Grossology

I once read in some high-end reading of Grossology and You that our sense of smell and taste are so interrelated that when you smell something, it's pretty much the equivalent of eating it without ingesting it. So, as the author points out, if you smell the rank scent of poo, well... You get my drift.

Unfortunately this fact has scarred me for life. Whenever I go into the ladies' room nowadays to be whacked in the face by the stench of stank-assedness, I cannot help but think that I might as well be licking the insides of the toilet bowls.

I used to try to hold my breath while I peed with super-human speed. But that is difficult to do. It ends up, well, spraying everywhere because of my hastiness.

I also tried breathing through my mouth, but this seems even one step CLOSER to licking the insides of those damn toilet bowls.

So I've taken to wadding a piece of toilet paper up and stuffing it against my nose instead, kinda as though I were trying to chloroform myself into a state of forgetting. Toilet paper smells weird, but if it's a choice between "eating" toilet paper and, well, poo, grill me up some of that tp, baby.

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A History of Violence

Yesterday, I saw a sneak preview of A History of Violence at the Cedar Lee. I'm not a huge Cronenberg fan--his movies are usually a big hit (Spider) or a big miss (Crash) with me. But even when they ARE a complete miss--I thought Crash had some of the worst dialogue and acting I'd seen in quite some time--the ideas behind them never fail to be interesting (Crash, for example, plays with the idea of the gaze in cinema in some wickedly cool ways--check out Fetish: An Erotics of Culture for a really interesting essay on this topic).

And A History of Violence didn't disappoint. The movie was a chilling commentary on the cyclical nature of violence--the scenes of violence are really well-done, tight-knit and shocking (Ed Harris quite frankly scared the living crap outta me), and so realistic that it's beyond disturbing at times.

But even more chilling than the movie was the audience--much to my amazement, there were large groups of folks in the audience laughing, LAUGHING, at the violent moments--at folks getting their cheeks blown off, at some guy getting a fist slammed into his nose so hard that it caves in and leaves a gaping gooey mess of a hole. Not laughing in a nervous reaction to such horrendous violence. But laughing because they thought it was funny to see these people get shot up, laughing because they found it ENTERTAINING rather than DISTURBING, laughing because they missed the whole point of the movie (and in doing so, reinforced the point).

Clearly Cronenburg did not intend the violent scenes to be humorous, and yet, this reaction (though clearly dissonant with the film's intended seriousness) only served to make the movie all the more chilling. And to solidify its point.

We are entrenched in and entranced by violence. This is a scary thing.

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Bragging Rights

My brilliant, cute-as-a-pickle punk-ass kid-sister just got published in Lodestar Quarterly and I am just so darn-tootingly proud of her that I just wants to shout it out to the world!

So I am posting the poem here as well because I am your sister, and dammit, that supersedes literary mags' publishing rights!

pick-up lines for feminists

--Lesley Kartali

making the move
at the bar
the club
the pro-choice rally
or the conference
on women's rights
in the 21st century
is no easy task
for feminists
young and old.

how do you
subtly ask for digits
while still making it
perfectly clear
that you are fine
being alone
and are certainly
not buying into the idea
that women are worthless
without a significant other?

just remember to smile.
or not.
(depending on if you
feel like it)
and try some
of these lines
on for size:

if i could rearrange
the alphabet
i would put u and i
together
and then we could
work on trying
to think outside
of this male dominated
language.

your paradigm or mine?

you're so sweet
you put hersheys
out of business.
so sweet
you can bring down
all those
bastard big businesses.

somebody better call
god/allah/buddah/
assorted goddesses/etc.
because he/she/gender neutral being
are missing an
angel/messiah/messenger.
*if atheist this line may not work

did it hurt?
when you fell
from the top
of the hierarchy
when society
identified you
as a woman?

pinch me.
with consent of course.
you are so
third wave
i must be dreaming.

where have you been
all my life?
hopefully fighting
against oppressive
patriarchal systems.

your feet must be tired.
because you have been
running through my
mind and struggling
against the repressive
gender roles
that we have been
socialized into
all day.

if the personal is political
then our getting together
has the potential
to subvert the patriarchy.

what's your sign?
radical? liberal?
socialist? cultural?
eco?

if these lines fail
don't worry.
it's probably just
because our
fascist media
has embedded
said pick-up line
receiver
with the idea
that you are a
crazy
scary
man-hating
castrating
bitch.

just keep telling yourself.
if they haven't
started questioning
what society
tells them yet.

then maybe
they are not
the one
for you.

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Things I Did This Weekend in NYC

1. Saw an old man walking perfectly in beat (not windshield-wiper perfect but down to a hair's-breadth-perfect) to Madonna's "Borderline" which was playing in M's car as I sat in it, half-pajama-ed and double-parked, waiting for it to turn 10:00 so that I could park it back across the street again.

2. Spent time snuggling with the cutest, sweetest, and gasiest Boston Terrier in the history of mankind.

3. Ate lunch at Moby's vegan restaurant which was surprisingly unpretentious and ridiculously tasty.

4. Got to see a certain someone get all white-tatted up by some rocking cool NYC tattoo artists.

5. No sleep 'til Brooklyn! Ate here:



6. Partook in a $17 cheeseball (and it wasn't even WARM!).

7. Stood around with tons of other people and objectified nekkid men and watched people shagging and saw the world's creepiest fukking machine (link PROBABLY not SFW of course =).

8. Was told by some random gentleman who stopped me on the street that he wished he had a bigger brain.

9. Spent the weekend with folks whose dog-walker also walks harem-member #11 Vincent D'Onofrio's dog. *Swooning*

10. Actually screamed like a girl along with M (and jumped on a chair) as the world's fattest centipede barreled out from under a chair and straight at us.

11. Sat around in a Brooklyn park with a ridiculously stunning view of the NYC skyline and watched folks put on an excellently funny Twelfth Night as the skyline melted into a soft watercolor of skyscrapers and traffic.

12. Chowed on spicy hummus sammiches with the illustrious Pattie and Genevieve, and pet Oliver in their pretty damn cute apartment, who actually sat on my lap without ripping my heart and eyes out with his vicious claws.

13. Yammered about the logistics of living in the city and the bizarrely fantastic merits of 311 (the number, not the band).

14. Watched a really foxy chick shoot pool and whip the asses of a bunch of fellas and grin at me periodically and mime things to me throughout the evening.

15. Coveted the following books at a Barnes and Nobles:

Weird US

Cinematic Storytelling: The 100 Most Powerful Film Conventions Every Writer Should Know

Teany Book

Raw Food/Real World

, and

The Candle Cafe Cookbook

16. Gorged on sushi at a cute lil' sushi place in Manhattan (a very very big squishy thank you to the Divine Miss K and her Divine Mister for their super-generous hospitality all weekend)--tried sweet potato cream cheese sushi, edamame, seaweed salad, a whole bottle of sake, and way too much more food.

17. Sat around and consumed vast quantities of alcohol while staying up til the wee hours of the morn and listening to theater-folks talk about the private life of Renee Zellwegger (among various other things).

18. Got stuck on a stretch of Jersey road where there was NO fricking place to turn around at.

19. Wished I was spending more time here than just one weekend.

20. Hung out with the friend of an acrobat who just rescued a jumper from the Hudson River this weekend.

21. Drove in a hybrid for the first time.

22. Squished in a bed with the softiest sheets ever with the softiest Mo ever.

23. Had a piping hot cup of the best (and smoothest) stinking coffee I've had in my whole life.

24. Almost saw a dude on a bike get hit by a car.

25. Ate absolutely no NY-style pizza.

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Can you hear them?
The helicopters?

I'm in New York
No need for words now
We sit in silence

--PJ Harvey
("This Mess We're In")

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Food-Rule #39,573,311

When selecting a chocolate candy bar or an ice cream flavor, the best choice is always the one that has the most ingredients jammed into one bar or scoop. Chocolate vs. Super Nut Fudge Swirl Carmelatto Coffee = you can see the clear winner. Three Musketeers vs. Nutrageous = the latter is clearly the heavy-weight champion of the world.

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New york city, you're so pretty
All your faces, going places
And i believe if you fall in love
I believe if you fall in love
You should jump right in
Always going, faster modem
Cell phone fables, candle-lit tables
I believe if you fall in love
Yes, i believe if you fall in love
You should jump right in
I wrote our initials in the sidewalk cement
Tattooed your name across my arm for all to see
I wanna sing about it, sing about it, sing about it
I've got your back from now on baby, you can count on me
Only one life, kisses all night
Kids round fountains, concrete mountains
And i believe if you fall in love
I believe if you fall in love
You should jump right in


--Mason Jennings
("New York City")

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Photographs Shmotographs

I started a new photo album for your viewing pleasure, here are a few of the photos that currently reside within:



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Fondle THESE Gunboats, Baby

Last night I gave myself a pedicure using a sponge-shaped piece of fine-grain sandpaper that I'd bought to rub out some scratches in my hardwood floors. Said sandpaper didn't do jack-squat for the scratches, but these size 9 gunboats of mine sure are as smooth as some other object that is really fricking smooth.

It is now time to pause and give thanks for me and my mundanities.

*Bowing head in a moment of silence*

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amity amity amity amity amity amity amity caught stars in her
arms hello hello kitty happy in new york city amity walking like a
lucky charm i'm a neon sign and i stay open all the time
so let's go, go go go
amity amity god don't make no junk but it's plain to see he still
made me he told me so: i'm good to go
i'm ready to go
'cos you laugh and talk and 'cos you make my world rock
i'm so, so so so
amity amity amity amity amity amity amity good to go

--Elliott Smith
("Amity")

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New york, like a scene from all those movies
But you're real enough to me, but there's a heart
A heart that lives in new york

A heart in new york, a rose on the street
I write my song to that city heartbeat
A heart in new york, love in her eye, an open door and a friend for the night


--Simon & Garfunkel
("A Heart in New York")

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I know what I'm needing and I don't want to waste more time-
I'm in a new york state of mind.

It was so easy living day by day
Out of touch with the rhythm and the blues,
But now I need a little give and take,
The new york times, the daily news...

It comes down to reality-and it's fine with me 'cause I've let it slide,
Don't care if it's chinatown or riverside,
I don't have any reasons, I've left them all behind-
I'm in a new york state of mind.

--Billy Joel
("New York State of Mind")

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I drove to New York
in the van, with my friend
we slept in parking lots
I don't mind, I don't mind
I was in love with the place
in my mind, in my mind

--Sufjan Stevens
("Chicago")

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I know New York I need New York
I know I need unique New York

--The Decemberists
("Song for Myla Goldberg")

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Things I Did This Weekend Mixed in with Lies About Things I Did This Weekend

1. Saw a car get hit by a young pimply-faced kid who flew through a red light without even slowing down. Watched his bumper fall off as he pulled to the side of the road.

2. Ate the first BLT I've had in 9 years.

3. Wet my bed.

4. Ran into an old friend from freshman year of college at the Tremont Arts and Cultural Festival.

5. Went to the drive-in to see Tim Burton's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and got to watch really old 1950's commercials in between movies while snuggling.

6. Ate meat.

7. Visited my sister in Kent with all my sibs and my mom. Got in a shouting match with my brother on the way.

8. Threw up toothpaste.

9. Decided to hate the LAND OF THE ANXIOUS DOG blog for the rest of this week. *grumbling to self--man, how i hate it--grumbling to self*

10. Got drunk and ran down W. 11th to PARALLAX with no shirt on.

11. Discoed at the discotheque.

12. Exhibited a complete and utter disregard for human life.

13. Drank half a bottle of $3.50 wine.

14. Thought about the difference between "acceptance" and "tolerance" and how the notion of "tolerating" someone (esp. a friend, acquaintance, or family member) is one of the most haughty egotistical prideful notions I've ever heard. Reached the conclusion that "tolerance" is a touchstone revealing the lameness of the "tolerator" and not the "tolerated." In other words, if you have to "tolerate" me, you sure as shit ain't worth my while.

15. Bought a knit cap. Wore it.

16. Defecated.

17. Oh. And swung a large Scottish sword. (Thanks for reminding me, Land of the Anxious Dog that I hate ever so much **grumbling some more**)

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It is Tiny and Beautiful, and It is Mine

I have the urge to write something tiny and delicate today, like little bird knuckles or a sympathetic hand placed on your shoulder by a stranger.

Last night I sat outside in the rain with an old old friend of mine (16 years) and we talked about the tenuous web that held our friendship together--she is a devout and practicing Christian; I am a devout and practicing agnostic (who leans heavily towards atheism). I wonder often why it is that we choose to come back to one another like this all the time, leaning over tables, chitting about relationships, howling and laughing like back when we were in high school. I wonder how it is that she justifies being friends with someone who, based on her religion, is surely going to hell.

Finally last night I asked her this, leaning over a wooden picnic table, tiny raindrops inching their way carefully through the canopy of vines above to darken my sleeves and my hair.

And she told me.

And the answer was tiny and delicate.

And, like the key to a childhood diary or a love-letter written on a napkin, I placed it very carefully in my pocket so it wouldn't get lost.

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A Random Airing-Out of My Big Bag o' Dork

When I was in middle school, I really dug the song "The Humpty Dance" and its creator, Digital Underground. I dug it so much that I bought a cheap, blackmarket t-shirt of the song at the fleamarket that summer and wore it often.

When the Dana Carvey movie Opportunity Knocks came out (UNDERSTATEMENT! ---> and then the slightly-more well-received Wayne's World <---UNDERSTATEMENT!), I had a wicked celebrity-crush on Dana Carvey for quite some time. I even cut out a picture of him and hung it on the wall near my bed.

I used to get random and brief crushes on repair fellows/construction fellows that came over to work on our house.

Freshman year in high school, I used to wear a biker ring that had an eagle on it holding a skull in its beak. It looked sorta like this:

but also had a skull in its beak. I bought it at a fleamarket and wore it on my thumb. The bottom right wing of the eagle was chipped off. I once left it over the house of a boy named Tony Brinkman. He brought it into school for me the next day. I don't know what ever ended up happening to it, but I wish I still had it.

The first cassette I ever owned was a Hugga-Bunch cassette. The second cassette I ever owned was a James Taylor cassette. I traded this with my mom for her Phil Collins No Jacket Required cassette because I thought he was MUCH cooler than James Taylor.

Me and my friend Kristen were sincerely convinced that I would marry a man who had a name with about 5-consonants in a row in it because the Ouija Board told us so. CGBHNE, when will you sweep me away on your white-horse?

I once got in trouble with my best friend's parents when we got in a fight and I allegedly "wiped a deodorant stick on her." She was a liar.

When I was 9-years old and the Paul Simon song "You Can Call Me Al" came out, I became infatuated with the name and wished that I could get my own name legally changed to it. I tried getting my family to call me Al when they addressed me, but this failed miserably. As a last-ditch attempt, I bought a set of name-stickers of different shapes and designs that had the name AL on all of them. I plastered them on everything. I soon grew out of this phase.

The oldest stuffed animal that I still own is my Alley Cat. His name was... um... Al. I threw up on his head sometime prior to 6th grade while sleepwalking (I don't remember exactly how old I was--just that it was at my old house), and my mom had to put panties over his head when she washed and dried him so his plastic eyeballs wouldn't get all scratched up. I still touch up his pupils with a permanent black marker every few months or so when I think of it.

I once cried in a van with a couple of my friends because they believed in God and I didn't.

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The Fam

On Saturday, I went to a surprise party for my grandma's 75th birthday. (It just took me about 10 minutes to figure out how to phrase that without it sounding like she's had 75 surprise parties throughout the course of her life. I am tired.) My aunt and uncle had arranged it in a weird, reverse kind of way where my grandma showed up for a "birthday lunch" BEFORE all the guests arrived and then at 3, the guests started trickling in slowly, much to my grandma's extreme surprise (apparently she's never had a birthday party her whole life). There were tons of folks there, folks that I see rarely, except every decade or so for family reunions. And there were folks there from my more inner-circle of family (grandparents and uncles) that I really should see more often but don't.

You see, my family is a massive mess of people not communicating with other people. My mom doesn't talk with my grandma. And in turn, this means she rarely talks to my uncle or aunt or anyone else on that side of the family. My mom also does not talk to my dad (they're divorced). My mom's family rarely talks to me and my sibs as well (out of disjointedness due to their relationships with my mom). My dad does not talk to my mom. My dad's family also no longer talks to my mom. Me and a couple of my sibs haven't talked to my dad in a really long time. And in turn, my dad hasn't talked to us. Nor have any of the family members on my dad's side. So me, my mom, and my three sibs are our own island. And have been for quite some time. We keep in contact with one another fairly religiously, but the family communication stops there.

Don't get me wrong, I love my immediately family with a ferocity that scares me at times. Things have been a mess and ugly on occasion between all of us, but I feel so goddamned blessed to have each and every one of them in my life, despite these stints of ugliness. As cliche as it is, I truly would not be who I am today without them, ugliness and goodness and all.

And yet, I long for big family gatherings. I think fondly back upon when I was little and hordes of relatives would gather on the holidays at someone's house and lavish their warm and silly and, at-times, annoying company on all of us, decked out in lawn-chairs with heaping plates of Hungarian food and good conversation. I miss my grandma yammering on about serial-murderers or some graphic hospital-related event that she witnessed as a nurse over Easter eggs and kielbasa. I miss goofing around with my cousins while our parents lazed about outdoors, downing beers from nearby coolers and complaining about their jobs. I miss the shit outta all this. And I wish my holidays were pulsing with huge amounts of extended family and these kindsa activities again.

Whenever Ms. Mo invites me to dinner or some other event with her ginormous family, afterwards she always apologizes to me for the chaos of this very large, very beautiful, extended family of hers. And she always finds it amusing when I hastily and energetically wave off her apologies, telling her that I *LOVE* the bump and bustle and chaos and confused conversational threads of tons of family-members gathered lovingly over a meal, or sitting around laughing as we taste-test food at little parties her mom arranges, or any variation on the above theme. I love the noise. I love the warmth that emanates from everyone towards one another. I love the craziness. I love the love at these events.

So when my uncle bustled by my chair Saturday at the party (my uncle who I've seen maybe 3 or 4 times in the past 6-8 years) and spontaneously stopped to plant a big fat kiss on the top of my head and tussle my hair with a grin on his face, it ate my heart all up because in that two seconds, in that brief spontaneous burst of affection, I was slam-dunked back into the purely joyful, purely childish appreciation that I had for these events back when I was little. In that slight gesture, I suddenly was that 8-year old girl again, being swept up into the arms of my extremely tall, extremely handsome Al-Pacino-esque actor of an uncle, his bushy beard tickling my face as he harassed me by nuzzling my face and neck with it and pestering me with kisses and teasing words. Drowning in affection and familial love as I squirmed to free myself from his arms while giggling madly and trying to escape his beard.

It was a moment like I'd not had in a long time. And what made it all the more beautiful is that I think he was there too. That this sudden burst of affection from him came from him stepping back into one of those exact moments from some 20+ years earlier. And that he was kind enough to place this moment in my lap, like a carefully wrapped gift, for me to unfold and cherish for myself. That in that moment, we were not the older and wiser uncle awkwardly trying to figure out how to maneuver and interact with this 28-year old woman who IS in fact a woman now and not the child that he used to lavish these adoring moments on--that instead we were ALIVE in that PAST moment, for a split-second, blissfully the fun-loving uncle and the goofbally little girl, sharing each others' warmth and excitement to be there together with one another, to be there together to share all this with family.

Whether or not he realized how much that meant to me at that moment (and chances are, he did not), it was a beautiful gift and meant a lot to me to feel that sort of love again, and I thank my uncle for it. From the bottom of my left ventricle.

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The Ballad of No-Pants

His nickname was No-Pants, and he liked to drive around in a brown poop-smudge of a UPS truck five days a week. Thing is, No-Pants wasn't actually a delivery man. He just really liked PRETENDING to be. Most of us move out of this stage once we hit puberty and playing "banker" or "waiter" or "cowboy" or "whore" with our childhood friends just isn't entertaining anymore. But apparently he never reached this point. So every day, he dragged his tired rearend out of his postage-stamp bed in the morning, scooted off to wriggle into the UPS uniform that his mother had so carefully sewn him when he was just turning 18, and ran out to his poop-smudge of a truck (he'd spent one summer painting it very precisely to the hue and details of your typical UPS truck) to deliver his "packages." Really he just drove up and down the streets near my work. We'd see him at least two or three times a day, just driving. And occasionally he'd jump out of his truck and run urgently towards a building with an empty box, as though he was running late in delivering it. And whenever he saw us, he'd smile, give a toss of his hand through the air, and run back to his truck, his brown shorts blowing tightly against his legs as he speedily ran. To nowhere. To deliver nothing.

His name was No-Pants.

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A Split-Second Shot of Something

This weekend I went to the airshow. We sat out on a blanket in one of the parks on the opposite side of the freeway, surrounded by bustling families, excited kids, people grilling, and the tinkle of hordes of ice cream trucks that attacked the parks like mosquitos. This is where we'd occasionally go to watch it when I was little as well (either that or the roof of my grandma's apartment complex where we were able to catch that invisible stealth bomber plane more than once)--my parents were masters at finding free activities for us all the time back then. (This is why I'd never been on an actual vacation until I was nearly a senior in high school. This is also why I'm such a book-nerd. Although I do appreciate the shit outta my mom for this--at least once a week we spent an exorbitant amount of time in the library. It was always one of the highlights of my week, and picking out random books to pour my attention into was one of my favorite things to do as a child. Still is. Yes==book nerd. Anyways...)

Everytime I go to the air show as an adult, I go in thinking, "Eh. It's something to do. It's nice weather so at least we can sit out on a blanket and enjoy it." But man alive, I am still such a fricking kid at heart. I *LOVE* watching the planes shoot across the sky at high speeds. I love watching them whip around and tumble in spirals and shoot smoke out their asses and fall head over butt down towards the ground. I love hearing their loud noises confuse me as they resound after the plane is already long-gone past. I love that the sonic boom of a plane is exactly the same noise as the crack of a whip (except louder of course)--that both are breaking the sound barrier because of ridiculous speed which results in that loud cracking noise. I love trying to pick them out in the slightly tree-masked sky, and when I do, shouting, "There it is!!!" and pointing.

And most of all, I love love love watching the planes fly in formation. This is awesome and amazing to me. On the news they said that the Thunderbirds actually fly as close as THREE FEET from one another. Three feet. Perfectly synchronized. Perfectly choreographed. Like smooth-skinned, long-limbed, lithe dancers, playing out their moves ever so carefully against a back-drop of blue. It amazes me that there is something so aesthetically appealing about watching this--and clearly there is, otherwise folks wouldn't flock to the parks and the shows to WATCH these planes DO these things. And yet, there is something just as beautiful as a painting, a play, a dance routine in these planes moving as one entity through the sky. I don't know quite why this is, but I'm all about it. Perhaps it's partially the fact that planes are so fantastically weird and amazing--like giant metal birds. I mean, some of those bastards weigh like 140 tons (and that's just the Thunderbirds--imagine how much commercial airliners weigh), they are massive hulks of twisted metal, and yet they cut through the sky like a shiny butterknife through a pad of room-temperature butter. So perhaps some of the aesthetic appeal is sheerly linked to the fact that these big-ass things so fantastically defy gravity in ways that seem impossible for something of their weight and mass. Because it is fantastic. I find myself thinking this at least once a week (seriously), when I see some plane arching through the sky and think of how strange and yet wonderful this is, how much like something out of a sci-fi novel or something.

Or maybe the aesthetic appeal is just that return to a state of child-likeness, where you can happily ooh and ahh and giggle and point and get excited about something in a way that most people typically don't do on a regular basis. Who knows.

But I ramble. So instead of yammering on and on some more, I leave you with an excerpt from a Tomas Transtromer poem whose images I never fail to call up when I see a plane piercing the steely blue sky. May you never fail to think of this when your jaw drops at the awesomeness of those hulking metal beasts:

Sun burning. The plane comes in low
throwing a shadow shaped like a giant cross that rushes over the ground.
A man is sitting in the field poking at something.
The shadow arrives.
For a fraction of a second he is right in the centre of the cross.

I have seen the cross hanging in the cool church vaults.
At times it resembles a split-second shot of something
moving at tremendous speed.

("I Det Fria"--Tomas Transtromer)

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50-Feet Deep in Men

Whenever I listen to Mike Doughty's Smofe and Smang, like I did last night while sitting around with M, I am always reminded of the song "It's Raining Men" (he rambles briefly about how the next time concert-goers feel the urge to shout out "Freebird" lamely at a concert, they should instead shout out "It's Raining Men").

And whenever I hear someone mention "It's Raining Men," I am always reminded of this one time when I stopped at a gas station to fill my tank up. I went inside and paid first, and the cashier folks were a couple of teenage boys who were goofing around and being loud even as I approached to pay. Anyways, I paid, I went outside and started pumping gas. Suddenly, that speaker that they sometimes use to talk to people if they're having problems pumping or they need to pay first comes crackling on. And two boys' voices came stumbling out over the crackles, shouting, "This song's for you, Pump #3!" Which was me, of course (otherwise I wouldn't be telling this story). And they immediately started into two sung verses of "It's Raining Men," their voices wobbly with laughter and completely off-key and couched in horrible crackly dissonance. And there I was, my fella in the car not hearing a second of it, getting serenaded by two teenage boys with one of the *LAMEST* songs ever. It was great.

And whenever I think of this incident, it always makes me think of the retardedly terrifying possibilities of the event that the song describes actually taking place. Men tumbling, ass over head over ass, from the sky and slamming into pavement, cars, rooftops, trees. People who are unlucky enough to be out on the streets screaming and running in every direction to avoid them all. Male bodies building up one on top of another on top of another until they're 50-some feet deep and people are having to wade through with giant rubber boots on to get to and from work. Umbrellas demolished by the sheer force of such raindrops. People watching through their picture windows from a comfortable seat on their couches, muttering, "Thank god, I don't have to go out today" and sipping tea. The phrase "Ah, Cleveland weather. Gotta love it..." taking on a TOTALLY new meaning.

And that shit's fucked up. That shit's really fucked up.

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Occam's Razor

THINGS THAT WE WONDERED ABOUT LAST NIGHT AND AN OCCAM'S RAZOR EXPLANATION FOR HOW THEY WORK

1. Dvds--elves
2. Cds--elves
3. Burnt cds--elves
4. Cassettes--elves
5. Television--elves
6. Vinegar--fermentation of natural sugars to alcohol and then secondary fermentation to vinegar
7. Photographs--elves
8. Hurricane--Giant Russian driver

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Things That Put a Smile on My Big Fat Face

1. Crash--My sister talked me into going to see this over the weekend at the $1 movie theater. She said she'd read many good reviews about it stating that it looked at racial issues in complicated and interesting ways, unlike most movies that attempt to deal with race (sidenote: damn you, Samuel L. for being a part of such garbage!!!!). Anyways, the movie is by no means flawless. It has some lame moments in it. But it does a FANTASTIC job of looking at stereotypes and prejudice in complicated, rather than typically flat, ways. And it is not prescriptive at all. It moreso just examines the issues and brings them to a very nice glaring light rather than hemming and hawwing about them being obvious and then just preaching some sorta solution. Go see, or go rent at this point. Worth seeing.

2. The boy outside the library--Last week, when I was coming out of the library after picking up some books I ordered, I had a couple little boys shout shit at me and some other little girls roaming around out there (these were 8 or 9 year olds, mind you). Anyways, some gangly teenager (no more than 15) started lecturing them about "respecting women" and completely went off on them as I was getting into my car. It made my cheeks ache with happiness to see a teenage boy whose growing brain was quickly dwarfing the gangliness of his growing body. You rock, gangly library boy!

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Katrina

If I hear one more fucking person whine about the rising gas prices without placing their minor, $.70, piddly-ass problems into perspective by thinking about those in New Orleans and other southern cities who are suffering and/or dead from this fucking hurricane, I think I may very well scream.

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Oh, and one of my new favorite quotes from the news when they were interviewing folks about the hike in gas prices this week:

"I just know God's in control, and He'll take care of it."

Yeah, because in the wake of the horrific catastrophe that is Hurricane Katrina, I'm sure His top priority at the moment is dealing with the fucking gas prices in Cleveland.

Or wait. Maybe by "God" he just meant "our white conservative airhead of a president"? In which case, you're still living in a pipe-dream, buddy.

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