to eat. "It spreads like butter," I said reverently. "It melts like butter on the tongue. But it tastes like cheese." Thus does crack cocaine look innocuous, thus does the sex addict excuse himself with "just one more go."

It is, quite simply, a reason to live.

It is a reason to die.

It's the reason I give when I break down and cry.

And all of those are the reason that I showed up at work with a delicious snicky-snack in hand.

The entire quarter-wheel didn't make it to lunchtime.

Everyone else is addicted now, too.

Does an intervention count when you are actually the worst influence ever and get everyone else hooked on it as well?

More importantly, when can I get back to Costco to get more?

You're My Angle--Come and Save Me Tonight

2008-07-20T18:42:00.004-06:00

If I could find my senior yearbook, I'd include a particular entry. "Dear Bitch," I believe it opens, "I am your Pig and no one else's..." and so it goes on.

We were many things to one another throughout the course of an ever-evolving relationship; acquaintances, antagonists, significant other, confidante, friend.

We were there for one another.

Except for this time.

I miss you.

Shallow as a puddle and squeaky clean

2008-04-11T22:02:00.016-06:00

The occupants of the bathroom froze.
"WHAT DID HE JUST SAY?!"
"Something about Jesus."
"Shhhh!"
A voice was raised in song: "Hallelujah, Jesus is the God!"
Intense splashing, followed by heavy hammering on the door.
"Shut up in there!"
"I caaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan't," the off-key voice caroled back. "We're having seeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeex!"
"KNOCK IT OFF! There are bubbles coming out from under the door out here!"
"He does this all the time," Rachel hissed. Her bathroom walls started shuddering from the pounding thumping going on downstairs.
"He really sings like that all the time?" I asked, disbelieving.
"Nobody's ever been here before," she said. "Who would believe this?"
The downstairs voice sang something about 'the pooper'.
"Does anyone want a turn sitting on the pooper?" Ryan asked, perched on the toilet.
"Pass!"
"Wheeeeeeeeeeeeere is the butthoooooooooooooole?" echoed from below us.
"Oh, dear God!"
"Just wait," Rachel said, one finger raised. The kitty-corner downstairs neighbors commenced pounding on the downstairs front door, also trying to shut up the horrible caterwauling of Howard-Cosell Gregorian Chant Coitus happening below us.
"I'm the MAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAASTER of the BUUUUUUUUUUBBLES!"

Forty-five minutes later, we finally went to dinner. Neither Rachel nor Ryan nor I could meet one another's eyes. "Let's not have this be like war buddies," they said. "A horrible experience that means you can't be around the other people because it just reminds you of it. Let's use this to keep ourselves close."

I'm not gonna lie. It was a pretty good vacation.

As is requisite in anyone who wants to cultivate a reputation as being introspective but who consistently ruins it by laughing hysterically every time she sees Johnny Weissmuller in a loincloth, I've been making a conscious attempt to change a few things in my life. It's less from the fact that I don't like where I am at the moment than that I won't like where I am if it's exactly the same in, say, five years. Or three, even. Gotta keep evolving, gotta keep changing, gotta aim for that Ayn Rand Pie in the Industrial Grey Objectivist Sky.

Okay, maybe not.

But still, what're you gonna do? I mean, there I was driving back from the middle of nowhere with a friend. "I think I want to get my pilot's license," he announced.
"I'm not goin' up in a plane with you."
"Why not?"
"I'm not Buddy Hollyin' it with you," I said.
"What the hell would you be missing?" he demanded.
"Thanks very much, you just said that nothing in my life is worth living for!"
"Well..." he said, and shrugged.

Bastard.

Of course, this was also the friend who listened to me expressing my thoughts about something, and then said "I can't wait until we're in my car. I can't hear you whine over the engine." (Said engine is located in an early '70's bug with an extremely uncertain temperament.)

But in the interest of redeeming myself as an intellectual after a disgraceful exhibition over said loincloth, and also my inability to hear someone refer to "briefs" without snickering (a definite liability in my chosen career), it does beg the question: What would I miss if I croaked tonight?

I never conquered that red wool jacket I was knitting, with the crackwhore directions that led to one lapel in lapel-correct placement and the other neatly covering my navel. (It's been sitting untouched for almost two months.)

I just figured out what I'm going to do with that gorgeous, not-quite-peacock silk-and-wool combo yarn that I've been treasuring and stroking with Gollum-like devotion for the past six months.

My impending niece, little Delanie Regina (Pronounced Regiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiina, long 'eye' sound)(not her real name, according to her mother), still has not received her kimono ("A kimono for Delanie's what?" smart-mouth coworkers query), nor yet her stripey afghan. ("An afghan for your what?")

The black lace for the sleeves of my hug-me-tight got screwed up and must be redone.

Fine, so far all of that is knitting--"You know you're two cats away from a crazy cat lady," a coworker's husband informed me. Clearly I must needs find more reasons to live than yarn.

...

Well, books. When The Big One hits, that amazing earthquake that rattles down the faultline of the Great Salt Lake and its valley, I will no doubt eventually be found buried in the rubble of 15,000 paperbacks. The thing that will really piss me off, and will lead to my surly ghost kicking around ruins and refusing to rest, is that I won't have finished any of the Important and Mind-Expanding Tomes which I've collected and yet to read; no, no, when I cack it I'll be reading something tremendousy embarrasing, like trashy horror or a burning loins book. Maybe the latest YA fiction novel.

I suppose a truly frivolous person would argue that they haven't had a chance to properly prance about in the new Hall of Shame acquisition (because I cannot afford Anthropologie full price).

But it really does fit me well.

Fine, then. There might be very little in my life that I'd be missing, per se, but it's still my life. I like it.

Barring that as reason enough, there's always eavesdropping on the Master of the Bubbles.

So there.

Lust, Love, and a certain amount of mercenary joy

2008-02-08T15:49:00.000-07:00

I am in love.

No, really.

As at least 2/3 of my close personal acquaintances would have expected, it's with an item, one that requires batteries, no less; but the Kindle? C'MON, WHO CAN'T GET BEHIND THIS?!

As one of those people who frequently gets stopped by airport security (I choose to believe it's due to overwhelming fun personality rather than Code Orange hairdo), there is nothing a) more time consuming, and b) more embarrassing, than dragging out every item contained in one of your carry-ons for airport security to peruse. C'mon, people. I'm over thirty, and I knit. I don't own cats, for the two aforementioned reasons, but we all know it's just a matter of time.

Side note: Don't get me wrong, here. I am a doggie adorer. Max and Snarla will attest to that, despite being parked with grandparents who utterly adore them owing to a ridiculous theater schedule once upon a time. I adore animals of any kind, despite the fact that they excrete and want your time and attention and Touch Your Stuff. I love them more than children, for the simple fact that children only pretend to be independent. Let's face it, any dog in the world shows up on the end of an adoption leash and I am St. Francis of Assisi, ready and able to Run With The Pack, despite an alarming lack of muscle coordination or initiative. Nevertheless, I adore cats. There is something so magnificent in an animal whose every action basically says "If you don't want me to eat you, say something. NOW."

So think about it. Instead of unloading approximately 1,800 yards of the finest mohair in an albeit violating shade of pink (damn you, Favorite Knitting Store ladies, and your math skills that apparently rival my own), an iPod, and six or ten of the latest novels (depending on which one you're in the mood to read), instead you unleash this latest of modern miracles, the Kindle. No more having to pack fewer pairs of underwear or socks for you--you have the Kindle, and that means that umpteen books are literally at your fingertips! The entire concept of airport frequent flyer reading exchange programs fly out the window, because who remembers to bring those particular books back, and anyway who can keep track of a receipt over three or four months?!

(Okay, so if I wanted to be completely and morally accurate I would admit that you still have to unpacck the 1,800 yards of the finest mohair and an iPod, but now you don't follow that up with Michael Chriton, Dean Koontz, and Joanna Linsdsay as their compatriots; at least you stand a chance of pretending that you have something akin to class, which means that nobody knows that you're only reading Nebokhov for the dirty bits, which to this day still creep me out and which thwart me from being a Hipster, since I can't get behind Lolita, no matter how many times I start the novel and think that this time I won't find him to be a total pervert.)

I want a Kindle. I want one so badly that I'd almost sell someone else's vote for it. Of course, having found them (months behind the current electronic trend, of course) they are sold out on Amazon. Once again I choose to believe that the entire world is working against me.

Either that, or little Delanie Regiiiiiiiina (long "I" pronunciation, as is right and proper for a niece's name, no matter whether the mother in question is insisting the child's name is Kylie Jo or no) figured out that if I had a Kindle I'd never get her afghan done.

Clearly, they are all against me.

Mole Vs. Shrew

2008-02-04T17:19:00.000-07:00

At the risk of being one of those creepy people who discuss their medical conditions, this post is centered on the physical rather than the emotional wellbeing. I've had a mole removed, both for looking funny and giving me attitude.

The irony of Delanie-The-Slug-Woman-Tucker having suspicious skin issues is lost on no one, save my family practitioner.

"I take it you're a bit of a sun worshipper?" Mr. Doctor asked.

"Are you kidding me?!" I shrieked. "I haven't seen the sun in twenty effing years! Why would I expose myself to the Evil Day Star? Who do you think I am?! I do not set foot outside without 50 sunblock, a wide-brimmed hat, and a burnoose! I could give vampires pointers on ways to hit the Nordstrom semi-annual sale at high noon in July!"

He just shook his head.

Not only have I been harboring a fugitive growth which my doctor INSISTS is not a teratoma, even though I had a really cute name for it picked out and everything, I also had to have a shot.
I haven't had a shot since I was 19 and in a rollover with my jackass exhusband, who was driving and wound up being ticketed for being a careless driver. (I tried to get them to ticket him for being a jackass as well, but apparently that's not against the law. C'mon, Obama. Give me a grass roots movement I can get behind) Anyway, yes. I am a carrier for tetanus, for polio, for the flu and ebola and, I don't know, TB or something. "You're one of those people who just count on everyone else getting inoculated to cover you from getting diseases, aren't you?" My boss said disgustedly. "Nope. I just don't care if I'm a carrier," I said, and he banned me from his office. Not before I licked a few pens and absconded with his coffee mug, though. (Later I will return to his office and lock it in the filing cabinet. I have taken to locking things in the filing cabinet with no warning or announcement whenever he does something that displeases me. I consider it training. A man who hasn't figured out that whether he knows it or not, he's generally done something to displease a female somewhere in his life isn't helping anyone, particularly himself. "You're the most passive aggressive person I've ever known," he accused, and I denied it pleasantly. Then I locked his reading glasses in the filing cabinet when he went to the bathroom.)
So I had a shot, and the doctor tried valiantly to be a respectful and informative caregiver. I didn't want to know anything about it, and kept telling him so every time he tried to share moments of note with me, important things like when he was trying to inject me, how it would sting, or what he was doing with various sharp implements behind my back. I would have none of it, which meant that when I got back to work looking for sympathy, every time anyone asked me what they did or how long it would take, I was forced to shrug my shoulders and tell them I have no idea. When you can't describe in vivid Technicolor detail exactly what someone in the medical profession did to you, you will find that sympathy is noticeably lacking. Not only that, people will then volunteer their medical stories and it turns into that horrible one-upmanship of who had to have what cyst removed the size of a lemon from their coccyx, and people's cousins whose story always open with "No, you think THAT was bad? Well, my cousin went in and..."

I do volunteer to show them my bacon-strip bandaids, though, which are the only thing that really brings me any joy in life at the moment--despite the fact that I am constantly getting a rash from the adhesive or silicone from bandaids. Who's allergic to bandaids? I ask you?

Not only that, because I keep trying to apply the bandaid to the part that doesn't yet have a rash, I basically have a Star of David rash on my back, caused by bacon strip bandaids.

I am the worst. Jew. EVER.

Anyway, they'll let me know in about a week whether or not I'm a walking carcinogenic bomb of melanoma, which is slightly different than being a walking ball of bitterness and rage at heart in that while both options will kill me, one of them doesn't help me take it out on other people, and where's the fun in that?

My doctor also recommended that I find someone who can check all my appendages regularly for unexplained pigment changes.

"Who do you have on Mole Patrol?" my brother-in-law asked. "Don't you have someone who can check it out and make sure that everything is okay?"

Oh, please. Let's ponder that scenario; I finally, finally, against all odds and current spinsteresque eixstence, get someone to volunteer to inspect my body, and what do I do? I lure them into my seductive web of delights...candles glowing, the sultry sounds of whatever vile Starbucks jazz compilation of the month could be found, legs shaved, the proverbial hydrangeas pruned so that hopefully I will never again hear "So, you ever seen the original drawings in the Joy of Sex?" at a crucial moment...the scene set for the penultimate of romantic interludes...

...And for openers I say "Hey, is this a rash?"

The Who - My Generation (Marquee Club 1967)

2008-01-19T10:39:00.001-07:00

The Who - Substitute

2008-01-17T21:00:00.001-07:00

Keith Moon is, well, the best thing ever. Just watching him ought to burn calories. Nevermind the poncy so-and-so of Roger Daltrey, whom I'd probably punch in the face as long as I didn't actually have to meet him (at that point I'd just pee my pants and turn into the world's worst stalker-esque fan).

Post Apocalyptic Christmas Funk

2008-01-10T18:34:00.000-07:00

I know it's nothing new under the sun, but I loathe January.

Just when I get used to people eating every day like I eat--that is to say, unstintingly and without comments like "How many calories do you think I'm consuming?" or the always popular "This is fat free, right?"--it all comes brutally to an end. With nary so much as a by-your-leave or a here's-just-one-more-box-of-Sees-chocolates-and-I-don't-mean-the-nuts-and-chews-box-either, January hits and suddenly I'm surrounded by these militant diet Nazis who are absolutely determined to take every bit of joy out of everything that has just transpired. So maybe the jeans are a trifle muffin-top-esque; so perhaps that sweater is more Divine than Lana Turner; who does something cold turkey and actually expects it to stick? We all know that New Years resolutions last, on the whole, approximately six weeks, max. After that it's back to the "this isn't on my diet, but it's so good" ouevre.

Until then I am forced to deal with bastard people who claim they won't eat anything not on their New Beach diet. And yet somehow a package of Albertson's chocolate chip cookies were voraciously consumed in under 15 minutes today. Did I say consumed? Perhaps I meant inhaled.

I don't know. It's a hard quandary. If you're going to stay up all night making cinnamon rolls for people, you want people to acknowledge them as the greatest cinnamon rolls of all time. You want them to grovel. You want them to worship. At the very least you are expecting ranting, raving, and the occasional curse word from people who are on a diet but "Just can't help themselves." Somehow it's lessened when you wonder...are they eating the Albertson's cookies because there is nothing else on the horizon, or because they truly are philistines and have no concept of the difference beween the shortening and hairnet crowd, and artistan cinnamon rolls created with the truly magnificent maple-wood rolling pin gifted you for your birthday by one of your Best! Friends! Ever! ?

Does it really matter in the end?

Also, New Years' resolutions suck. It's the penultimate experience of a hairshirt, or maybe drawn-and-quartered with your eyes picked out by corbies. They just serve to make you realize all teh ways in which you are falling down in life and love, and ultimately all you can change about either of those remains internal--which if you really wanted to change you would have before or after, not needing a particular date to think to yourself "Gosh, I'm something of an asshat, perhaps I should rethink my approach toward God and man."

Since New Years' Resolutions have the aforementioned shelf life of approximately 6 weeks, give or take 4 weeks in the offing, I always vote with the Chinese New Year as the time for the traditional "I should change this" plan.

So what am I contemplating this year as far as resolutions, goals, and general ways to better my life?

Regrettably, I am a shallow, shallow person and so all of my goals are equally shallow and vapid. It makes them (a) both easier to achieve; and (b) that much more satisfying, since I can generally meet all of them. New years' Resolutions are sort of the equivalent of deodorant for me; at some point they are going to crap out, and I have to plan for backup if I'm going to make it through the allotted time with my laissez-faire intact. (It's so much easier to judge others than to actually live up to self-actualized expectations.)

Really, I'm not sure yet what I'm intending. Since my work day yesterday consisted of discussing who would be killed and eaten in the event we we suffered a Donner-party snowfall (entirely possible at 9:30 a.m. and utterly ridiculous by 11:00 a.m., how I love this state), I suppose there ought to be at least something career minded included in the list. Perhaps it will be simply not killing the junior attorney, who both deserves it and somehow invites it simply by virtue of existing. Plus he's an asshat, but that's neither here nor there.

Stay tuned, fellow Americans. While almost anything is possible, it's absolutely guaranteed that it won't be a goal to maintain freshly mown Landscaping and Legs. One must be practical, after all; who wants to be that hallowed dreamer?

Billy Mack - Christmas Is All Around

2007-12-22T11:11:00.001-07:00

The Great Cupcake Debacle of '07

2007-10-21T12:30:00.000-06:00

Fall seems to be officially here, with its siren song of crunching leaves and the "Do I need a sweater or don't I?" gamble (which you invariably lose, whichever way you decide. Utah's evil). I enjoy fall. It's nicer than spring in some ways, namely since it lasts slightly longer. I wouldn't be at all surprised to overhear voiced regrets that "I missed spring this year, I was in the shower." So with the onset of fall it means Baking!

I generally avoid baking in the summer where possible, since I don't have central air and am at the mercy of my swamp cooler--no point making the poor darling work twice as hard because it's too hot to eat pastry anyway. Better to save up those Martha Stewart urges for the time of year when you aren't sitting on the sofa with a popsicle under each armpit, and steaks behind your knees, trying to claim that you're simply defrosting them for dinner. No no; baking belongs to the nip in the air, the chill on the wind, the moment when you step out to fetch the milk from the milkbox on the porch and try to curse in six languages at once because you aren't wearing slippers and your feet have let you know that sometimes cold burns, it burns, dammit, and while you're trying to dance from foot to foot and juggle milk, cream, butter, and eggs, you lose your balance and smack down on all fours, which is when your robe sash loosens and you realize that once again you are exposing enough of a boob that you ought to be appearing on a heart-shaped stage and at least then you'd maybe get a couple of bucks for the flash instead of frostbitten hands and knees and some honks from the cars driving down 9th East.*

*The above-referenced situation is entirely hypothetical, since nobody is really that dumb, right? It is in the spirit of the purely hypothetical query, then, that I ask: Why the hell are you honking? Is it a honk of acknowledgement, hey, look at that lady in the Norma Desmond bathrobe exposing herself on this frosty chilly morning? Is it a honk of puns, because your passenger has just said I can actually see the "nip" in the air this morning? Is it a honk of appreciation, Hey, thanks for the boob shot, you've made my morning, lady? Is it perhaps a honk of information, Hey, lady, your boob is hanging out? Because believe me, I KNOW THAT. STOP HONKING. It doesn't help my--er, the hypothetical situation at all, especially if I also realize that in hypothetically struggling to my feet I have also revealed my hypothetical lack of underpinnings and only my incredibly poor reflexes prevent me from hurling a pound of butter after your stupid honking honkey self. Hypothetically.**

**Also, when recounting this Mensa-level hypothetical query, no matter how hard he laughs, it is NOT funny when my brother refers to it as "Hypopathetical."

ANYWAY, in a veritable baking frenzy I have been tackling...the Mighty Cupcake. This requires a little explanation; I'm not really a cake person. I don't eat a lot of them, since they tend to be sickly-sweet, and shortening frosting kind of makes me queasy. I also don't bake cakes well. There are exactly two cakes that I consider myself to have mastered, and both of them are dense, substantial cakes. With booze. Even when you go wrong, a rum cake is still pretty damn fine, and for some reason the chocolate stout cake has never turned on me even once. They are short, stocky cakes, like their maker, and it is good. The cupcake, however, is uncharted territory.

Unfortunately, the blog sites I visit most with something akin to religious fervor are all...well, food sites. I'm a shallow person. I know that. But the magic, the mystery of http://www.cupcakeblog.com/ is very nearly my great undoing as far as suddenly realizing that cupcakes aren't evil little sugar bombs (second only to snack cakes, which Rachel-who-rolls eats with delight and fervor. I still remember the day she convinced me to eat one. Even the mention of them reminds me of a paraffin-coated tongue). They are breathtakingly gorgeous, with flavor combinations that could make a grown man cry like a girl, if the grown man was a lot like me and probably wouldn't cry except that he skinned his knees only that morning from an unfortunate frozen porch incident.

I've been tackling the basic chocolate cupcake recipe, figuring that chocolate is the food of the gods anyway and most variations on chocolate are the ones I'd want to make and eat. It's a simple, straightforward recipe.

I can't get it to work.

I don't know what I do. I scrupulously follow the directions, I create the delectable batter, I fill the cupcake papers, I put them in the oven, and then they perform their act of betrayal. They puff and then fall, I have a dozen little mini-souffles giving me the hairy eyeball. I tried it twice, figuring maybe the first time I'd forgotten something important. No go. I Got Angry and Did Research. The Cupcake Mistress lives in San Francisco, obviously a much different altitude than Ye Aulde Zion; so it would require some adjustment. Did you know that everyone says something different about how to adjust for altitude in baking? You should add more flour. You should add less flour and increase liquid. You should add another egg, so the protein will help the delicate dainty cake withstand the lack of air pressure. You should decrease the leavening agent. You should bake it at a different temperature, and for different times. No shrinking violet I, I have decided to use the Scientific Method to figure out what will actually work.

The first step was to print out the recipe, distribute it to coworkers, and tell them if they didn't try this recipe to see if it worked for them they would be fired. Following that gross misuse of supervisor power, I retired to my house this weekend to continue the Great Experiment.

Adding more flour didn't work.

Reducing the leavening agent failed to produce results.

On the roster for today: Adding MORE flour AND less leavening agent. Then when that fails, making the recipe exactly as called for, but adding another egg.

In a fit of pique, though, I did make an apricot couronne (go here for the recipe: http://www.tartelette.blogspot.com/). It was fantastic, and I may have to make another one to take in to work (ostensibly to apologize for my high-handed cupcake autocracism [is that a word?], but we all know I'm not really sorry). Also, James the Archaeologist has gotten me thinking about an apple-curry pie...initially I was toying with mixing curry in with the apples and baking, but another thought was making a sweet curry ice cream and serving the pie with that instead of vanilla. So many options, so little time.

Days of Swine and Hoses

2007-08-15T18:35:00.000-06:00

There are pork chops marinating in my fridge. Delicious, healthily pink, succulently nestled into their sea of rosemary-mustardy-garlicky-goodness, pork chops. They have been a meal in the making for two days, counting defrosting and marinating time. They are beautiful. They are good for me. They're right there, just waiting to be pan seared and baked.

I'm not gonna eat 'em and you can't make me.

It's one of those weeks that begin with a bang and end with a whimper, usually yours, because a whimper is all you can manage after the thousand natural shocks which flesh is heir to have finally wound down (I think it's a Taser). It's one of those weeks where had been smart I would have followed my initial instincts and hunkered down under the duvet, armed with trashy fiction and a beer hat filled with Bavarian cream filling from donuts on one side and Diet Coke on the other. I should have taken the time to ponder; I might have finally gotten started on that comprehensive list of my superpowers (does being really, really crabby count? Like, if it's uber-crabby, and so uber that there is even an umlaut over both the u and the a?).

But no. I ignored all of those baser instincts and emerged from my cocoon, reasoning that sloths don't have cocoons and so neither should I. I sallied forth into the world ready to meet the universe; but the universe had been training while I was still trying to find that other goddam black peep toe pump, and the universe kneed me in the soft bits and then rabbit-punched me in the kidneys while I was still bent over holding myself and muttering "No, really, that's okay, I'm sure it was an accident."

Stupid universe.

And it's only Wednesday. It's Wednesday, and I have already suffered the equivalent of an emotional bastinado, performed with rubber hoses to Elton John's Greatest Hits. And for no reason whatsoever; but they are all against me. I can feel it. It's a hundred degrees out there, this afternoon as I realized that while I could answer yet another question about procedure what I really wanted to do was staple something to my coworker's face, and I'm wearing a pair of pants that are of the "Well, they weren't this tight last year but the hell with it" variety. (Don't judge. At least I'm wearing pants.) I could go for a pound of bacon, but then the house and my hair would smell of bacon, and I am Not Emotionally Equipped to deal with that. I could read a book, but I don't want to. I could take a bath, but it's just not worth the effort. And then I'd have to put on pants again. I could knit, which I probably ought to do, but again a sulky malaise has crept over me. I have tired of licking the salt and vinegar off the potato chips and then discarding the used and slightly soggy remaining chip. If I were four I'd probably need to be spanked and set down for a nap.

What brought it on? What? How is it that you can have the work mojo flowing, a good hair day, throw on a pair of jeans and find that you don't muffin top out of them, and in a matter of days have it all be ashes, ashes? Why can I cheerfully, sweetly answer every question put to me at work and the next day discover that they are asshats to a man? How can I take offense at a pork chop because I'm pretty sure it was giving me the stinkeye, and bitterly crunch my way through breakfast cereal served directly from the box, because that will effing show them all? How can I realize almost twelve hours before the event that I would rather be anally probed by a rabid monkey on steroids than have to suffer through another workday surrounded by suckholes who don't realize that I deserve chocolate, new shoes, a pound of bacon, decent hair, a massage, and a nap, as well as absolutely anything else I could possibly want at a moment's notice, with the right to not have to want it after I get it? How can I so easily abandon my mantra in trying to recognize my limitations ("I can't kill everyone") to the earlier and yet far more satisfying "I WILL KILL ALL OF YOU!!!!!"

I could do it, too. Maybe I'm not a planner, but I have a basement full of crap and parents who live in rural Nevada. Just try me, buddy. Just try and see! You'll be getting a beating with a rubber hose all your own, and I'll wear earplugs and YOU will have to listen to the whistle of the hose and the whine of knowing that you're getting beaten by a Tiny Dancer, indeed. Yeah, THAT'S RIGHT.

And just when I have worked myself into primal, feral, monkey-screech levels of rage, I suddenly do some mental calculations, and realize that it will be okay soon. No, really. Maybe every single person I know in the entire world isn't an asshat. I am just in the grip of that deadly superpower, the PMS Avenger. Hunker down, pray for daylight, and this too shall end.

Not before I spend a week killing off a kidney jacked up on ibuprofen and aleve...but it will end.

Stupid, stupid universe.

I'm still not eating those pork chops.

Don't ask me how I'm doin'...

2007-07-31T23:00:00.000-06:00

Sometimes moments come together and are as close to perfect as you could make them without actually getting anything that you wish or that would make you really happy.

Ryan Adams concert tonight. Perfect weather, great sound, fantastic friends, the kind of night that makes you wish you were a musician yourself so that you could participate. One of my friends couldn't make it although we had planned this for quite a while, and I felt bad for him; life so often is fraught with the agony of "I Couldn't" or "It's Beyond My Control," when the truth is we make our decisions on who we are and how we respond to others. As my mom so often told me, you can't control how others behave, all you can do is control how you react to it. And so tonight was...well, not an epiphany, but a confirmation, I suppose. Our lives may not be what we wish them to be, perhaps our jobs aren't as fulfilling as we might hope, our knitting may have caused us to cry and throw the needles across the room on Sunday after dropping a stitch and you're going to have to start that effing thing over again for the fifth time, maybe our lives still don't contain that special person that you wanted to be there, but so long as you are able to find joy where you can, it can still be a pretty good world. Not great, mind, but pretty good--which were the words of anonther friend whom I ran into, as he summed up the concert.

I ate my ham and cheese and sugar-cookie takeout from the Paradise Cafe and simply appreciated the fact that I got to be there. I suppose it could always be a lot worse.

I'm Your Man (Eater)

2007-07-18T17:59:00.000-06:00

Being one of those Netflix type people, I recently received a copy of the long-awaited Leonard Cohen's "I'm Your Man" documentary. I don't know how you could make the music of Leonard Cohen boring, Bono a pompous ass, and yet Rufus Wainwright still sucked (that much we know to be true), but this thing managed to do all of that and so much more. Not one interesting thing was told to me about Leonard's life; I did, however, get to listen to the caterwauling of a bunch of Snow Monkeys (Canadians?) performing what they purported to be Leonard Cohen songs.

Now, the average person is going to argue that Leonard is no kind of a singer, and this I might grant you, personal taste being what it is. But these people...these...suckholes of talent, if you will, took an admittedly simple tune and made it completely execrable. If Morrissey got really, really, really drunk and had a night of wild passion with Herb Alpert and his entire Tijuana Brass, with vocals dubbed by that old lady from church choir whose vibrato is only matched by her wattle, then maybe it could communicate just a part of what kind of feculent ear-raping was going on. Even Nick Cave looked like he didn't want to be there. I didn't blame him. I didn't want to be there, either, and it was just the first performance in.

So I was mad, and I sulked, for I had long awaited the coming of this documentary. I even watched the trailers for other shows--U.S. vs. John Lennon I've seen and it was great, but then they had this one about the Bear Guy, and that set me off all over again.

The Bear Guy is some shmuck who spent his life crawling around with the bears and talking to them like he was potty training them, as near as I can tell. I simply don't understand these people. They swim with sharks, and talk about how "amazing" it is. They insist on rubbing up with dangerous creatures for the sake of the thrill, or the beauty of being "as one" with them, or whatever. Being as one with a shark? Yeah, right. They are animals, they are fish, they are predators. Basically what you're doing is desensitizing these animals' fear of humans and are showing them that they could probably eat you.

And the Bear Guy got eaten. Quelle surprise. I always wonder, do you really think you're fooling the animals? "Oh, the wolves have clearly accepted me as one with their pack." I always picture it going like this:

(Early morning. The bears get up. One bear nudges another.)

"Hey, there's that asshole that thinks he's a bear. Let's eat him."

And there is the one mellow bear who responds with "Aw, c'mon, guys, he's not hurting anything. Just leave him alone."

One morning, though, they get up and the bears look around and nudge each other.

"Hey, there's that asshole that thinks he's a bear. Let's eat him."

And they look around, but that philanthropic bear has stepped out to check the fastenings on his panty girdle, and since there is no objection, they eat the asshole that thinks he's a bear.

End of story.

I'm just sayin'.

The Shat sings Common People

2007-07-06T22:37:00.001-06:00

Probably one of the most satisfying things in the entire world.

The man who would be exploited

2007-07-05T18:11:00.000-06:00

So my friend Jeff has been working on a series of paintings of princesses from fairy tales. One of my favorite things about him is that he doesn't go for the highly sanitized, ever-so-Disneyized versions of the stories (not that there's anything wrong with Disney, mind, it's part of my childhood and that was before we saw the Return of Jafar III straight-to-video fodder. Those were the Good Old Days, my friend, yes indeedy). Not for nothing is he a Bad Man, not one to shy away from a less savory and more accurate retelling of the story. This one is The Little Mermaid.

I always loved this story; I find tragedies to be my masochistic fascination. Why the hell didn't she write it down and tell the prince what was going on? I always wondered. If it were ME, I certainly wouldn't smile and let myself be martyred. I'd TELL him how I felt. If he was gonna marry that princess anyway, then at least I'd know and wouldn't feel so bad about stabbing him through the heart. At least the issues would be clear and nobody would be left saying "Gosh, if only..."

I don't think I'm genetically coded for martyrdom. Silent Suffering is Not A Strong Suit for the women in my family. This is probably an upbringing issue, since my mother was of the opinion that effective communication was the key to parenting. When she was mad, we knew exactly what kind of dilholes we had been, and why, and what she thought of us. The neighbors knew, too. As a drama teacher, she had excellent projection.

This need to tell people things is also probably the reason why I will not be a heroine in a classic novel anytime soon, either. When Newland Archer stopped by for an evening, I'd probably look at him and say "So...what are you trying to do, here?" Jane Austen's protagonists faint and suffer and cry; at no point does one of them, upon seeing the man of her dreams who has broken her heart at a party, say "What the hell is WRONG with you?!" And it is absolutely guaranteed that nowhere in any of Hesse's canon of works will you find someone yelling "You want to know what I think? YOU REALLY WANT TO KNOW?! WELL, I'LL TELL YOU EXACTLY HOW I FEEL..." Subtlety is a lost art on me, I'm afraid. As is tragedy.

So life can suck, accidents can happen, but rest assured if I'm stabbing a prince through the heart to let his blood fall on my feet to turn me back into a mermaid, it's not because I didn't do my best to communicate with him.

Reflections on a midsummer holiday

2007-07-04T01:05:00.000-06:00

Another day, another holiday, only this time without adventure. July 4th has never been a personal favorite; I like fireworks, but I hate crowds. My tradition is generally to celebrate the day by staying inside and not watching parades or attending festivals. Then I watch "The Sandlot", because it is cheesy and straightforward and also the closest thing to a baseball game I ever wish to approach, and when the fireworks start I go stand in the street and watch the tops of the trees for the colored glimmering. Sure, it may sound a little isolated...perhaps a titch boring...maybe a trifle sad, and did we hear someone voicing a "pathetic" way back there on aisle six?

Well, as Surly is constantly heard to mutter, "Better alone and pathetic than in a crowd and pathological." There is nothing to strike cranky irritation into the heart of a curmudgeon quite like the thought of the Asshat Brigade forming ranks and having a street fair. Add to that the magic of being out at all in the Evil Daystar with its melanoma-producing rays scorching ala-effing-baster, not slugbelly white, you ahole, skin and, well, let's instead choose to ponder something pleasant, like the time I shut my nose in a car door.

Anyway, it's a midweek holiday and since I am picking my parents up from the airport in the afternoon, not a chance of going anywhere and doing anything. Since I spent last weekend in Idaho Falls, which is kind of like not going anywhere and doing anything only doing it three hours from home, I don't mind so much. Besides, I'm just not emotionally equipped yet for a big trip. Things happen. Prime example from the San Fran trip diary:

2:20 p.m., Wells, Nevada: Opinions given regarding Nevada and its general appearance and appeal to the world at large (nil). I attempt to defend the state by and large, but am voted down despite a heartwarming marketing idea for a line of t-shirts that read "Nevada: it may be a hole, but it's my hole."

8:21 p.m., BART Station by the Orpheum: Am accosted by a transsexual sporting a turban, bared breast, and eleven o'clock shadow who wants four quarters for a dollar and then to read my palm. When I desist s/he fixes me with a stare not seen outside of The Exorcism of Emily Rose and, just as the snot begins to pour from nose to chin, informs me in Highly Colorful and Extremely Graphic phrasing that Satan is going to rape me and I need to get the devil out of my bed.

11:43 p.m., Drake Hotel: The devil in my bed is, apparently, the box of crackers I was eating and just knocked over. No good will come of this.

I'm just sayin'. Sometimes it's just better to shut the door, turn on the movie, and wait for the sulfuric pop of patriotic brouhaha to begin without you.