Good n' Plenty Existentialism

Yeah, I took the Good n' Plenty counter down from my sidebar. Simply because the last two times I happened to glance at it, I realized that rather than reminding me of something funny, it was reminding me on a daily basis that I've been at this job WAY too painfully long and need to get the hell out of here.

Nonetheless: I'm pretty certain not ONE box of Good n' Plenties has moved from the vending machine in the past 56 days. Just in case you were keeping track.

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Skeleton Queen vs. Skeleton Princess

N-A was babysitting his best friend's 4-year old daughter J yesterday, and they invited me out for ice cream. I spent the time discussing the difference between a Skeleton Queen and Skeleton Princess Halloween costume (apparently there are several, including the color of the costume and the quality of the crown), listening to J freestyle a rap about a two-headed snake in her jewelry-box, teaching her how to give a wet-willy (which I'm sure her mom will be thrilled about), and helping her pack snowballs to throw at N-A. It was nice to be in the company of a child. It made me realize how infrequently I actually get the opportunity, since none of my close friends or immediate family have kids.

When they dropped me off, J said to me, swinging her tiny legs in the backseat, "Are you N-A's girlfriend?"

"Yep."

"I thought so! (pause) I'm sorry! I can't remember your name!"

"Lindy Loo."

"My name's J!"

The way she speaks is so adult-like that it always makes me think of the children in Salinger's Glass family.

* * * *

Today I feel melancholic. Not sad. But like I want to eat some rainbows.



I don't think the two things really have anything to do with each other, but I'm just saying.

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"An average of seventy-four species become extinct every day, which was one good reason but not the only one to hold someone's hand..."

(from The History of Love by Nicole Krauss)

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I'm not sure which is more disturbing: your dude deciding that the best way to make peace with you after an argument is to bring over an obscure and incredibly campy 1970s (extremely) softcore porn flick about an evil emperor named Wang from the planet Porno who is attempting to take over the Earth with his evil Sex Ray, or that his plan (for the most part) actually worked.



(The surprisingly unnaked trailer--SFW)

*Apparently you can also watch most of the movie HERE if you so choose.

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Dudes Say the Darnedest Things

Apparently it is my lot in life to get hit on at the library in the most ridiculous of ways. And that's fine and all--I have no MAJOR objections. I mean, there's worse places to get hit on. At least at the library, you know you're not dealing with a case of beer goggles (usually), and if the attempts to woo you get annoying or a little too X-rated, there are many large, square items that can be thrown at the individual's head.

The only overly-annoying facet of the Library Come-On is that it always (always) revolves around the library materials you are in the process of checking out, and it only serves to glaringly emphasize the person's complete lack of knowledge ABOUT said library materials.

Case in point from yesterday:

SCENE: I am standing in line to check out a couple dvds: Henry & June and Four Weddings & a Funeral. The dude in front of me is waiting for the librarian to finish retrieving the 10 or so dvds he's checking out. He notices me standing behind him and turns around to face me.

DUDE (obviously looking me up and down): How you doin'?

ME: Fine, you?

DUDE: Good... Good...

[Drawn-out 30-second pause during which Dude stares at me while I read the back of my dvd covers, I look up at him, he looks away, I look away, he starts staring at me again.]

DUDE (scoping out my dvd selections and apparently noticing the word "wedding" on my Four Weddings & a Funeral dvd): You getting married?

ME: Huh?

DUDE (enunciating as though I am a slow person): You... getting... married... soon?*

ME: Uh, no.

[Another extremely painful 30-second pause]

DUDE: You single?

ME: Uh, no.

DUDE (eyeing me suspiciously): You have a boyfriend?**

ME: Uh, yeah.

DUDE: So you have a boyfriend...

ME (looking around): Yes.

DUDE (stares at me and nods his head up and down slowly)

[Thankfully at this precise moment, the librarian returns to check out my dvds. I pray that she finishes up mine before the other librarian finishes up his, so I don't have to deal with more of this outside. Thankfully, the Book Gods are on my side, and she works fast.]

Noteworthy Moments:

*I love that Dude adds on the "soon" the second time he asks this question, as though, in the 2-seconds between the first and second time he asks, it suddenly dawned on him that, even if I AM getting married, as long as it's not SOON, he still has a chance of fucking the shit out of an engaged woman. Scruples.

**I also love (but am somewhat puzzled by) the fact that me telling him I'm not single somehow isn't enough for him. I am unsure of whether he asks this follow-up question a) to try to catch me off guard, in the hopes I'll stumble and be like, Uh, Wait! No! No, I mean yes! and then he can swoop on in and destroy me with my lies, b) because he wants to figure out whether I'm lesbionic, so he can at least FANTASIZE about some hot library threesome later on that night, or c) he's just slow.


I tell you this tale to stress again to all you library Don Juans out there: If you're going to mack on someone at the library, at least have SOME sort of cursory knowledge of the book or dvd you are going to use as your conversation-piece. I stressed this once before, after a lawyer tried using Dostoevsky to get a little something something going with me. But apparently word has not gotten out very well.

So please: Print this out, email it, whatever you need to do. Just SPREAD THE WORD.

Don't end up like Dude above.

You're better than that.

Hopefully.

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World's Most Unnecessary Cover of an Already Horribly Shitty Song Which Somehow Actually Managed to Make it Even MORE Nauseating to Listen to

If, like me, you've always thought that this song was SO very shitty that no cover of it could POSSIBLY make it any worse, you were dead wrong:

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I have these two trust-fund babies that live in front of me (and we're talking HARD CORE trust fund babies: brand new expensive cars, parents with cardigans tied around their necks, and regular golf outings (with their own clubs), despite only being MAYBE 24). Despite the fact that they often make my skin crawl, I still try to be nice to them. But this weekend, they validated the fact that they are the whitiest white people ever, when the party they were having got "rowdy" around 2am, and they started blasting the stereo and singing along at the top of their lungs to... Billy Joel, Meatloaf's "Paradise by the Dashboard Light," a song from Dirty Dancing, "Gangsta's Paradise" (which they prefaced with a loud "awwww, yehhhhhhhhhhhhh"), and--inexplicably--the theme song to Charlie Brown.

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So Old Guy Neighbor bought me a blanket. It apparently snaps up around your body or some such thing. Or--alternately--you can just use it as a regular old blanket. Apparently he bought it for me because he bought himself one and really liked it, and, as he frequently says, "Who else do I have to spend money on other than myself?"

Now the blanket actually looks sort of cute. And it's a nice color. And I actually might've picked it up if I'd seen it on sale at, say, Target or something.

But every time I give some thought to actually USING the blanket, I think about how snuggling up with the blanket is sorta like snuggling up with Old Guy Neighbor. How sleeping with the blanket is sorta like sleeping with Old Guy Neighbor.

And ever since those thoughts crossed my mind yesterday, I've of course had the overwhelming horrifying anxiety-laced need to GET RID OF THE BLANKET IMMEDIATELY.

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Apparently They Need to Lower the Voting Age to 4-Years Old

Actual conversation from last night while out for celebratory drinks (transcribed to the best of my memory)

Me: So did you get to go out and celebrate the election stuff last night?

A: No! I was stuck working til like 1am.

RK (to A's 4-year old daughter, J): So how old are you?

J (shouting and holding up 4 fingers): I turned 4 on my 4th birthday!

Me to A: That sucks that you didn't get to celebrate. Did you guys at least have a tv on so you could watch the election results as they came in?

A: Yeah, we had the tv on all night, so that was good at least.

J (sitting in A's lap, legs swinging, shouting again excitedly): McCain thinks that women shouldn't get paid as much as men!

Me, A, R all look at each other simultaneously and burst out laughing

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Agh. I feel so very overwhelmed by the momentousness of this day. So many of the stories I've heard... they are a beautiful thing. And yet, I feel nervous to the point of tears. I suspect they will probably show up sometime tonight. I just hope they are mixed with grins and cheers.

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For whatever reason THESE make me feel happy when I look at them.

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Unmade Bed

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