waiting for the miracle

i take it back, this might be cuter

2009-07-25T11:04:00.000-07:00

When my daughter Caroline was three she came to me with a small wooden box in her small hands and said, "Guess fwat is in this bockus!" I guessed caterpillars, mice, elephants, etc. She shook her head, smiled an unspeakably eldritch smile, opened the box slightly so that I could just see in, and said: "Darkness."

Hence this story.

- Ursula K. LeGuin, introducing her story "Darkness Box" in The Wind's Twelve Quarters

holy crap

2009-07-21T00:23:00.000-07:00

Nothing cuter than this has ever happened in the history of the world.

in which i employ my ample literary criticism skills in the worthy endeavor of close reading crappy political cartoons

2009-07-16T23:14:00.000-07:00

Check out the above cartoon by Bill Bramhall (of the New York Daily News) aimed at Senator Kirsten Gillibrand for going over her allotted time at the Sotomayor hearings. Is that, or is that not, a disturbingly misogynistic cartoon?

New York NOW President Marcia Pappas notes (that link sucks, but it's the best I could find in the thirty seconds I had to spend) that "Bramhall’s phallic symbols send a clear message that women are good for only one thing." I rather think the message is that women aren't "good for" anything at all. But it's certainly no accident that the phrases being referenced here are "put a cork in it" and "put a sock in it" (and just look at that sock, seriously). Even the hook appears to be pointed at Gillibrand's mouth rather than poised to be used the traditional cartoony way, to yank her offstage. The gag is the least phallic of the objects, but it is certainly a violent one. It's also difficult to miss the screaming symbolism of that enormously gaping and yet oddly toothless mouth, at which all of those phallic symbols -- the cork, the sock, the hook, and the gag -- are pointed by male hands. (There are even boxes of corks, socks, and gags sitting around too, as if to suggest that one of each might not suffice to fill that maw.)

Now take a look at Gillibrand's facial expression. She could be looking at the microphone, but she also could be looking apprehensively at the hook, which is very near her face and in her eyeline. Either way, she does not look self-satisfied or smug, as you'd expect from a politician who likes the sound of her own voice a bit too much. In fact, she looks like she can't even control that cavernous mouth, which is opened wide enough to swallow all of those phallic objects pointed at it. Gillibrand's apparent lack of control over her own anatomy suggests that the point of the cartoon is not so much that, as a politician, Gillibrand enjoys the sound of her own voice excessively -- but rather that, as a woman, she simply can't control her runaway mouth (a nasty stereotype about women which has been thoroughly debunked, by the way). As a matter of fact, she looks scared by the objects being thrust at her, and yet unable to close her mouth to keep them from entering it. This suggestion is reinforced by the fact that there doesn't appear to be any reason for her mouth to be open, since she doesn't even get a speech balloon as her male colleague does -- despite the fact that the entire conceit of the cartoon is that she talks too much.

The bottom line is that this image is extremely suggestive of sexual violence. But at the Daily Cartoonist, many commenters don't agree, insisting that cartoonists make fun of all kinds of politicians for talking too much and this is just more of the same. Two of them link to examples of other cartoons about loud-mouthed politicians, one of Joe Biden and one of Mark Sanford. So let's do a close reading, shall we?

Like the Gillibrand cartoon, the cartoon of Biden (by a different cartoonist) shows a number of objects pointed at him which are designed to shut him up, including a hook; but there the similarities end. His mouth is not gaping, as Gillibrand's is. On the contrary, he is grinning toothily. Just compare his manic toothiness and relatively small mouth opening to Gillibrand's toothless, gaping maw. Most importantly, although there is violence implied by most of the objects coming at Biden, it is not sexualized violence. None of those objects are meant to go into his mouth to shut him up, they're simply meant to drag him offstage. And of course Biden also gets a speech balloon to, you know, demonstrate the actual point of the cartoon.

The Sanford cartoon is more relevant to the discussion than the Biden cartoon, as it's also drawn by Bramhall. It features the same gaping and toothless mouth as the Gillibrand cartoon, and there are also phallic objects pointed in the direction of Sanford's mouth; but those objects are microphones -- objects meant to receive the words coming out of his mouth, not violently cut them off. Nothing here is meant to go into his mouth or to shut him up. Nor are the microphones as close to his mouth as some of the objects in the Gillibrand cartoon, nor does Sanford look frightened or out of control of his mouth as Gillibrand does. Sanford is also making an active speech. He even gets an active pose, pointing his own phallic symbol (his finger) at a woman whom, he says, he "got to first base with." Despite the gaping mouth, despite the phalluses pointed at his face, and despite the superficially similar subject (mockery of a politician's verbal diarrhea), this cartoon could not be more different from the Gillibrand cartoon.

The Gillibrand cartoon is close enough to the way other wordy politicians are portrayed for plausible deniability, and the Washington Post's readers are clearly buying the cover story -- a poll there currently has 61% agreeing that "this is clearly a case of fair comment" and only 38% saying that "satire or no, the cartoon crosses the line." (Incidentally, this cartoon has sweet fuck-all to do with "satire" under any reading. Dictionaries, people.) Online polls at the Washington Post are the dumbest of all the possible dumb things for me to spend my time being upset about, so I'm going to try and let this one go now that I've spent an hour writing a blog post about it. But I maintain that the only time you'd see a cartoon of a male politician in which male hands were thrusting phallic and/or violent objects at/into his gaping mouth with the explicit intention of violently shutting him up is if the politician was gay. (Which, if I need to say it, would also be completely unacceptable.)

2009-05-28T12:22:00.000-07:00

Mr. J.S. Mill, in the year of our FSM 1869:

It is a political law of nature that those who are under any power of ancient origin, never begin by complaining of the power itself, but only of its oppressive exercise. There is never any want of women who complain of ill usage by their husbands. There would be infinitely more, if complaint were not the greatest of all provocatives to a repetition and increase of the ill usage. It is this which frustrates all attempts to maintain the power but protect the woman against its abuses. In no other case (except that of a child) is the person who has been proved judicially to have suffered an injury, replaced under the physical power of the culprit who inflicted it. Accordingly wives, even in the most extreme and protracted cases of bodily ill usage, hardly ever dare avail themselves of the laws made for their protection: and if, in a moment of irrepressible indignation, or by the interference of neighbors, they are induced to do so, their whole effort afterwards is to disclose as little as they can, and to beg off their tyrant from his merited chastisement.

If Mill, 140 years ago, understood why abused women don't leave their abusers immediately, why is it so hard for us to understand this today? No, women who have attempted to make claims of abuse are not forced to move back in with their abusers today; but they are without question "replaced under the physical power of the culprit" since restraining orders are useless even if the police would enforce them strictly. And shelters for abused women -- the only way many women have to avoid remaining "under the physical power of the culprit" -- are constantly struggling to stay open.

I don't really have a point, other than "how can things have changed so little in 140 years?" So here's a doggy. Don't I always reward you for sticking with me?

an open letter to all drivers

2009-03-13T14:26:00.000-07:00

To those of you out there lucky enough to be able to afford a car and/or unlucky enough to absolutely require one in order to get around:

It is, indeed, your responsibility to check ALL lanes of traffic you are crossing before crossing them. Yes, that includes pedestrian lanes of traffic. No, it is not my responsibility as a pedestrian to peer into your tinted windows to make sure that you have bothered to do so. Even if I could see clearly into your car, I would be completely unable to tell for sure whether you'd seen me; I've had people I thought I made eye contact with nearly run me over seconds later, and I've had people I thought hadn't seen me get irritated when I didn't go ahead.

If I do start crossing the street when you haven't bothered to look in my direction at all, and you therefore drive out in front of me when I'm two feet from your car, please do not turn your car around to come back and scream at me about how I should have been looking. I was looking. I guarantee I didn't miss your car sitting there. It was just my right to go first. Would you whip your car around to scream at the driver of another car that you almost hit because you hadn't bothered to check all lanes of traffic the way you were supposed to? You don't get to cut off a person who has the right of way just because you know they run a greater risk in asserting their rights than you do in taking their rights from them (since a traffic accident could seriously injure or kill them but wouldn't be likely to hurt you).

I realize that to anyone who doesn't have to walk 1-2 miles on city streets every single day, this probably sounds like I'm overreacting. But try nearly getting killed or maimed for following traffic laws a couple of times a day. I once nearly got hit by four different cars as I crossed one two-lane street, in the crosswalk, when I had the right of way (I had waited for the couple of cars that got there before I did to go through the intersection before entering the crosswalk, and I had thought everyone waiting at the stop sign had seen me).

This kind of thing is not just an inconvenience. Having to walk all the way around behind and through the exhaust fumes of a car that has pulled out of a driveway onto the sidewalk in front of me is an inconvenience (a significant one for a person who is sensitive to exhaust fumes, and one I shouldn't have to go through a half-dozen times a day or more, but still just an inconvenience). Having cars nearly hit me, having no way to avoid that without making my commute take twice as long and even then no sure way to keep it from happening (because at least half the time it happens when I'm crossing in a crosswalk with the light in my favor) -- that's a hazard, and goddamn it, it's a fucking injustice.

This kind of shit bothers me so much because it's part of a continuum of behavior in which people with money,* people with privilege of all kinds, consider that it's the responsibility of a person without privilege to make sure she gets out of their way when they feel like speeding through an intersection without bothering to look. Even entitled grade-A assholes in beemers don't drive out in front of other vehicles whenever they feel like it, because other vehicles pose a threat to their precious Compensationmobiles. But all kinds of people routinely drive out in front of me as if I didn't even exist, and when I complain that it's my right of way, they laugh at me, or they tell me I should go out of my way to walk behind them and through their exhaust fumes, or they flip me off, or they otherwise treat me like I'm trying to take something away from them that's rightfully theirs when it's the other way around.

In a sane world, people with more power -- vehicular, financial, sexual, racial, political, whatever -- would not get to do whatever the fuck they felt like to people with less power. This is why we have traffic laws that protect pedestrians in the first place. This is why we have laws that prohibit corporations from stealing from their shareholders and their employees. It's why we have impeachment laws. It's why we have anti-rape laws. Fuck, it's why we have anti-murder laws. Walking down the street isn't supposed to be a free-for-all in which a person armed with a dangerous weapon gets to threaten me and make me give up my rights.**

It is the responsibility of any person or group of people with power to make sure that they don't hurt those with less power. Period. I would have thought that doing so was more important than grabbing those extra five seconds you don't want to lose by letting me have the goddamn right of way I'm legally entitled to, but apparently not.

-------------------------------------------
*I don't by any means assume that all people who own cars have more money than me; I am relatively economically privileged, not least because I live in a city where the bus service is good (and is cheap for me because I'm a student) and I therefore have the option of choosing not to stretch my income to the breaking point in order to buy a car. I stress money here because, even though it's a stereotype, it is absolutely true that the person, say, flipping me off for daring to cross the street after my light turned green because he wanted to run his own red light to make a turn in front of me, is more likely to be driving a BMW or a Mercedes or a Corvette or some other ridiculously expensive car. And, I might add, male. The more kinds of privilege you have, the more likely you are to feel entitled to take what you want from those who already have less than you. For example, my former (white, male, well-off) boss once told me that whenever he was driving and wanted to switch lanes, he just looked over at who was driving in the lane he wanted to be in, and if it was "a gal or an Asian," he would cut them off without a second thought. Conversely, the more underprivileged groups you belong to, the more likely you are to be taken advantage of in any given way. As a woman, I may not get cut off by drivers any more than male pedestrians do, but I suspect that I get more negative reactions when I try to assert my rights. And, of course, I run more risk in trying to assert my rights, to male drivers in particular, just as a Hispanic pedestrian would run more risk in trying to assert her/his rights to a white driver.

**Just to be 100% clear, I understand that my issues with drivers are so minor they're ridiculous compared to problems like rape, murder, misogyny, racism, etc. My point is that all of these behaviors grow from the same root cause: unacknowledged privilege.

staying positive!

2009-03-12T23:38:00.000-07:00

Papers. Finals. Papers. Finals. (My sister. My daughter.) I have a paper that was initially due tomorrow, but for which I have an extension until Monday, which is a good thing, because I have yet to even read through the paper topics. I have a final in a week that will consist of three straight hours of writing. It's from 4-7 pm. Then the professor wants us to stay afterwards and watch a really depressing three-hour movie, which isn't actually French, but ought to be.

But whatever. Things are tough all over. Here are two stories about people/creatures fighting the patriarchy, because I'm trying a new thing on, and it's called Staying Positive:

Bristol Palin makes the very, very smart decision not to marry a guy she would probably hate in two years.
A raccoon takes a bite out of rape culture.*

Have a lovely evening, everyone. When I die from writers' cramp around 5:30 next Thursday evening, be sure to note at my funeral that I was always so full of life.

*If I weren't so completely committed to this "Staying Positive" project, I'd point out rather bitterly that apparently it's okay to use the word "rape" in a headline when the victim is an animal, but when the victim is a woman it's "sex" or, if we're lucky, "'rape.'" Fortunately, I didn't say any of that out loud. Right?

guess where i'm blogging from?

2009-02-19T23:38:00.001-08:00

My iphone. Yep, I'm that kind of person now. The kind of person who, upon suddenly recalling the existence of her blog after having spent the past several months drinking the waters of blog-Lethe [Ed.: holy cow do I need writing practice], immediately looks for an iphone blogging app instead of walking into the other room and turning on the computer.

The iphone and I are very happy together.

In other news, life proceeds apace. Professors and T.A.s alike find me brilliant. People are attracted to my many attractive qualities. I've learned how to speak to dolphins. My pony has free wifi, so I get great surfing speeds on the old iphone whilst cantering through all those soft-focus meadows.

How's everyone else?

a story in pictures

2009-01-29T16:42:00.001-08:00

Something's... different...

gobsmacking misogyny of the day

2008-11-15T01:41:00.000-08:00

Other than Bush's douchebaggery, that is.

That is an advertisement encouraging men to become organ donors so that they can then look down from heaven and jerk off to terminally ill women being cut open to receive their throbbing organs. Hot.

(from here)

and now it's on the internet

2008-10-06T22:56:00.000-07:00

I expect men with machine guns to knock on my door any day now.

You are a Social Liberal
(86% permissive)
and an... Economic Liberal
(6% permissive)

You are best described as a:
Socialist

Link: The Politics Test on Ok Cupid

(Thanks, Shosh)

sarah palin

2008-10-05T19:14:00.000-07:00

is either stupid or dishonest, or both. I'm guessing both in some kind of doublethink way -- she wants to insist that women are obligated by virtue of their ovaries to support her and therefore has to change the quote; then she's too stupid to think the word-switch matters in any fundamental way even though she ought to realize it does because she just had to make the word-switch in order to make the quote mean what she wanted it to. I'd call her a fucktard, if that wouldn't be offensive to mentally handicapped people in any number of ways.

Sigh. It doesn't matter why she did it. I'm just so, so tired of this election, and seeing Sarah Palin make a mockery of feminism makes me sick to my stomach. Can't she and McNasty just lose al-fucking-ready?

lesson of the day

2008-10-03T00:21:00.000-07:00

Never, under any circumstances, should you engage with reactionary douchebags on your friend's brother's Facebook wall.

And you should especially not email them after you've been asked to stop posting on said friend's brother's Facebook wall in order to make one last point about what fucking lying bigoted douchey lie-bags they are. Why? Well, because it will get you nothing but a copy of some document called the "Defining Principles of Conservatism."

Regrets. I has them.

p.s.

2008-10-02T23:00:00.000-07:00

Obama may have followed you on Twitter and given you a puppy, but just remember that John McCain has an extra gallon of windshield washer fluid if you need it.

also

2008-10-01T23:46:00.000-07:00

I am becoming more and more convinced that John McCain chose Sarah Palin as his running-mate just to make women look stupid and set back the cause of feminism by fifty years.

And that is all the political discussion I have in me right now.

petty complaint of the day

2008-10-01T23:27:00.000-07:00

How many of y'all out there are women? Great. And how many of y'all carry bags of one kind or another around to most places you go? Uh-huh. And how many of y'all ever have to use public restrooms? That's what I thought. So how many of y'all have encountered the problem where there is no fucking place to put your bag in the restroom stall other than the filthy floor on which 20,000 undergraduates have pissed in the past 24 hours, because the hook on the inside of the stall door is broken and no one has bothered to replace it?

Men, do you have any idea how hard it is to try to hold up a skirt, keep yourself and any part of your clothing from touching any part of the horrible toilet, take a piss, and then, you know, wipe your ass, all the while trying to balance a bag (especially a large one full of books) on your shoulder or lap or any other locale that will prevent it from picking up any strain of the herpes simplex virus?

This business about the broken stall hooks is one of those things that seems really minor until you have to deal with it three or four times a day with a bag you're already having trouble holding up when you're not trying to perform three different intimate tasks at once. Men's ability to pee standing up remains the only thing about being a man I have ever envied. Well, aside from all that sweet respect for their humanity and recognition of their abilities that they automatically come in for once their balls drop.

also

2008-09-28T11:25:00.000-07:00

Barack Obama not only didn't oppress you, he even built you a robot.

i love it

2008-09-27T11:07:00.001-07:00

Not very many days, though.

my two-year-old nephew wishes me a happy birthday

2008-09-23T23:36:00.000-07:00

For those who don't speak Spanish, in the middle there that's my sister instructing him to kiss me, then him making kissy "ma!" noises.

I'm struck dumb by cuteness, so I'll just say that despite being sick today (which is spectacularly bad timing, since things are crazy at work and school starts day after tomorrow), I had a pretty good birthday. My boy gave me a shiny new ipod (my old one died like a month ago) and baked me not one but *two* pumpkin pies (and sang to me); I got lovely presents from friends; and the office sexist even took me to lunch and was civil (though he did make a point of telling me what a good driver his wife is -- an unspoken reference to our last argument in which he declared to me and my female co-worker that all women are bad drivers, except the two of us, he didn't know how well the two of us drive and couldn't speak to that).

Yes, that was my version of being struck dumb. And now it's time for bed. I'm in my 30s now, and I'm pretty sure the bylaws prohibit me staying up past midnight.

braaaaaaains

2008-09-20T09:34:00.000-07:00

Well, I still don't have a brain tumor. What I do have is more pictures of my brain to share.

I find this one amusing, mostly because you can totally see right up my nose.
In this one, it looks like my brain has a butt. (Also, look how crooked my nose is.)
And this one is just creepy.
Woo. I feel like earlier I had witty and interesting things I wanted to say, but now I can't find them again in my brain -- which, although (as you can see) it is very handsome and also tumor-free, is not functioning optimally today. So perhaps bullet points are in order. Apologies if I'm not as witty as usual (ahem, ahem).

In addition to not having a tumor, I also do not have any infection or inflammation or anything else identifiable from an MRI. The neurologist is, therefore, returning to his previous diagnosis of "atypical migraine." Whatever it is, the medication he gave me seems to have actually made a significant improvement -- I can now scratch my head when I get an itch, for instance -- although it's a little worse again this morning, so I'm just remaining cautiously optimistic. I do believe it's the medication that's making me dumb, but I'll take dumb in exchange for being able to wash my hair.
The neurologist (who I'm not crazy about) tells me lots of little irrelevant stories. On Thursday he told me about one of his college admissions interviews. Then, later, after making some sidelong comment about my purse that I didn't quite catch, he informed me that his best friend is a man who carries a purse. Then he very quickly explained that he's not feminine, at all, no, and it doesn't look like a woman's purse or anything. He repeated this at least three times, then informed me pointedly that the man has six grandkids. Dude! I don't care whether your best friend is a fag* or not.
Also in the medical vein (heh heh... oh god I hope my brain starts working again soon): my dentist sent me a birthday postcard. It has multi-colored toothbrushes on it. This makes me very happy.
Moving on: the Idler and I went to a concert on Sunday night, for the first time in a year (I think literally). Grant-Lee Phillips at Soho. It was a very laid-back show, not much of a crowd, and the tables were out so we had seats and no tall guys came and stood in front of me. Grant (yes, we're on a first-name basis; I've known the guy since high school, after all) was quite charming and funny, and he played "Honey Don't Think," which, even if the rest of the evening had sucked, would have made the show for me. After we'd been sitting at our table for about 15 minutes, the Idler leaned over to me and asked, "Is that Glen Phillips (also an old acquaintance of mine) at the table next to us?" Reader, it was. (Although I would never have recognized him; to me he just looked like... a guy. This is probably why despite having lived in L.A., Hollywood, and Santa Barbara for the past 13 years, I have yet to see a single famous person.) Eventually Grant called Glen up to play with him, and they played "Happiness," and they played "All I Want," and hearing the songwriters of two bands that got me through high school together on stage playing the songs that got me through high school -- well, it just warmed the cockles of my heart. And I didn't even know I had cockles.
I bought a Flowbee and I'm going to cut all my hair off. Initially I was planning to do it because of how my head would hurt when I even brushed my hair out of my face, but now I'm just going to do it for shits and giggles. And because I hate going to the salon.

Now I'm off to the Planned Parenthood book sale. Yay!

* Term used because I suspect it's how he thinks of gay men, not because it's how I think of gay men. For the record.

the cute! it burns!

2008-09-06T11:58:00.000-07:00

My little sister recorded my just-turned-two-years-old nephew (seen here in his new big boy underwear) talking to me (I hope that link works). It is cute enough to give you diabetes, so be careful.

a vignette

2008-09-04T19:34:00.000-07:00

I had an encounter today with an Asshole Meat-Eater. Not your average meat-eater, who does his/her thing without being a dick to those who do not eat meat. Nope, this guy, after I defended myself from the waitress's allegations of being "healthy" because I asked for a cobb salad without the chicken and the bacon, (a) spent several minutes quizzing me on how I "get enough protein," then (b) told me about how he tried not to eat meat one time for like two days and just couldn't handle it, then (c) talked at length about how people "need meat to survive". All of that is old hat, but then -- then he decided to break out his A material, to wit: "So, you won't eat meat at a restaurant, and you won't eat meat at home -- but let me ask you, what about roadkill?" And then he fucking guffawed, my friends. An actual guffaw came out of his actual face.

I've been asked some bizarre questions and dealt with some true douchebags on the subject of my eating habits over the course of my life, but I am pretty sure that this one beats them all. And what really gets me is that it's been years since anyone has been an asshole to me about being a vegetarian. Last time the subject came up at a work-related lunch, every other person around the table talked about how someone(s) they are related to or know well is a vegetarian, too. I even commented on it -- I probably said Man, living in these future times is awesome!! or words to that effect. Well, I guess it ain't the future yet, not even in California.

On the other hand, on Saturday I get to watch two men marry each other. Which is even better than not getting hassled for my gustatory decisions.

go now

2008-08-26T19:04:00.000-07:00

The Bush administration is in the process of taking one big, scary step towards dismantling women's reproductive rights. Go here and read about it:

Then send in your comments at the form linked in that blog post. These new regulations don't require approval from Congress or anyone, but the volume of public opinion could have an effect.

This is particularly terrifying to me because I just read a couple of books on the history of contraception that made it abundantly clear that being able to control our own fertility has been absolutely the single most important factor in allowing women a place in public life. (It's no coincidence that American women began fighting for the right to vote in the mid-1700s but weren't granted it until 1920 -- a few years after the dramatic downturn in fertility rates around the turn of the century.)

These new HHS regulations would allow any worker at a publicly-funded health care provider's office (including volunteers) to refuse to provide or assist in providing an IUD or any form of hormonal birth control (including emergency contraception, often prescribed for women who have been raped) to any woman for "conscience" reasons; and it would prevent those workers from being fired (or not hired in the first place) because of such refusal to do their jobs.

Low-income women, who probably can't afford to take even more time off of work and go to a different clinic (or may not even have another clinic within easy traveling distance), are the ones who will end up being hurt by this. These regulations are designed to attack the reproductive rights of the women who are already at the highest risk of not being able to obtain access to effective birth control. Poor women have historically been the last to gain any kind of reliable access to means to control their fertility. If the right-wing reactionaries in the Bush administration (redundant, I know) have anything to say about it, they will also be the first to lose it -- but not the last. Right-wing reactionaries everywhere are doing things like holding national protests against the pill, refusing to fill prescriptions, and so on. It's getting scarier out there for any woman who wants the ability to determine when and whether she gets pregnant. That is, 98% of us.

And all of this is not to mention the fact (one with which I am intimately familiar) that hormonal birth control is very often prescribed for purposes other than preventing pregnancy -- like, say, for the purpose of preventing me from being suicidal, or the purpose of preventing women with endometriosis from being in unbearable pain every second, or the purpose of preventing women with PCOS from suffering any number of debilitating side-effects.

Please, go send the ACLU's form email. It's really easy, and it's really important.

ur attenshunz pls

2008-08-19T18:05:00.000-07:00

That is all.

a conversation

2008-08-06T23:39:00.000-07:00

Idler: Baby, where's our witch's familiars?
Me: Baby, we're not witches.
Idler: I am.
Me: You are?
Idler: I'm pretty sure I've had congress with the devil.
Me: Oh, really?
Idler: [pause] No, I guess not.
Me: Good. Cause I'll cut that bitch.

oh. my.

2008-08-02T14:45:00.000-07:00

Check out this bodybuilder's routine. As the site I nicked it from (which contains several other equally hilarious videos) says: "Don't get impatient and just assume he's going do the robot for his entire routine. He wouldn't do that to us."

Unrelated: what is up with this little popple dude.
And and. OMG the ears the ears the ears!!! (From, well, where else.)

Last and, okay, probably least, but you have to admit this post has thrown out some tough competitors:

(Via.)

also:

2008-07-29T18:04:00.000-07:00

In the 2000 primary, [McCain] was asked what he would do if his daughter Meghan, then 15, became pregnant. McCain said it would be a "family decision."
"The final decision would be made by Meghan with our advice and counsel," McCain said, referring to himself and his wife, Cindy. When reporters suggested that this view made him, in fact, pro-choice, McCain became irritated. "I don't think it is the pro-choice position to say that my daughter and my wife and I will discuss something that is a family matter that we have to decide."

I'm guessing that when McCain says "family decision," he means "a decision made by me, the head of the family"; and when he says "The final decision would be made by Meghan with our advice and counsel," he means, "She'll do what I tell her to as long as she's under my roof." The reason he doesn't consider that a pro-choice position is because it's not one. And it's also worth pointing out that the McCain family (that is to say, his wife) is insanely wealthy, so even if Roe v. Wade were overturned it would make absolutely no difference when it came to his teenage daughter's access to a parentally-approved abortion. This really isn't an inconsistent position at all. McCain just thinks that men (or "families," in Republican-speak) should get to make the final decisions about any pregnancies experienced by their women-folk; and that men who can't afford to pay a premium for safe illegal abortions and/or send their women-folk to somewhere where abortion is legal just shouldn't get the option of having their women-folk's pregnancies aborted.

It is a scary time to be a woman in this country.

why electing a democrat in november is important

2008-07-29T13:59:00.000-07:00

Among many other reasons, of course: the Bush administration is now pushing to define birth control pills, IUDs, and emergency contraception (which is the exact same thing as birth control pills) as abortion.

(And not for nothing, but the fact that Clinton is talking about this and Obama is not is one instance of why I'm a little sad about the way the primaries went.)

my brain

2008-07-25T15:30:00.000-07:00

What do you think "Tiny punctate T2/FLAIR hyperintense lesion in the subcortical white matter of the right frontal lobe" means?

nauseating quote of the day

2008-07-19T21:02:00.000-07:00

The comedy stylings of Mr. John McCain:

Did you hear the one about the woman who is attacked on the street by a gorilla, beaten senseless, raped repeatedly and left to die? When she finally regains consciousness and tries to speak, her doctor leans over to hear her sigh contently and to feebly ask, ‘Where is that marvelous ape?’

More examples here.

Someone please show me the door to the parallel universe where displaying that level of hatred towards 50% of the population means you're automatically disqualified from being in charge of a fucking country.

tell me, what the hell fucking year is it?

2008-07-14T19:17:00.001-07:00

Cause I thought it was two thousand fucking eight, but I must be wrong, because apparently Renfield still feels that his belief that women are bad drivers is eminently reasonable and based entirely on cold, hard facts, with no bias whatsoever in the interpretation. He also appears to feel that complaining about how badly women drive to me and my co-worker (also a woman) is perfectly reasonable behavior, since he seemed positively flabbergasted when I challenged him on it. But it gets even better, because then he tried to convince me that it was unreasonable of me to tell him he was full of shit by baldly stating that Asians are bad drivers too. I'm not entirely clear on what he was trying to accomplish with that, but I'm pretty sure that he was trying to tell me that if I wanted to say that Asians are bad drivers (which he simply assumed that I must, and which obviously I fucking don't because it's fucking racist horseshit), then I had to think it was reasonable for him to say that women are bad drivers, too.

And this is not to mention the "Oh, I don't mean you two, just other women," which is horseshit of a different color -- no, you don't get to take me out of a group I deeply and fundamentally identify with just so that you can trash it in front of me, you fucking douchebag. Fuck you and the horseshit you rode in on.

To paraphrase Dave Chappelle, oh! This sexism is killing me inside.

a mindless meme

2008-06-27T16:07:00.000-07:00

Rules:

A. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search.
B. Pick an image, using only the first page.
C. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into fd's mosaic maker.

These are the questions:

1. What is your first name?
2. What is your favorite food?
3. What high school did you go to?
4. What is your favorite color?
5. Who is your celebrity crush?
6. What is your favorite drink?
7. What is your dream vacation?
8. What is your favorite dessert?
9. What you want to be when you grow up?
10. What do you love most in life?
11. One word to describe you.
12. Your flickr name.

Mine:

(Follow the link to see where the photos came from)

you may worship me now

2008-06-18T17:25:00.000-07:00

Not only did I find out today that I got two A-pluses and an A last quarter, but I also got my research paper back from the professor who I kind of sort of idolize — and she said only good things about it. Like, unbelievably good things. Like that my paper is "an excellent, insightful, & very well written analysis," that I did "impressive, detailed work with the text," I am "a very patient unfolder of evidence, finding excellently telling passages," and that "it is such a pleasure at the end of a quarter to read such an inspiring [!!] & thoughtful paper." She even thanked me. But even more mind-blowing than that is that she said (a certain portion of) my paper constitutes "a new contribution" to criticism on a book (Frankenstein) that has been written about millions of times by everyone under the sun. I could die happy right now, if it weren't for the hormone deficiency.

wooooooo!!!

2008-06-16T14:13:00.000-07:00

I have to say, today it feels pretty damn good to be a Californian.

Also:

Now we just need to get out and vote down that idiotic proposition (or whatever it is) undoing gay marriage that's going to be on the ballot in November. But I'm not too worried. This time I'm pretty sure the fruits are going to beat the nuts.

a marvelous quote

2008-06-13T17:48:00.000-07:00

"[They are] like a church lit but without a congregation to distract you, with every light and line focused on the high altar. And on the altar, very reverently placed, intensely there, is a dead kitten, an egg-shell, a bit of string. . . ."
-H.G. Wells, on the novels of Henry James

learnings from my knowledge-hole

2008-06-12T18:13:00.001-07:00

This:is Chinnamasta. The one who has cut off her own head and is feeding the two yoginis — as well as her own severed head — with the streams of blood coming from her neck. She is kneeling on Kama, the god of sexual desire, and his wife Rati, who are supposed to be getting it on, though I don't see how the position in this image could possibly work. (Rati should be on top, too, by the way.) All of this is going on in a cremation ground, and they are surrounded by jackals (inauspicious animals), a cow (a sacred animal), and a tiger (symbolic of the power of the material world). And everyone is totally naked. And the yoginis appear to be holding begging-bowls made of scalps.

In other words, my friends, Chinnamasta is Bad. Ass. Apparently she's mainly worshiped by Tantric sadhus hoping to achieve siddhis (supernatural powers which, according to Tantric belief, one obtains once one has achieved liberation/enlightenment) by heroically facing her and the terrifying realities which she embodies in order to harness the power of death so that they can transcend it. This is probably done by meditating on her in the middle of the night in a cremation ground and trying not to shit their pants.

Kali is pretty awesome, too.
She's the great devourer, who eats demons, demands blood sacrifices (devotees have occasionally sacrificed themselves by cutting off their own heads), and at the end of each cycle of creation consumes the entire cosmos. Not quite as hardcore as cutting off your own head and drinking the blood spurting from your own neck, but still — not too shabby.

So. What I learned this quarter: Hinduism is generally kind of bitchin'. If it wasn't for all the woman-hating*, it is one religion I might actually be able to get down with.

* * *

Completely unrelated: OMFG baby lion cam!!!!!!

----
*and the believing in god(s) thing

oops

2008-06-10T12:28:00.001-07:00

-19

As a 1930s wife, I am
Very Poor (Failure)

Take the test!

Shocking, right?

Okay, enough dicking around. I have a final in 3 1/2 hours and have to get back to studying. Internet, why do you keep holding me up? So rude.

best evening ever

2008-06-07T13:57:00.000-07:00

Not only did I get to have a lovely dinner last night with the lovely Shosh and the lovely David (and the lovely Idler), but I came home to find that I'd received the copy of Melmoth the Wanderer I'd bookmooched a few days ago. And inside it was this postcard:

I can't even begin to explain how appropriate this is or how happy it makes me. I'm just going to consider it a well-deserved reward for all my hard work this quarter.

an interesting change from the Doctor Who dreams i keep having

2008-06-04T12:09:00.000-07:00

I had a dream this morning that a dalmatian dog I knew decided to join a pod of dolphins who were spotted like he was. Some time later, he swam up with his pod to the edge of the water where the Idler and I were standing. He split off from his pod, came up to us, and made a very, very sad face, from which I intuited that he regretted joining the dolphin pod but was afraid to leave them for some reason. (Possibly they were gangster dolphins.) He swam away with the dolphins, and the Idler and I walked on, trying to think of a way to extricate him. But we didn't come up with anything.

Some time after that, the Idler bought me a 30th birthday party package at a donut shop. They had special "30+" party packages, to which you could bring your own music, and which featured various events/games throughout the day. One of the events was different for women's birthday parties than for men's. I don't remember what either event was, but the women's one was rondo. The woman running the donut shop said I could have the men's event, but I might not want to, because it "could get pretty rough." Ha. Unsurprisingly, I opted for it anyway.*

Then four or five people showed up, hours early, and started complaining that the party was stupid because nothing was going on. I brought them donuts. Then I woke up.

*Can you guess where the whole gender-segregated event thing probably came from, Shosh?

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggg

2008-06-02T16:58:00.000-07:00

I am officially the most miserable person ever to have walked the face of the earth. I hate this paper so much I'm considering quitting school because I can't get the last 4 pages out.

That is all.

two vignettes and a puppy

2008-05-29T18:09:00.000-07:00

While procrastinating last weekend, I posted a couple of things on Craigslist that I've been meaning to sell, including my electric guitar — which I sold last night for a decent price to the first person who came to look at it, a very nice dude with huge arms. I even remembered where my amp and my cables were so he could test it. Good job Craigslist, good job Piehat.

However, there was also another guy who was interested in it. This guy initially wrote to me, after I'd already set up a time for the first guy to see the guitar, using text-speak and confusing commas with periods (seriously, he used commas as an ellipsis more than once, to the extent that I think it must just be his schtick, and yes I am a snob and this did prejudice me against him). I sent him a one-sentence email telling him I had someone coming over in the evening but I'd let him know if the sale fell through. It didn't, so I just deleted his email. Then he sent a second hysterical email, saying he was flying into Santa Barbara today and he wanted to know what happened and including two (2) of his phone numbers so that I could call him and tell him. Yeeeeeah. I sent another one-sentence reply telling him it had sold. His response was:

"thanks for the email,,,,,at least i deserve a pic from amanda right?lol"

I figured he was right — after all of that hard work he did hitting the ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, key. So I sent him this one. (NSFW, not that anyone reading this checks their email at work. But seriously. Don't do it. Shosh, I think you might not want to look at that one at all.)

No response yet.

* * *

In other news, a doctor told me this morning that because I have the specific kind of migraines I have, I never should have been prescribed birth control pills in the first place, because my risk for a stroke is significantly increased. If only the doctors at Sansum who prescribed me birth control pills six different times had said the same thing, even once, I would be a much happier person right now. Instead, I get to go see a second doctor next week to find out whether he thinks it's better for me to risk having a stroke or be so depressed I can't function in the world. Awesome, right?

But hey, look, it's a puppy!

And please, for the love of god, do not forget whistle dog.

bagging, right?

2008-05-25T09:58:00.001-07:00

I present you with the following quote from this morning's teabag wrapper:

"As long as it's hot and wet and
goes down the right way,
that's all that matters."
The Dutchess [sic] of York on tea-

Note the hyphen after "tea." I suspect they left a word out there. Or maybe "tea" just means something different in England — which, now that I think about it, would sure explain why they're so batty about it.

@&$#)!@&#*!

2008-05-19T15:55:00.000-07:00

I just found out that at the end of this week my department at work is moving (within the building) back to the space it was in a year ago. Only this time, the CEO and his Renfield are going to be in there with us. Fitting both CEO and Renfield into the area means our department has to be split up, so one member will be downstairs now, but never mind that, because that's just the beginning of the mind-bogglingly bad organization.

The CEO being there means my department manager doesn't get an office, because the CEO takes the only one there. (And it goes without saying that I will no longer have an office, like I do now.) So my boss gets the biggest, nicest desk, with the most window exposure, which is fine; it used to be my old desk, before the company decided it didn't like me and screwed me several times over, but she's my boss and she can have it.

Then Renfield gets the next best desk, also next to a window, because of course he got to pick ahead of the rest of us, since he's a hard-core sexist knob. (Seriously, he recently told one of my co-workers, in so many words, that he thinks women should be subject to men because the Bible says so. He's also utterly incompetent, which is why he's been made the CEO's valet, because god knows they can't fire incompetent fuckwads around here if they're male.) Renfield's new desk happens to be the one farthest from the CEO's new office, which means that the two of them will be shouting back and forth to each other across my and my co-worker's heads. As for me, I will be sitting at the desk immediately outside the CEO's office — I'm only part-time now, because the CEO decided to try to fire me a few months ago and only half-succeeded, so I get the shittiest desk. It is the shittiest desk not least because my computer screen will be clearly visible to three of the four people in the area at all times, including the CEO, which means no more blog reading for me.

And last but not least, the CEO is an enormous mountain of a man who is always hot and likes to set the thermostat to 67 degrees. I am always cold and would be very happy most days with the it set to 77. The situation won't be helped by the fact that the CEO's new office is so badly-ventilated that every time the heat is turned on it's like a sauna in there within five minutes. So there will be constant thermostat conflict, which I will lose every goddamned time, because obviously it's not as important for me to be physically comfortable as it is for the CEO to be physically comfortable, and therefore any compromise is out of the question.

Swear words.

P.S.: To compensate you for reading all that, here is a picture of a baby wombat named Sid Vicious.

And did you know that echidnas have backward-facing rear feet? What the fuck, seriously.

today

2008-05-17T20:59:00.001-07:00

Pro: I saw a really cute puppy.

Con: I lost the essay contest I entered, and it looks like the asshole guy in my English class won. This is the guy who proclaims loudly before every class except the ones discussing the canonic, homosocial male poets how terrible the reading was, and who once responded to a female classmate who said that as a feminist she really wants to like Jane Austen but she just doesn't get it by proclaiming that his girlfriend is always telling him about how she doesn't like any female writers or artists at all — implying that he doesn't either, but it's okay because he has permission from his girlfriend. So 22 year old sexist assholes who don't even like literature are apparently smarter than me now.

Well, fuck them all anyway. Except the puppy, I guess.

okay

2008-05-09T15:53:00.000-07:00

Who wants to buy me a trip to Spain this summer?

happy anniversary, monkey

2008-04-15T09:08:00.000-07:00

One full year of making everyone around us throw up a little in their mouths.

Here's to many more years of sickeningly sweet, baby-talkin' lurve. I love you the most there is, monkey bear.

LOL cats are in my internet

2008-03-27T08:59:00.000-07:00

stealing my schtick.

exciting things happen to me

2008-03-26T14:32:00.000-07:00

Happy Zombie Jesus Day!

On Sunday, as the Idler and I were waiting at the bus stop to go grocery shopping downtown, my old car drove past. I recognized a dent on the side, and it still has the same license plate number. The irony of seeing my old car, in my neighborhood, driving blithely past me as I waited at the bus stop, was all ironical and stuff.
Yesterday my boss introduced me to a new phrase. Of a co-worker, she said: "That girl could complicate a wet dream, I tell you what." Delightful.
Today after lunch, the Idler and I saw a guy wearing clown shoes sitting outside the Mini Mart. No other clown regalia, just the shoes.

I'll just stop there before I make the internet jealous of my exciting lifestyle full of excitement. Incidentally, spring break sucks when you have to work overtime. And are depressed.

Most of my depression is hormonal, but part of it is because I feel like I fucked up my History final pretty badly. It was at 7:30 at night last Friday, and the professor held it up for 20 minutes at the beginning because of some undisclosed snafu, so by the time I got to the second essay question (worth, alone, 16% of my final grade) I was so ready to get out of there and just so done with the class that I didn't take as much time with it as I should have. I totally know all that fucking history shit. Ask the Idler, whom I have been regaling with scintillating tales about Irish monasticism and the difference between Sunnis and Shi'ites for a week. I just didn't put enough of it down in my answer, and I'm still kicking myself.

I also got an A- on my paper. Which probably doesn't seem that bad to, like, normal people, but I've worked harder this quarter than I've ever worked in school before — all while working full-time and dealing with work politics and nearly losing my job and having multiple health problems and taking the bus everywhere and not even being able to drink — so it's bang-my-head-against-the-wall frustrating to hear that I've lost nearly a full letter grade on my paper because I didn't make it clear within the first two or three sentences which prompt I was responding to. When I pointed out to my T.A. that I used the language of the prompt in my introduction, he told me that wasn't sufficient, and that his not being able to tell immediately which prompt I was responding to made my paper as a whole unclear. Er, only if you can't fucking read, you fucking moron. Also, presuming to correct my grammar is rich when you can't write a coherent sentence yourself, not to mention spell or use commas competently. Seriously, this is how bad: in his email response to my complaint about my grade, he inserted a random incorrect comma into the quoted text of my email. Which could have been an accident, except that I've seen him use commas in this same incorrect way before. Maybe if you learned how fucking commas work, you dolt, you wouldn't think that any long sentence is a run-on. P.S. fuck you, fuckhead.

I'm pretty angry about this, in case you hadn't noticed. But on a happier note, I got an A in Geography. And I do enjoy knowing random historical and geographical facts. Ask me any damn state capital, or what a muskeg is, or what and where the oldest living creature on earth is. Or ask me about the Carolingians, or Viking culture, or the hegira, or the fall of the Roman Empire. Please, quick! My student loans are gathering interest as we speak! Plus, I will forget this shit in two weeks.

barf

2008-03-18T11:24:00.000-07:00

Seriously. Barf, barf, barf, barf, barf, barf, barf, barf, barf, barf, barf, barf. Repeat till the page is full, printer.

Bonnie & Clyde

2008-03-17T12:21:00.000-07:00

This...
is an awesome picture.

Now I'm off to fight with certain bitchy people in my office who happen to share my first name.

this dog has something to say to you

2008-02-26T22:38:00.000-08:00

It's not "deedle deedle deedle."

Also, Garfield Minus Garfield is shockingly funny. Exponentially more funny than Garfield With Garfield.

2008-02-26T10:01:00.000-08:00

Some numbers, basically stolen from Feministe, because I have no idea what to say about this myself.

-87: The percentage of Afghan women who report suffering physical abuse, half of which is sexual.
-60: The percentage of marriages in Afghanistan which are forced.
-57: The percentage of Afghan brides who are under the age of 16.
-88: The percentage of Afghan women who are illiterate.
-5: The percentage of Afghan girls attending secondary school.
-1 in 9: The number of women in Afghanistan who die in childbirth — that’s the highest in the world, alongside Sierra Leone.
-1 Million: The number of Afghan widows who have no rights, including no right to work — leaving them to beg on the street.
-£800 to £2,000: The price of a child bride in Afghanistan.

I'm so glad our great motherfucking nation brought freedom to Afghanistan.

know what sucks?

2008-01-16T11:09:00.000-08:00

Food poisoning.

I ate some bad Fig Newtons yesterday. (And if that isn't the stupidest way ever to get food poisoning.) Then I had to go to my History discussion section in the evening, because I'm still trying to add it, and I didn't think missing the second section of the quarter would go over well with the T.A. So I just threw up a little before class, and crossed my fingers that I could make it through the whole 50 minutes without having to do so again.

I made it 45, then had to run out and vomit in the bushes outside the classroom.

In elementary school, I barfed on two different (cute) boys, in two separate incidents. (And yet somehow I didn't end up a total pariah, oddly enough.) Other than that, I can only remember one other time in my entire life that I've thrown up in public. (Well, technically, I don't remember it, since it was the [First] Night of the Ten Tequila Shots. But I'm told it happened, and I have no reason to doubt it.) And never before have I vomited in front of total strangers, in the middle of a college campus. What do you know. Nearly 30 years old, and I'm still having exciting new experiences.

All in all, it was much less terrible than my last bout of food poisoning, which left me literally lying on the bathroom floor for 18 hours or so. But that didn't stop me from doing a bit last night about how no one else had ever suffered like I was suffering, not even Satan in Paradise Lost, not even Frankenstein's creature. The Idler, instead of smacking me upside the head, offered to call the Guinness Book of World Records and have it certified. Idler, thanks for putting up with me. I owe you one coddling.

thanksgiving nostalgia

2007-11-22T08:58:00.000-08:00

Inspired by this post about how apparently the Sesame Street we used to watch is too hardcore for the kids nowadays. (It also has that awesome pinball number song video.)

Ladybug Picnic!

Honkers!

Yip yips! (My favorite!)

Now, can anyone find me the one with the David Bowie puppet singing about getting to the church on time? Or whatever it was?

* * *
P.S.:

i worked on my paper for hours

2007-11-12T21:58:00.000-08:00

And now it's time for a webcomic break.

I especially love the bunny that looks like it's about to do a face-plant. From here.

tentacle porn

2007-11-10T13:26:00.000-08:00

All right, I realize it's kind of ridiculous that I've now made four blog posts in the last three days, after going months without touching the thing, but this is too horrifying not to share. Behold, Orangina's French mascot:

(My favorite part is the little tentacle-toes. Someone's been watching too much Japanese porn.) But it gets even worse — watch the commercial. Seriously. You might want to make out your will first, though.

dear, use me while having in sex

2007-11-10T09:03:00.000-08:00

My very favorite part is at 5:43, of course. Yowza.

(Thanks, Shosh!)

anal play

2007-11-09T20:26:00.001-08:00

Want an incredibly immature yet enduringly entertaining little game to play while driving? Just take the model name of any car around you and add the word "anal" to the front of it. For example:

Anal Navigator
Anal Explorer
Anal Pathfinder
Anal Probe (a classic)
Anal Mountaineer (my personal favorite, for sheer lyricism)

In general, SUV model names seem to work best. Go figure.

Completely unrelated: this guy's creepy as fuck, huh?

invisibility

2007-11-08T13:10:00.000-08:00

So. The Idler and I have been going to this sandwich shop for several months now. They make great sandwiches. I can vouch for the veggie cheese sandwich and the eggplant parmesan sub, and according to the Idler, every last one of the meat-bearing sandwiches is a marvel of modern sandwich-smithy. They're fast, the place is pretty comfortable to sit and eat in, and they give you a little baggie of pickles to go with every sandwich. Awesome, right? I know.

But nothing can simply work for me lately, so of course there has to be some major problem with the place. The problem in this case turns out to be one of the owners, one Bob Lovejoy (he's the one on the left in the photo at the top of the website). Bob is the guy who's usually taking orders at the counter. When you give your order, you give a name for them to call when the order is ready. When the Idler and I order, whichever one of us is paying gives our name. We take turns buying lunch, and for whatever reason it's worked out that most of the times we've gone to this place, it's been my turn to pay. Thus, it's my name that Bob has heard most often. And yet, he remembers the Idler's name and not mine — in fact, he started apologizing to the Idler after we'd been there just a handful of times for not remembering his name yet (and at that point he'd probably only ever heard the Idler's name a grand total of twice).

So that was merely annoying for a while. Trying not to default to patriarchy-blaming, I didn't automatically assume it was because the Idler has a penis and I don't; I thought it might be because I only ever order a vegetarian sandwich, while the Idler has ordered basically everything else on the menu. You know, maybe Bob just didn't see me as taking his sandwich art seriously or something. Which would have been reasonable from a certain point of view, though still unfair in my opinion. But then yesterday happened.

When we went in, Bob cheerfully said, "[Idler's name], right?" The Idler said, "Yes, and...?" gesturing at me. Bob said, "Don't push it." Then Bob said, grinning, "My wife says I can't remember girls' names, only guys' names." Then there was a very brief exchange involving cross-dressing (there was a misunderstanding, don't ask). Then Bob started talking to the Idler about the weather. At no point during this conversation did Bob look at me or address his remarks to me, except to ask me what I'd like to order.

This might sound insignificant — after all, it doesn't affect the quality of the sandwiches, or my access to them — but it was pretty intensely demoralizing. The owner of this place's response to being reminded by the Idler that I exist and also buy sandwiches from him was not "Oh, and [my name]!" or even "I'm sorry, I forgot your name" — it was "She's just a girl, and I don't have to remember girls' names. Plus, everybody knows girls are only good for one thing, so I'd get in trouble with my wife if she found out I knew a girl's name. Heh heh."

So. I'm sorry, Idler, I don't see going back there at any point in the near future. Nor will I be suggesting that my company order lunch there again. Women in Santa Barbara, just don't bother with Three Pickes on Canon Perdido. Or maybe just send a male friend or family member in to pick up your order. Bob sure won't notice the difference.

(P.S. - Shosh, you said you missed the blog — be careful what you wish for....)

lolcats* ftw

2007-06-08T16:29:00.001-07:00

So this is what I do all day at work now.

* + lolgerbil, lolraccoon

hey, y'all! i have a blog!

2007-05-24T15:34:00.001-07:00

But not really anything to say. So... here's a pony.

Yay! Ponies! That's for you, Idler. P.S. I found your secret MySpace page. http://www.myspace.com/poniesinmypants

And this one's just for me:

Also. Yay! Puppies! Squee!

r.i.p. kilgore trout (or: lots of things were ugly, and most everything hurt)

2007-04-11T23:26:00.000-07:00

First Saul Bellow, now Kurt Vonnegut. I guess I'm a real grownup now.

My roommate and I went to see Vonnegut speak at USC in 1995. We were both pretty heavy into Spaghettios at the time, and we had an unserious plan to go up to him after the talk and invite him back to our dorm room to share a can with us. This would be a much better story if we'd actually made the attempt, but I suppose it's just as well, because I'm 94% sure he would have accepted, and we wouldn't have had a clue what to do with him.

Now it's twelve years later, and I don't think I've read any Vonnegut in at least a decade; but still hardly a day goes by that I don't think about some damned filthy thing he wrote about assholes, or five-and-a-half-inch-wide penises, or mushroom cellars. This is, needless to say, high praise. In fact, I have a sneaking suspicion that reading Vonnegut provided me with my first introduction to the art of using obscenity, irony, and cruelty to say deeply humane things — to the only kind of art I take seriously, in other words.

So: Why don't you go take a flying fuck at a rolling donut, Mr. Death? Why don't you go take a flying fuck at the mooooooooooooon?

today in Life Imitating Art

2007-04-10T18:44:00.000-07:00

Günter Grass' The Tin Drum:

Why all these onions? For one thing, because of the name. The Onion Cellar had its specialty: onions. And moreover, the onion, the cut onion, when you look at it closely... but enough of that, Schmuh's guests had stopped looking, they could see nothing more, because their eyes were running over and not because their hearts were so full; for it is not true that when the heart is full the eyes necessarily overflow, some people can never manage it, especially in our century, which in spite of all the suffering and sorrow will surely be known to posterity as the tearless century. [...W]hat did the onion juice do? It did what the world and the sorrows of the world could not do: it brought forth a round, human tear.

Article in the Daily Mail:

Against a backdrop of crashing choral music and candlelight, a group of elaborately costumed young women are dabbing their eyes with a handkerchief, their mascara running to form black rivulets down their cheeks.

It is not difficult to see why they are so distressed: in front of them, a mound of pungent onions is being vigorously and elaborately chopped by a serious-looking young man in a tailcoat, and the fumes are overwhelming.

Even the male guests are wiping away the odd tear. [Ed. note: !!]

So, someone needs to sue someone, is all I'm saying. I mean, if I'd invented onion-based emo LARPing in a Nobel Prize-winning novel about the blasphemous sex adventures of a hunchbacked, compulsively drumming midget*, and then forty-eight years later some Harvard-ass pipsqueak decided to steal my idea, I'd be all over that lawsuit. Like white on rice. I am just saying.

*Novel has been grossly oversimplified for the sake of pith

according to my horoscope:

2007-04-07T12:43:00.000-07:00

Today, "communicator Mercury" is "sextiling" my "key planet, Venus." Which apparently means that it will be difficult for me to be objective today. It really sounds like it should mean something sexier than that, though, doesn't it?

In other news, OMG shoes.

i actually took this picture

2007-04-04T01:02:00.000-07:00

Well, my camera did, anyway. But I bought the camera, and this is America, so I think that means I get the credit.

More pictures (so many more) here.

my home state's song is way sexier than your home state's song. also, way less politically correct

2007-03-16T11:01:00.000-07:00

"Maryland, My Maryland," written in 1861 by James Ryder Randall and set to the tune of "O Tannenbaum." Also referred to as "the Marsellaise of the South." The "despot" would be Abraham Lincoln. We sang this in elementary school.

You must read all the way to the end. It is some seriously hot stuff. Huzzah!

I
The despot's heel is on thy shore,
Maryland!
His torch is at thy temple door,
Maryland!
Avenge the patriotic gore
That flecked the streets of Baltimore,
And be the battle queen of yore,
Maryland! My Maryland!

II
Hark to an exiled son's appeal,
Maryland!
My mother State! to thee I kneel,
Maryland!
For life and death, for woe and weal,
Thy peerless chivalry reveal,
And gird they beauteous limbs with steel,
Maryland! My Maryland!

III
Thou wilt not cower in the dust,
Maryland!
Thy beaming sword shall never rust,
Maryland!
Remember Carroll's sacred trust,
Remember Howard's warlike thrust,-
And all thy slumberers with the just,
Maryland! My Maryland!

IV
Come! 'tis the red dawn of the day,
Maryland!
Come with thy panoplied array,
Maryland!
With Ringgold's spirit for the fray,
With Watson's blood at Monterey,
With fearless Lowe and dashing May,
Maryland! My Maryland!

V
Come! for thy shield is bright and strong,
Maryland!
Come! for thy dalliance does thee wrong,
Maryland!
Come to thine own anointed throng,
Stalking with Liberty along,
And chaunt thy dauntless slogan song,
Maryland! My Maryland!

VI
Dear Mother! burst the tyrant's chain,
Maryland!
Virginia should not call in vain,
Maryland!
She meets her sisters on the plain-
"Sic semper!" 'tis the proud refrain
That baffles minions back amain,
Maryland!
Arise in majesty again,
Maryland! My Maryland!

VII
I see the blush upon thy cheek,
Maryland!
For thou wast ever bravely meek,
Maryland!
But lo! there surges forth a shriek,
From hill to hill, from creek to creek-
Potomac calls to Chesapeake,
Maryland! My Maryland!

VIII
Thou wilt not yield the Vandal toll,
Maryland!
Thou wilt not crook to his control,
Maryland!
Better the fire upon thee roll,
Better the blade, the shot, the bowl,
Than crucifixion of the soul,
Maryland! My Maryland!

IX
I hear the distant thunder-hum,
Maryland!
The Old Line's bugle, fife, and drum,
Maryland!
She is not dead, nor deaf, nor dumb-
Huzza! she spurns the Northern scum!
She breathes! she burns! she'll come! she'll come!
Maryland! My Maryland!

y'all

2007-03-14T21:18:00.001-07:00

because i love a good catch 22 reference

2007-03-08T14:44:00.000-08:00

I don't know if any of you have heard about the problems with Walter Reed Army Medical Center — in a nutshell, the bullies who have been running this country, spouting "support our troops" platitudes and attacking anyone who doesn't agree with them about their bloody, pointless wars as a spitter-on-of-veterans, have been either knowingly or negligently consigning many injured veterans of Iraq and other wars to a medical facility which just might have been considered state-of-the-art if it were located in Atlanta, Georgia in September 1864.

And now it turns out that at least two Senior Republicans in the House knew about the conditions at Walter Reed, and though they claim to have "[gotten] in [the hospital commander]'s face on a regular basis" (to no effect, of course) — well, I'll just let C.W. Bill Young, R-Fla., former chairman of the House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee, give it to you in his own words:

“We did not go public with these concerns, because we did not want to undermine the confidence of the patients and their families and give the Army a black eye while fighting a war,” Young said.

When your reasoning for not helping actual injured war veterans is literally lifted straight out of the pages of Catch 22, it is probably time to get yourself checked for irony poisoning. But, hey, if you end up testing positive, Mr. Young, I know of a great medical facility where I'm sure they could knock that right out for you. I've heard this particular facility is "committed to providing ... the very, very best medical care that is possible." Two verys! Did you see that?

Oh, and let me not forget to mention that Lieutenant General Kevin C. Kiley, the hospital's former commander, the one in whose face these two Cathcarts so frequently got, is now the Army's Surgeon General.

(story first seen here)

*

2007-03-06T22:45:00.000-08:00

Twice today I've had the experience of happening upon an older post at one of the blogs I read in which the blogsmith encourages a specific subset of his/her readership to take a flying fuck at a rolling donut.

And I am feeling left out.

So here's a message for all of you out there who, I don't know, enjoy eating pink jellybeans: Why don't you go take a flying fuck at a rolling donut? And additionally, why don't you go take a flying fuck at the moooooooon?

one-liners: flavor: depression with juvenility swirl

2007-03-04T22:10:00.000-08:00

All right, so, I will start by admitting, all confessional-like, that a few minutes ago I started to fill out a MySpace survey, out of a desperate longing for human contact (yeah, I am jonesing hard for the human touch at the moment, but can only really handle it one-sided and through the sanitizing medium of the internet) — but then I realized, hey! There is an option that will make me hate myself less when I'm done! Probably! So here you go, folks.

I’ve been incredibly depressed all day. So depressed that I’ve decided to listen to The Gothic Archies in the hope that silly, theatricalized despair will cheer me up. This is probably a terrible idea which will end with me curled up in the corner like a goddamned pill bug.
But: I love this White Ninja even more than I love tater tots. And if you don't think that is a lot, then y'all, we should have a coffee sometime and get to know each other.
Here are some instructions on how to turn the tables on that vagina dentata, boys.
This video, I don’t even know, it’s just so distressing, but it’s also giggle-inducing, so it makes it onto the list today.
Likewise.
Stephen Colbert says that this is the most poetic thing he's ever heard.
Ha! You probably thought that last item marked the beginning of a shift in the tone of this list, but it didn't. No, no, it most certainly didn't.
To wit.
Here's an announcement about me: I have made myself a solemn promise that from here on out, I will be more Flashdance in my daily life. Because it’s good to have goals, and this is one I feel like I might just be able to meet.
Oh look, it's another kitty with supertoes.
Pop quiz! Yay! What Morrissey/Smiths lyric would you most like to have on a t-shirt? Mine is "If you ever need self-validation / Just meet me in the alley by the railway station."
Sloth vs. Anteater: Samurai.
And this I just think is incredibly cool. I wish I could read Russian so that I could figure out where this is. And go live there.
So how much do you know about how to prevent sexual abuse and abduction? Oooh, a lot. Like don't call it a "virginia," call it a "vagina."
This video, if you can just clench your teeth and power through the cringing, is I swear to god the sweetest thing you've ever, ever seen in your life. It pretty much made me cry like a baby. It's possible that was just the depression, though, because an exhibit at the Natural History Museum consisting entirely of tiny lights meant to represent stars also made me cry today.
Aaaaand I just realized I've had Nutella all over my face for the past three hours. Yeah, that's about right.
So, so. Okay. I'm ending with a nice thing:

franky

2007-03-04T18:22:00.000-08:00

Pink Frankenstein, that-a-way.

(Taken just outside the Natural History Museum. Thanks for operating the camera, Shosh.)

the most banal announcement ever announcerated

2007-02-20T23:55:00.000-08:00

I am now officially a Person Who Eats Leftovers. I expect this will last about a week. You know, until the novelty wears off.

ipod game redux

2007-02-19T23:40:00.000-08:00

It's that time again I guess.

How does the world see you?
The Smiths, "Ask"

Will I have a happy life?
Lightnin' Hopkins, "You're Gonna Miss Me"

What do my friends really think of me?
Eels - "Cancer for the Cure"

Do people secretly lust after me?
Cocteau Twins, "Cico Buff"

How can I make myself happy?
Pulp, "Razzmatazz"

What should I do with my life?
The Mountain Goats, "Fall of the Star High School Running Back"

Will I ever have children?
The Cure, "Why Can't I Be You?"

What is some good advice for me?
Elastica, "See That Animal"

How will I be remembered?
The White Stripes, "Same Boy You've Always Known"
["If there's anything good about me, I'm the only one who knows." And fuck you too, Great Ipod Spirit.]

What is my signature dancing song?
The Fall, "Touch Sensitive"

What do I think my current theme song is?
The Clash, "The Sound of the Sinners"

What does everyone else think my current theme song is?
Ambulance LTD, "Young Urban"

What song will play at my funeral?
Duran Duran, "Ordinary World"

What type of men do I like?
The Joggers, "Wicked Light Sleeper"

What is my day going to be like?
Spoon, "Primary"

fuuuuu...uuuuuck

2007-02-10T13:01:00.000-08:00

The internets are trying to kill me with cuteness right now. I'm serious. Check this out:

(Via, where else, justalittleguy.)

And here's another video from the same sloth-rearing facility (or something):

That sloth is all, "Woman, you can be as coy as you want, but look at me. I'm the motherfucking embodiment of the inexorable, and I am coming to give you a hug."

cutest thing ever this week

2007-02-09T14:51:00.000-08:00

UPDATE: Oh no, I lied! I lied so hard! This puppy makeout session is so much cuter! Stupid tiger, who even cares about you.

wacky dreams

2007-02-07T11:40:00.000-08:00

I’m working on a movie set in a shiny, brand-new city somewhere in Eastern Europe. The entire cast and crew – hundreds of people – are at an enormous rooftop bar/restaurant, partying hearty. There’s a open shaft on one side of the roof which reaches all the way to the bottom of the building, and there’s a trampoline at the bottom of it. A guy starts jumping on the trampoline, and his leaps take him all the way up to rooftop level, where some of us stand idly watching him. After a moment, a rather frumpy woman walks over to the shaft. She reaches her hand over to touch the top of the guy's head as he hits the apex of each leap. She moves her hand across his head in practiced motions. Apparently she can cause his limbs to move in specific ways by making these motions; but he can only stay aloft for a few seconds, so she can’t do much with him. Then another man (a creepy little fuck) asks if he can try jumping, and everyone gets excited. They seem to expect big things from this guy and his trampolining. In fact, it turns out that he can pretty much just levitate at the top of the shaft, thereby allowing for far greater time spent as a human marionette. This naturally goes over pretty well with the crowd.

(I’m pretty sure this whole Eastern-European-movie-set-with-creepy-little-dude thing happened because I’ve been listening heavily to the band Clinic, which sounds exactly as if Peter Lorre has come back from the dead and put together a goth band. Highly recommended.)

Later...

Shosh is involved with some Catholic death cult, the members of which are going to hang themselves with elaborate contraptions on a specific date. (Each person’s hangin' apparatus is different, but they all involve the squeezing of the neck with rope, and dying. We anticipate decapitation in some instances.) I have no interest in the religion part, but I’m kind of depressed, so I join up anyway. You know, just for the suicide. We’re all living in a little room together, sleeping on cots, waiting for zero hour. I start to get scared. I go into the bathroom and have a think. I come out and announce that while I have respect for everyone else’s personal convictions, I don’t really seem to share them and I definitely don’t want to kill myself. Everyone immediately says, “Oh, well, yeah, I don’t want to kill myself either, so let’s not do that bit.”

* * *
Here’s another disturbing thing, this time one that my subconscious (unconscious? fuck you anyway, Freud) didn’t invent: Some Russians found this crazy fish that made human noises "and was rotating its eyeballs." They ate it, of course.

Also, would someone please explain to me again why I missed Morrissey taking off his shirt this weekend.

lordy lordy

2007-02-04T21:01:00.000-08:00

Spanking Cats is the new Talking Cats (which in its turn was once the new Kittens Falling Asleep).

Today was the Puppy Bowl. I missed most of it, but watched a little for form's sake. All I have to say is, it seemed very unfair to the dachshund puppy to put her in there with the viszla, who was very much bigger, and awfully gung ho.

By the way, I still get at least one hit on last year's liveblogging stunt every single day. And today this person sent some more traffic my way. Yes yes, I freely admit that spending three hours of my life blogging about puppies playing with each other was a violently ridiculous thing to do. But I've said it before and I'll say it again — it was a BOLD MOVE, and I regret it not one whit, even if it has made me the laughingstock of the internet.

my parturifacien

2007-01-22T20:37:00.000-08:00

I don't know if everyone else gets the same kind of spam I do, but I like to think I'm special.

cretin, I shouted back. The macho showdown with these macho mothers really nice chamber group here, as well as a symphony orchestra-they swinemen we were in no mood to be trifled with. It must have shown in probably have done it on all fours. As it was I stumbled into our like everything else you saw. The dog is your body, the thing you us informed about all the masculine meanderings beyond the wall. I sword into a leather scabbard, then swung down from his mount. The She took a very efficient-looking hypodermic from the reticule As though speaking his name had been a summons; bugles sounded, the Callin to the engine room for power, power, power.

Sincerely, Maynard Beauchamp.

my trip, in a nutshell

2007-01-21T17:06:00.000-08:00

BUT first things first: Happy birthday to the Shoshie-boodle!!! You are lovely and brilliant and youthful, and I wish you zillions more years of lovely, brilliant youthfulness, and I also hope that through all of those zillions of years you continue to be my very good friend, because I do not know what I'd do if I couldn't send you a text message every time I got barfed on by a baby. I could get more cheesy, but I'll spare you. Anyway, happy birthamaday whooo!

* * *

So, my trip basically went like this: Fly fly fly. Drive drive drive. Get barfed on by a baby. Drive drive drive drive. Fly fly fly. Etc.

In a slightly bigger nutshell, with pictures (none of them of barf, I swear):

I got to my brother's house in Maryland late Sunday night and stayed up until 4 am with my brother and sister-in-law and my dad and his girlfriend. There was beer, but nothing at all of interest transpired. Monday, examined the view from my brother's back door, ate mexican food, drove to my mom's house, following my dad all the way because he insisted. (Oy.) Took some nice pictures from the car, listened to some excellent radio stations.

Tuesday, my mom had to work so I hung out in Lynchburg, at one point capturing this lovely tableau:

Then I went and bought myself a new camera and got my ears pierced at the tattoo-n-piercing parlor two doors down from the New Life Christian Store (not the one in the above picture, another location) by a guy with Backstreet Boys facial hair who was listening to conservative talk radio.

Wednesday: drove to Charlottesville to see my sister. Took a bunch of pictures from the car, including a whole series of this truck full of giant logs which I found utterly fascinating.

And of course, once there, I took a bunch of baby pictures (and movies, both of them too big for YouTube).

Thursday: went to my two favorite used bookstores with my mom, the larger of which is now in a new, enormous, and terrifyingly circus-themed building.

(That's less than half of the facade; to get the whole thing I would've had to shoot from across the street.) The smaller bookstore was exactly as I remembered it — complete with history books about "The War of the Rebellion" prominently displayed in the front room, and a horrible narrow staircase down to the good stuff. Between the two bookstores, I bought fifteen books for about $60. Including a copy of Jane Eyre in comic form.

On Thursday I also had a two hour lunch with my dad, during the course of which we argued strenuously about politics, but surprisingly didn't appear to have completely alienated the staff at the IHOP by the time we left. That day, it snowed for about 30 seconds, hailed for about 60 seconds, and then rained for the rest of the day.

Friday: went back to Charlottesville to see my sister again. More pictures from the car.

Love the sky. (Also love the new camera.) Here's a cat, looking like a cat. I mauled and snuggled with several cats on this trip. I lurve kitties.

And here's a baby admiring himself in the mirror intently. Note the drool. (And here's the baby movie that wasn't too big for YouTube, if you're interested.)

Then I went ice skating with my sister on Friday night. I only fell down once, I swear. I have no pictures, because I didn't want to get murdered by a bunch of middle school kids while fumbling for the camera.

Saturday I got up at 6 am Eastern time, drove for four and a half hours (which is the part of the traveling I didn't mind), through large swaths of Virginia and Maryland. I even saw the Mormon Temple, just like you did on your trip, Shosh. Well, a different Temple, of course. This is the huge one in D.C. or Maryland or some damn place like that, seen from the Beltway.

Then I spent the next twelve hours waiting in airports and flying on airplanes. I tried to get drunk in the Baltimore airport, which worked out fine, but didn't last very long. And then I was just squished into the center seat on a three and a half hour flight, completely sober but with the memory of my bourbon buzz, being kicked by a child. I got home after 8 pm our time. It was quite a day, and I'd like to stop talking about it now.

So who wants to see all the rest of my boring slides?

disconnected thoughts on that stephen malkmus and the jicks show tonight

2007-01-14T00:42:00.000-08:00

Stephen Malkmus is a man with a shockingly appropriate mustache.

At one point, I heard a guy in the audience say, "Stephen Malkmus' roadie looks like a young Eddie Argos."

A guy in a backwards baseball cap came up to me after the band had left the stage but before the encore and said something to me about my sense of rhythm. I couldn't make it out but I've decided to assume it was that compliment on my sense of rhythm that I've been waiting years for. He then pointed at the stage and at his head and at the stage and at his head and at the stage and at his head, and said, very deliberately, "You're very dedicated!" By which I assume he meant that I mostly looked at the stage during the show. Yeah... I'm a freak that way.

During the first part of the show, the hipster couple in front of me spent a long time bobbing up and down, up and down, up and down, all the while gently cupping each others' buttocks. I think they were being ironic.

Don't have any fun without me this week. I promise I won't have any fun without you all.

sweet & tender hooligans unite and take over!

2007-01-11T11:29:00.000-08:00

Morrissey is playing at the Pasadena Civic on February 3rd (a Saturday; he's also playing there the 1st and 2nd). Tickets go on sale this Saturday morning. Who is with me?!?!

adventures in snot manufacture

2007-01-10T22:50:00.000-08:00

Someone's been reading my head. (From We Have Pie Charts. See also: Analysis of Tragedies.)

Actually, puns are a little beyond me at this point. I've been sick for three days, sick with incessant throat ticklings, endless rivulets of snot, and violent coughing that stops only to allow for a violent sneeze now and again. Every muscle in my body aches. I got about four hours of sleep Monday night, and oh, right around 30 minutes' worth last night. I should probably go to sleep now, in fact, but as it turns out, I'm not really tired.

I might have a brain tumor.

Hey! Here's a drinking game for you. Watch Alias, and do a shot every time a character uses the word "endgame." Or wears a wig for no reason. Or fakes his own death.

I don't even have the wherewithal for bullet points right now, so here's a list of links for you: engrish exprained (be sure to follow the menu link!), world's tallest man saves some dolphins, a dancing skellington, cat armor, ponies yay!, blasphemy woo!, Real Genius 2: Electric Boogaloo, and: but why buy the camel when you can get the hump for free?

Oh oh oh.

two items of the utmost importance

2007-01-08T16:39:00.000-08:00

Item one: if I had this cat I would name her Thumbs McGee.

Item two: I'm not sure I've ever wanted a t-shirt as badly as I want this one. Unfortunately, it is only available in men's size large. And costs $35.

Item three (the ghost item) is a terrible picture of me, drinking in public in front of the police station downtown.

Now this is precisely why I need a better camera phone.

inappropriately-used quotes

2007-01-05T11:04:00.000-08:00

It makes me crazy when the greeting-card-and-calendar industry forces quotes from writers I love into their little treacly molds. For instance, I read the following on a Valentine's Day themed calendar pullout in the February issue of O: The Oprah Magazine (which I was dismantling for parts, not reading, just for the record): "What will survive of us is love." I mean, good job finding the one sort-of optimistic-sounding line Philip Larkin ever wrote, but here's the whole stanza:

Time has transfigured them into
Untruth. The stone finality
They hardly meant has come to be
Their final blazon, and to prove
Our almost-instinct almost true:
What will survive of us is love.

Not exactly a ringing endorsement of living, human, heart-shaped-chocolate-eating love, eh.

Here's another example: I was given a calendar from a dental insurance company this year with a squishy quote for each month. Those quoted include T.S. Eliot, John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, Robin Williams, Sam Walton, Andy Warhol, Henry James, Pete Seeger, and Sophocles. I suppose these are not so much inappropriately-used quotes as inappropriate combinations of quotees. Calendar industry: believe me when I tell you, it is simply unacceptable to place a quote from Henry James alongside a quote from Sam Walton. And hell, I'm also willing to bet that, wherever they got this Henry James quote from ("Summer afternoon, summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language"), it's severely out of context. Like quoting Iago and attributing it to Shakespeare.

* * *

Three completely unrelated items:

I just uttered the sentence (out loud, at work), "Where's my Arab Strap?" Yes, and I was also going to listen to an Arab Strap album at work (except not anymore, because I can't find it). I'll take your tributes in puppies.

I officially got straight As last semester.

I really love this comic. Snikt!

auspicious beginnings

2007-01-02T11:54:00.000-08:00

Things I did today:

Fell on the stairs on my way into work and whacked my knee hard, right across the kneecap. (Incidentally: I'm now pretty sure that it's possible literally to swear a blue streak.) I tried to take a picture of the resulting knee-goiter with my cell phone so that I could share the joy with you, my wonderful friends, but it didn't turn out very well. Maybe I'll get y'all one later, when the whole shebang turns purple.
Opened a Cafe Press shop. I'm only telling you this so that you can make fun of me for being a crazy egotistical freak, and this is certainly not a request for any of you to buy anything. I'm not entirely sure why I did this, except that I love my bunny collage so, so much and it's not legal for me to marry it yet.
Got a spam email with the subject line "groundhog cinematographer". It may not be the best spam I've ever gotten, but it says so much in such a little space, don't you think?
Watched Rowing With the Wind. In this film, Byron (Scooby Doo) shaves his chest, shoots a bunch of stuff, and keeps a giraffe in his parlor. Or in his echoing marble foyer, rather. Also, Frankenstein's monster comes to life and (a) makes Polidori hang himself during the summer of 1816 [!] by beating him at pool, or something; (b) drowns the Shelleys' son William (their only child in this movie [!!]); (c) somehow manages to give Byron and Claire Clairmont's daughter Allegra the fever that kills her (perhaps he exudes a miasma?); (d) drowns Mr. Peanut Butter Shelley and his friend Edward Williams; and, finally, (e) hunts down Byron in Greece and whacks him too (not pictured; the miasma again, one assumes). The only thing I found even moderately believable about this film was Shelley's sheer insufferableness. But hey, we got to see him naked! Twice!

happy 2007, or whatever year it is now

2007-01-01T04:38:00.000-08:00

I'm not tired yet (well, not tired again yet — I seem to have gotten a second wind from somewhere), so I present you with my pictures from new year's eve. They're not terribly exciting, but there they are nonetheless. My new year's resolutions are to do a better job reading Milton next time, and not to spill enchiladas on my favorite hoodie again.

Let's all have a good year, OK? Don't make me stop this thing and come back there.

you know it

2006-12-27T22:43:00.000-08:00

Goddamn right I do.

My dad called me back tonight. From a restaurant. I asked him about the two sets of mixing bowls. Apparently he realized that he'd already sent me one immediately after spending a truly ridiculous amount of money (a dollar amount that he was careful to share with me, of course) in order to get the other box to me before Christmas. So now I am telling myself that I'm not going to feel guilty because he stupidly felt obligated to spend more money on shipping that box than he could possibly have spent on all of my Christmas presents combined (including both sets of mixing bowls). Especially not if getting the box o' socks to Randy was his main priority (as he claimed it was). And fuck me, I'm done thinking about this.

I'm going back there for a week on the 14th. What am I doing that for, I'd like to know.

Here's some good news: work is letting me keep my money for the time being. Apparently one of the partners felt that because I am now working part-time and also presumably no longer going to let them squat on my life forever and ever and ever, I should just get fucked. Luckily, the other partner was more reasonable. More proof for my Theory That Worrying Fixes Everything. I am so writing a self-help book.

* * *

I want to apologize for the quality of my blogging lately. Okay, so mostly I just want you all to know that I'm aware that it's awful. Everyone! Important Bulletin! I Am Aware That I Am Gazing Into My Own Navel! Perhaps You'd Like To Take A Look As Well!

Gah.

2006-12-27T10:05:00.000-08:00

Here are some random and fuzzy pictures from my cell phone.

Rainbow above the McDonald's this morning. It was much prettier than that before my camera phone got to it.

In a public bathroom along the route to Barstow. Ladii Gems is an excellent gang name, don't you think?

Gummy candy. In case you can't read that, it says: "MUSCAT GUMMY. A translucent color so alluring and taste and aroma so gentle and mellow offer admiring feelings of a graceful lady. Enjoy soft and juicy Kasugai Muscat Gummy." Also has a pleasing soft mouth feel.

Incidentally, I am now in possession of the best hoodie in the world (close-up of the image here). I wore it to Randy's family's house on Christmas, hoping to start something. However, the only comment I got was from Randy's mom, who read it carefully, laughed, and said, "Oh, how cute!" Then later, when I answered The Question by saying that I was in the same boat as Randy career-wise — i.e., the only thing one can do with the degree I'm going to end up with is to teach — his family somehow managed to interpret that to mean that I intend to teach elementary school.

In other news, my father didn't send his usual Christmas email this year (he usually sends one email to all three of us kids which says, "MERRY XMAS!!!!" and that's it). Instead, he tried to call me at home yesterday morning while I was at work. He did not want to call me on my cell phone, and instead told Randy that he would call me back last night. Shockingly, this did not happen. I wish this didn't bother me. I also wish it didn't bother me that he didn't bother to sign his own name to the Christmas card his girlfriend sent me. I wish the two sets of mixing bowls didn't bother me. I wish it didn't bother me that he sent a Christmas present to Randy (box o' socks) which demonstrates that he has an infinitely better understanding of Randy's interests than of mine.

I'm almost over Christmas, I promise. Very soon I'll stop whinging.

So, hey! It's lovely and windy and rainy out. And look at that pretty rainbow.

felicitations

2006-12-25T23:45:00.000-08:00

Guess whose birthday is today? Was today? Yes, okay, Jesus', but more importantly, the Idler King's. I kinda wish my brain wasn't rattled all to hell at the moment so I could think of something funny to say, and preferably something nice as well. But, nope, I'm pretty mushy upstairs presently, so I will just say: happy birthday, Idler. You're not very old right now. May you eventually get much, much older, and have an excellent time doing it.

Also, merry Christmas to everyone, and thank you for being my friends. Mush mush mushy mush.

Goddamn it, now the Golden Girls theme is in my head.

p.s.

2006-12-23T00:25:00.001-08:00

My employer informed me today that they're going to take away 1/3 of my pay as of a week from now. When I freaked out, I was told that I should remember that they've accommodated my part-time hours, and that's been "quite a challenge" — as if they were doing me some kind of favor by keeping me there, when they'd be fully up shit creek if I left. Oh, and also, the person they hired specifically to help me with my workload, which used to keep 37.5 hours a week fully-occupied and now has to be crammed into 20-30? Not so much. Apparently other people have already given her too much work to do and she now just can't help me. So not only am I going to be doing the same work I was doing when I was working full-time, but I'm going to be doing it in fewer hours, and getting paid something like 3/5 what I got when I was working full-time.

But oh! I should be grateful, because they gave me a 3.5% cost of living increase on my base salary. And they might or might not implement some new program that would give me back some of what they're taking away, at some point in the future.

Would someone please show me where the Christmas Spirit pool is, I'd like to piss in it.

i've sure got the christmas spirit now

2006-12-22T18:51:00.000-08:00

Most of you have already heard that my father sent me a set of five purple mixing bowls for Christmas this year. Guess what? I opened another box from him today, and inside was another set of five purple mixing bowls.

Dad? I have a message for you:

I'm also seriously considering putting this in a box and sending it to him. (Brilliant idea, Idler.)

and so it turns out i am a lady after all

2006-12-22T11:17:00.001-08:00

My Peculiar Aristocratic Title is:
Milady the Right Reverend Amanda the Prickly of Throcking in the Hole
Get your Peculiar Aristocratic Title

one-liners: only one week left

2006-12-19T00:43:00.000-08:00

I ate some vindaloo yesterday; it was my first. The Bollywood videos at the restaurant were entrancing, but the vindaloo was kind of tasteless. Like the Shosh said, it doesn't seem to translate well to tofu.
I also ran down an up escalator yesterday. That, on the contrary, was everything I'd ever hoped it would be. (Next weekend I plan on going up a down escalator. Then, in through an out door.)
All right, so I knew about the Flat Earth Society, but until today I didn't really know about the Flat Earth Society. Look! They have forums, and a FAQ, which "was created in light of the realization that for someone with a 'round-Earth' (RE) background, the FE theory would appear at first glance to have some glaring holes." No worries, though, they lay it all out for you. Basically, dudes, the earth is flat. There's a giant conspiracy, authored by "the government" and everyone else in the world who has ever said they had any kind of evidence that the earth was round. What's more, if you personally have ever witnessed any evidence that the world is round, you were mistaken, and so were your scientific instruments. Ergo, the world is flat. QED. See, they even have a map, with a cute little flat sun and moon too. Also, it turns out, some of the flat earthers are unclear on the question of why sex with children is bad. Don't get me wrong, they're all totally, totally against it, they just want to make sure that the logical position against fucking babies is sufficiently rigorous. Because they are all about the motherfucking logic over there at the Flat Earth Society.
Chocolate is apparently made out of enslaved children. (Scroll down, second item.) Now, that was an unpleasant piece of information, and I apologize.
On a less horrifying note: Andy Samberg and Justin Timberlake have something for you, babies.
Victorian backwards slang and rhyming slang. I could use a tinep o' reeb right about now.
We missed monkey day.
I'll have you know, I have been drinking wine coolers ironically for over a decade now. I am just that far ahead of my time, I guess. Also, Strawberry Shortcake is the tits. (I do not know from cachet, however.)
This scares the shit out of me.
This is so worth it for the last line. You can start about halfway down if you're already familiar with the progress of the War on Christmas thus far. (Our side is losing, of course.)

nicey-niceness: because nice things are nice

2006-12-13T23:40:00.000-08:00

My post-1800 professor has told me not once but twice that my reading of Frankenstein is, and I quote, brilliant. Thanks, Randy and Idler, for helping my drunk ass work it out. Or, possibly, handing my drunk ass the only brilliant things I ended up saying. I don't remember, because I was drunk. I also may have just now written a bunch of gibberish on my final. Sh! This is supposed to be a post about nice things.
I have decided what my next tattoo will be. Just need to pick a place. And an artist. (One who won't make fun of me, Shosh. I am not that tough.)
Here is a video of a puppy who just... can't... stay... awake.

I guess that's all the nice I've got in me today. Actually, three things is really very good, for today.

one-liners: tiny flying bears edition

2006-12-12T21:55:00.000-08:00

Stephen Colbert re this news story: "This is just more support for what I've always said — that bats are nothing but tiny flying bears."
It's not funny, but goddamn is this a good post about feminism. So I'm sharing. Feel free to ignore it if you're not interested.
Now, this? Not funny either. In fact, it's fucking terrifying. And kind of vomit-inducing. Do not click that link while you're eating.
No good deed goes un— wait, there are no good deeds involved in this exchange.
He's right, ROTFLMFAO doesn't even come close.
This person is blogging his way through the new Thomas Pynchon. Why? I don't know, why does anyone do anything?
Knit a boob, knit a uterus. Where is the pattern that will show me how to knit a prick, I'd like to know. Sexism! Oh, and here's a Princess Leia hat.
This man can scat like nobody's business. Check out "Folsom Prison Blues."
These Italian science fiction novel covers are dead awesome.
That Jesus was a total fag. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
And while I'm being offensive: gallery of freaks. Because we all love a good freak now and again.
People, people, when will you learn? It is sheer folly to leave an Irish camel alone with booze and mince pies.
Several creepy things made of meat. But of course I think most everything made of meat is creepy.
More creepiness: ladies, apparently if you stick some Lysol up your hoo ha, you'll never grow old. From this Flickr pool (and there's one for dudes, too -- my favorite there is "Puttin' on the Dog").
Speaking of Flickr pools: I hereby present you with the I Crush Your Head pool.

mild and temporary relief

2006-12-12T00:17:00.000-08:00

One final exam over with, and all my post-1800 assignments taken care of. Now I have two exams tomorrow (which I haven't begun to study for), another one due by Wednesday night, and a full semester's notes to re-write (longhand) and make pretty in order to turn in at my last exam on Friday. My back is killing me, the phlegm-head continues unabated, and I haven't moved from the couch in three days. I'm not kidding, I think my leg muscles have atrophied. Oh well, at least the heart palpitations are down to one every few minutes (I hit a high earlier tonight of one about every three seconds). Fucking decongestant, am I right? Fuck you, decongestant.

Well, moving on, here's a thing I think is cool. It claims to be like Flickr but without the pictures; but what it really means is that it's like Flickr, but with words instead of pictures. As you might guess, I am ridiculously enthusiastic about this. Here's mine so far.

Also: Hail Mary Shelley. And now I needs my intelligence sleep.

this is the equivalent of me blowing my nose into the internet

2006-12-10T17:17:00.000-08:00

So, okay, I'm sick now. And I have an assignment on Keats and one on the Victorians to prepare by the end of the day today. I haven't even read the Victorian stuff. And my head is so full of phlegm that I can't begin to fathom how to talk about what the function of imagination is, or how that function is Romantic, especially not as it pertains to Keats' "Ode to a Nightingale." So instead, I blog, because it doesn't require a working brain.

I went to my company's Christmas party last night, where my boss got absolutely fucking hammered within the first hour and went around telling people she was horny and slapping them for not dancing with her. Then I watched a friend of a friend just barely stop himself from crying because his dog died recently (the dog understood him, people). Later, he proceeded to inform his boss, who called him from China with work to do, that he couldn't do it because he was completely shitfaced. A perfectly competent band called, according to the invitation, "A 'Touch of Soul'" played. (A friend who no longer works there but got invited to the party anyway suggested that we get Gwar next year, a proposition I wholeheartedly support.) Somewhere in all that we watched an insufferably awful — and stultifyingly boring — murder mystery play. We then had to fill out questionnaires to see who could come closest to solving the mystery. I filled mine out using the name Washington Irving, and guessed that one of the characters died of scurvy, and the other was shot by John Wilkes Booth. I was trying to be funny, but as you can see I failed utterly (in my defense, my head was full of phlegm and I wasn't drunk at all). Then later I felt guilty for insulting the murder mystery troupe.

Will someone please notify J.R.R. Tolkein that the phrase "chainless winds" can kick "cellar door"'s ass.

jazz hands!

2006-12-06T23:50:00.000-08:00

Well, that was fun. Jenny Lewis and the Watson Twins were lovely. Jenny was, disappointingly, not wearing The Boots. But she sure can belt it out, I tell you what. And wear a spangly dress like nobody's business. I liked her songs better live, too, which can only be a good sign.

The other band, which shall remain nameless because that is not the kind of crowd I want visiting my blog, was — well, let me say this. The highlights of the show were:

A thirteen-year-old girl in front of me was so excited at one point that she spontaneously made jazz hands.
During their cover of the Sonics' "I'm Going Home," as Ben Gibbard sang a line about going home to mom and dad, a thirteen-year-old boy behind us yelled, "Mom and Dad!! Woo!!!"
Sometimes the stage lights made cool shadows on the walls.
It's fun to mock Ben Gibbard's dance. (He kind of looks like a muppet.)
After the show, instead of handing out flyers listing other bands playing in the area like at a normal concert, people were handing out little postcards advertising the band's fan club. No, really, it was adorable.

As you can see, there's something missing from that list. Well, that's okay. I don't have to love every band I see. As a wise man once said, this life is filled with many sweet companions, many satisfying one-night stands. Etc.

The best, best, best part of the evening was that they played Wire's "Three Girl Rhumba" as we were walking out. It was just like the time I was at that Sisters of Mercy concert and they played the Doors' "Love Her Madly" after the show, only the opposite.

Now I have to go write about Frankenstein. And also for some reason listen to everything that Spoon has ever released. (N.B.: Their website can be found at spoontheband.com. I could do that.)

p.s. Unrelated: posts like this are why justalittleguy is my favorite cuteness blog. No homo.

things i really hope i will do when this semester is over: first installment

2006-12-05T13:34:00.000-08:00

Do my laundry. How gross would it be if I hadn't done laundry in three and a half months? Hypothetically.
Start going to the gym again. I had a dream last night that I went to my company's Christmas party and then I saw a video of myself at the party and I looked like an elephant. Also my fly was open.
Clean up my piles of crap around the house. Randy! No more wading through piles of boxes and dirty laundry to get to your closet! You know, until next semester starts.
Go grocery shopping. It might be nice to eat something other than Taco Bell sometimes. I don't know, I'm going to try it out.
Get sick. This one's more of a bowing to the inevitable than a plan, per se.
Do fun things. Dudes. I feel like I haven't done anything spontaneously fun in decades now. I want to go roller skating and play mini golf and paint pottery and go to the beach for no reason at all and hang out at the mall and go to McDonald's in the middle of the night and... wait, that's the high school fun I never had, not the college fun I haven't been having. What's college fun? I hope it involves cemeteries.
Make some collages. I'm no artist, but I like it, and I ain't done it much lately.
Do some crafts. What? I'm in a creative mood.
Listen to more music. I've been listening to a lot, but not really appreciating it. It will be nice to be able to listen to music without having to do something else at the same time.
Read Paradise Lost. I'm buying a case of egg nog, Idler. Do not let me down.
Do my Christmas shopping. It's fucking December, I just found out.
Go to the French conversation group at Pacific Crepes. This one will probably not happen. The level of courage it would take for me to do this is pretty much inconceivable. Still, I think it's a good idea to put at least one thing you'll never ever do on any list of goals you make. Keeps you humble.
Sleep. It's a rose, as the Persians say.

in which i waste some more time

2006-12-02T23:41:00.000-08:00

Okay, this is my last post of the day, I promise. I'm procrastinating, in case it's not obvious.

I'm a little shocked that Morrissey isn't the "pseudo historical figure" who "best suits" me. I'm going to assume that it's because the quiz sensed my moustacheular affinity with Nietzsche. I can't believe I'm more Hugh Hefner than Charles Manson, though. Weird.

You scored as Friedrich Nietzsche. Well you're an egotistical maniac, and you are so very iconoclastic that you probably are currently lost in a post-modern Jupiter, I mean jungle of self-definition.

Don't let it get you down though, someday, through a willful onslaught of reinterpretation of dated forms and ideas, you will strike on something that passes as remotely new, and people WILL be into it on the basis of how hip it is alone. Also, the average espresso drinker looks up to you.

Friedrich Nietzsche

100%
Dante Alighieri

75%
Steven Morrissey

75%
Miyamoto Musashi

67%
Adolf Hitler

58%
C.G. Jung

58%
Elvis Presley

42%
Stephen Hawking

42%
Hugh Hefner

42%
Sigmund Freud

33%
Jesus Christ

33%
O.J. Simpson

25%
Charles Manson

25%
Mother Teresa

8%

What Pseudo Historical Figure Best Suits You?
created with QuizFarm.com

waiting for the miracle

i take it back, this might be cuter

holy crap

in which i employ my ample literary criticism skills in the worthy endeavor of close reading crappy political cartoons

an open letter to all drivers

staying positive!

guess where i'm blogging from?

a story in pictures

gobsmacking misogyny of the day

and now it's on the internet

sarah palin

lesson of the day

p.s.

also

petty complaint of the day

also

i love it

my two-year-old nephew wishes me a happy birthday

braaaaaaains

the cute! it burns!

a vignette

go now

ur attenshunz pls

a conversation

oh. my.

also:

why electing a democrat in november is important

my brain

nauseating quote of the day

tell me, what the hell fucking year is it?

a mindless meme

you may worship me now

wooooooo!!!

a marvelous quote

learnings from my knowledge-hole

oops

best evening ever

an interesting change from the Doctor Who dreams i keep having

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggg

two vignettes and a puppy

bagging, right?

@&$#)*!*@&#*!

today

okay

happy anniversary, monkey

LOL cats are in my internet

exciting things happen to me

more and more videos!

barf

Bonnie & Clyde

this dog has something to say to you

know what sucks?

thanksgiving nostalgia

i worked on my paper for *hours*

tentacle porn

dear, use me while having in sex

anal play

invisibility

lolcats* ftw

hey, y'all! i have a blog!

r.i.p. kilgore trout (or: lots of things were ugly, and most everything hurt)

today in Life Imitating Art

according to my horoscope:

i actually took this picture

my home state's song is way sexier than your home state's song. also, way less politically correct

y'all

because i love a good catch 22 reference

*

one-liners: flavor: depression with juvenility swirl

franky

the most banal announcement ever announcerated

ipod game redux

fuuuuu...uuuuuck

cutest thing ever this week

wacky dreams

lordy lordy

my parturifacien

my trip, in a nutshell

disconnected thoughts on that stephen malkmus and the jicks show tonight

sweet & tender hooligans unite and take over!

@&$#)!@&#*!

i worked on my paper for hours