Actually overheard: "What? You can't let him do it, he doesn't know where to put that caulk!"

In order for Other to get me to watch a movie with him, he basically has to pin me to the couch. But yesterday he somehow got me to watch Control Room, a documentary about the (allegedly accidental) bombing of Al Jazeera's headquarters. I'm glad to have seen it, because I had sort of unconciously been perceiving the perspective of most Iraqis (and, more largely, Arabs) as being about 80/20 glad Saddam would be gone/unhappy about being invaded. But if the documentary is accurate, it seems to be more the case that it's about 95/5 infuriated about the invasion/grudgingly willing to admit that having Saddam out of power is good.

Hearing Bush's speeches about how he's going to invade Iraq if Saddam isn't out in 48 hours and then, at the official end of combat operations, about how America is now safe, was difficult the first time around. But watching roomfuls of Arabs watching those speeches was... wrenching? Something. It was frustrating, though, because I, and so many people, so strongly feel that he doesn't represent us. Or, I guess, because he does in practice represent us, he doesn't represent us accurately. This is not how we feel. I can't say that I know how they feel, watching him strut around at the helm of the most powerful nation, watching him declare his intent to invade what they identify with as their part of the world. But I wish there were some way to communicate to them that we're desperately unhappy about what he's doing.

And if we never get around to contacting you... well that's just tough shit.

This job search is like a boulder crushing my meek little soul at the rate of 1" per day. Crunch. Crunch. Crunch*. And then about every three days, a helium balloon of hope comes along, a shiny helium ballon of hope with "I might be qualified for that!" written on it in big bold shiny letters, and attaches itself to the boulder and lifts it - oh, but not an inch, nay - 1/3 of an inch. (Which you would enter into a cell in Excel as 0 1/3. (I'm learning Excel. Guess Why.))

Why, please tell me, have I been googling and monstering and searching away for months and maybe even a year or so by this point and not finding anything and then all of a sudden it's like,

Monster: Say, here's a job you'd be qualified for and probably actually enjoy and that has health insurance attached.
Me: Really, Monster? OMG^, you're right!
Monster: and - oh, look! It's been posted for a month! Heh, they're probably wrapping up the interviews by now!
Me: [deluded] Well, it's so perfect in every way except for that last fact that you just mentioned that I should probably whip up a cover letter and then spend the next five workdays staring at the phone!
Monster: [patting me on the head] You do that, dear. In the meantime, please be tricked into giving your home phone number to the Army.

On the bright side, it turns out I'm qualified for things. Two things. But still, that doesn't even include jobs for which you have to say "Do you want fries with that?," which is the only job about 7 million people told me I'd be able to get with a Philosophy degree*^. And then repeated when I switched to an English major.


*That's right - my soul is crunchy. It's made out of Saltines.
^ I don't really say this.
*^ Oh, haha, people. That's not old.

And now for the return of Summer Pants

It's 96 today!

On this 96 day, we decided to hop in the car and head for the nearest metropolis. Other was going to see a horror movie and I was going to laze about in a coffee shop plotting the designs for my next quilt, but this was not to be, because the movie theatre (which turned out to be pretty ramshackle and not without menacing employees) only accepted cash, and it was too late to go get cash, and the other theatre nearby wasn't playing a show for another two hours, etc.

So the mini-metropolis is also showing the horror movie, at 10pm, which is pretty late (for me) for a Tuesday, but I have volunteered to go sit at Steak 'n Shake [beancrock] while Other takes in the flick. But he is lamenting the lack of a horror movie partner. I will not go with him because I don't believe in horror movies. That is, the pointfulness of seeing them. And while I have nicely volunteered to go anyway, I think Other understands (from experience?) that if I do, then he'll spend the next three weeks sitting in the bathroom while I shower, opening closet doors for me, and hanging fabric over every mirror in the house.

I have taken a very agnostic stance on the existence of the paranormal; ghosts, spirits, angels, whathaveyou. In thinking about it, I realize that I've kind of assumed that my potential exposure to the paranormal is just like any other hobby that I've never been interested in. Nascar, model shipbuilding, tatting. If I'm not interested in tatting, why go to a tatting convention?

Hey, look at me, I called the AIDS Crisis!

Hoo doggies do I hope so.


News Flash: It Is Hot.

I'm sorry to talk about the weather. The only thing I want to say is that I have a proposal: NPR announcers who mention the temperature really, when it's above about 90 degrees, need to say "90 fucking degrees." I would like them to acknowledge how much it being 96 degrees out sucks.

Sofa king, what?

We took the dogs (Jane is pictured left) to the p-a-r-k today and she was very happy, as usual, to roll in the high grasses. As we passed her once, she did a full 360 degree turn, landing somehow on her feet and looking surprised to see us.

We were plagued in the car and at home, while we stretched so that the air conditioning didn't make our muscles snap back into place like broken rubber bands, by a tangy kind of mulch-y smell. You know how mulch smells? (Or, I'm sorry David Brooks, is that just a Red State thing?) It's like that but with an edge to it. Upon some sniffing, we determined that it's indeed Miss Jane who is emanating the smell, and it must have been whatever she rolled in. But what could she have rolled in? I'm hoping that it was some sort of degrading tree matter, rather than some recently-expelled-from-a-critter matter.

Anyhow, I only attempt to bathe the dogs when they're completely unbearable to be around, because it always turns into a soapy cross-species wrestling match, and they're just going to go back to the woods/creek/beach/mulch pile within the next two days, so it seems pointless. But there are times when even a futile bath is called for, and if she still smells like this tomorrow, then she'll probably be in for it.


Empathy shout-out

My birthday was on Thursday, the day that the bomb attacks failed in London, and I'm getting a tiny little taste of what the 9-11 birthdays must feel like. I was listening to the news today, and got a nice little jolt of hearing my birthday mentioned* but then it was followed by talk of the terrorists. So all those 9-11 people must get these little jolts all the time but then have to remember: "Oh, yeah, the day... all those people died... and America changed forever and then that stupid fucking song 'Have You Forgotten' was written about it."


*Maybe this is stupid (and it's definitely self-centered on a micro scale) but the month or so leading up to my birthday is always happy-making, because I never know when an expiration date on a milk carton or container of yogurt or an upcoming event announcement on the radio will remind me that my birthday is coming up. And yeah, even though I'm guaranteed to get seriously depressed on the actual day, I still get excited.

Whatevs, man -- your stuffed animal credibility is shot to hell.

Among the many things to love about NPR is the way that an anchor (Lynn Neary, say, or Michelle Block (growl), or Michelle (Mechell?) Norris) rattles off a nineteen-syllable Arabic name like it's nothing. And then I imagine that they're all, like, thumping themselves on the chest with one fist and thinking: "Check it, bitches -- this ain't Fox News."

Post! Post! Post! Post!

Yeah, so I have to admit that I've never been more excited about a stranger's baby than I am about that one. I actually dreamt about it last night, all excited to see pictures, and then all day today while I was away from my computer I was all like:

Me: Ooh, I'll get to see pictures of the baby tonight!

Me: Naw, dog, they'll be to busy to post pictures!

Me: Yes they totally will; they've been talking about it on the blog for like three years now, they'll put pictures up today.

Me: Dude, do you seriously think anybody would have their shit together enough to post pictures of their newborn within twenty-four hours? There's no way you would. Forget about it.

And so on.

But- they did! Go see!

Gee Dubburd goes small-scale

A commercial that I saw today, where a maxi pad becomes a bed, reminded me of a commercial that I've hated for as long as it has been around for its supreme, astonishing, disturbing lack of logic: the Quilted Northern commerical wherein they show a cartoon of a comparison of their toilet paper with that of the competitor. Something about it being quilted. A cartoon. A cartoon of a factual, physical comparison. And the little cartoon characters comparing the toilet papers are like, "Oh! Quilted Northern is so much better!" But they're not real! They're cartoon characters! They're physically incapable of using and thus comparing toilet paper!

And the Quilted Northern website actually requires flash. Flash on a toilet paper website. Probably so we can see cartoon bears dance around waving cartoon toilet paper under their asses. AT LEAST THE QUILTERS WERE HUMANS. AT LEAST, CONCEIVABLY, IN THEIR CARTOON WORLD, THEY WIPED.

I'm starting to hyperventilate over toilet paper commercials, so we need to move on. In sum: Boycott Quilted Northern.


Where did all the flowers go?

Other has recently developed a habit of inventing food; unfortunately, he invents things that already exist. Raisins+Bran Cereal = Raisin Bran. Raisins+Almonds = Trail Mix. Slice of Bread+Tomato Sauce+Slice of Provolone = Pizza. Last week he invented bruschetta and it was really good.


Lil' Bratz in Lil' Time Out

In Borders today, I saw a magazine that boasted a feature on the 475 sexiest hairstyles going. The 475 sexiest. Four hundred and seventy five. Hairstyles. I started trying to figure out all the dimensions one can measure a hairstyle: length of bangs, length of sides, length of back; relationship of these lengths to each other; if color is fair game, well, that gets us up to maybe a couple hundred. But some poor hair-magazine employees had to come up with 475 combinations of the above factors that are all sexy. So that basically eliminates the mullet, and just about any hairstyle that has a name that isn't also the name of an actress.

And who would want to read about 475 sexy hairstyles anyway? Hair fetishists? Is there such a thing?

Things that make you go "meh"

I've been working on a theory regarding the recent pop-craziness of Top Gun. I think it could be related to the relatively recent meltdown of Senor Masochist Crazypants Mel Gibson.

Once you have three instances of something, it's a pattern, right? So my next move as a scientist will be to keep a close eye on the likes of Tom Hanks, Matthew Broderick, and Meatloaf to see if one of them starts to go crazy, too. Maybe there was something in the fame in the '80s.

Hooray for Safe Sex!

Yesterday at work, I had more than one shudder-worthy experience involving customers' purchases of condoms, and one I will now relate to you.

A woman, no older than me (24) and probably a little younger, ran into her friend who was carrying around a very young infant (no blanket, no transformable carseat, just a baby). She oohed and aahed over the sleeping baby, who was apparently her second cousin, and compared her to her own newborn. (I now know so much about how her newborn compares to this newborn, but you do not care. Neither do I. Onward.) She also talked about how her older child is reacting to the baby.

We were also about to close, so all of this chatter was happening when the store employees (me and the pharmacist) were getting a little itchy to leave.

So, she finally goes and gets the prescription - and on account of her child being so young, we had to enter him in the computer and get all the information straightened out - and comes to the counter to check out. She says, "I'm also going to need some condoms," which are hanging behind the counter.

Having sold condoms before, I'm not terribly uncomfortable at this point. Better to sell them to someone about my age than to an old guy who needs a bath. But, we've established that this woman is prone to the overshare, and of course she doesn't stop there. She says things like, "it's been such a long time!" And then she says, "I feel like a highschooler again!"

I smiled politely at everything she said and completed the transaction and it was not until I was in the car driving home that it dawned on me that what she said was completely disturbing. Gah.

A Post In Which Tom Cruise is Not Mentioned At All, Except for Just Then

It's too hot for socks. It's too hot for a lot of things.