That's the end of that chapta.

Even though I've been thinking about what to write about for this final post for weeks now, I'm totally not feeling it. I would've talked about how I'm glad I did NaBloPoMo, and how I'm still pissed about sleeping through Nov. 12, and how I'm really going to try to blog more, et cetera. But, no. Sometimes, man, I just don't feel like posting.

So here is a picture.

Hell: Still Other People

A declaration: Henceforth, I will not use "nerd," "geek," or "dork" in a derogatory way towards myself or loved ones. Or people in this little bloggy world. Since I consciously reject the MTV standards for judging a life, it would make sense to nix the self-flagellation for failing to meet those standards. If I want to spend Saturday night in pajama pants, handquilting and watching Arrested Development, well, God damn it, I think that's pretty awesome. And if you strongly disagree, I ask you this: why are you not drunk right now? (Hm, I may be assuming here. Better:) What are you doing reading a web log?

Don't worry though, I'm not going to dispense with the bumbling idiocy. Like, for example! Today I went to the food-place (the "cash-only" food place -- remember this, it might be relevant!) and got a delicious lunch made by the single surliest 20-yar-old in the English-speaking world. When it was my turn, she actually signified this by looking at me and saying, "you." Me what, bitch? Now, I have many problems relating to other people in day to day situations, but having worked in food service and generally aiming to not make the world a worse place, I try hard to treat servers with respect. I'm not sure what I could have done in the three-tenths of a second that she had to look at me and decide how to treat me, so I'm thinking maybe she has some kind of personality problem.

INCIDENTALLY, this is the same person who several weeks ago prompted me for more information by saying, "And?"

So (um, we're getting off-topic here, but I will get to the me making an ass out of myself in front of a (thankfully different) food-service worker soon, okay?)... So how do I handle this situation in the future? Do I:

A) Turn the other cheek, dealing with the angry, hate-filled food-service worker with enough grace that she does not do bad things to my food? (I can see everything that she does, but still, a wrap made with hate is not as good as a wrap made with love.)

B) Work really hard to ingratiate myself to her, because maybe she is angry and hate-filled from hours of dealing with princesses having stupid cell phone conversations while ordering intensely complicated foodstuffs and I can kind of relate to that?

C) Become a cell-phone princess with the intent of driving her over the edge, not stopping until she has become physically violent with me in such a public way that she is summarily fired in front of twenty of her royal peers?

Today my response tended first toward B and then ("And?") toward A. But if I have another morning at work like the one I had today, she'll be hauled off in handcuffs in less than a week. I suspect it will not take much.

So, anyway, the $5 that I got yesterday? And put in the pocket of my pants? Was still in the pocket of the pants I wore yesterday. Which were not the pants I wore today. And $2.65 does not a wrap buy. So I got to spend half my lunch break walking to and from the other lunch place, where the ATM lives, and where I could have gotten an identical lunch minus, probably, the surliness, and the $2 surcharge on the cash. See? Barely an adult, but not a dork.

digging your birds, digging your words

Oh dear. Following some of Fussy's links today (which I do not link because whenever people start counting clicks and links and licks etc. I get very contrary and Winston Smith on everyone and refuse to play along) I noticed that apparently "trend" has become a verb. A transitive verb.

I know. Sigh.

"Trend," I think, has been an intransitive verb for awhile now, as in "this line trends upwards after the Second Continental Congress." Even that usage seems a little new-y and unnecessary, as you could just as easily say "the trend of this line is upward," or "there is an upward trend here." But gah, the site says "trend this." Trend this. What does that even mean? What is action verb "to trend" trying to communicate?

On the most recent Prarie Home Companion, there was a sketch about a woman who can't accept a marriage proposal from a man who uses "gift" as a verb. And for all my training in linguistics and learning to respect the natural shift of language over time and language as common property and rules of language as descriptive rather than prescriptive, I still cannot freaking stand to hear "gift" used as a verb. Perhaps it's because why take a noun to make a verb when there is a perfectly good verb that means exactly what the new noun-to-verb formulation means and when between the noun and verb there is the utterly TINY difference of a voiced or unvoiced fricative plus, if you're using it in past tense, an irregular form that is actually shorter than the freaking new construction?! I would also hazard a guess that the word, genealogically speaking, started as a verb in the first place and actually spawned the noun, although I haven't looked it up.

The shift of all language is toward regularity, I know, I know. I know. It's just irksome.

Perhaps the appeal of saying "I'm gifting her this" over "I'm giving her this" is the difference in the accompanying mental image of handing someone a nice big, festively-colored box with a big old bow versus the image of handing someone a stapler. Maybe "giving" is just too general for us now.

radiogram fennel!

This march of months for things (Awareness, Po, etc.) has been rather exhausting. Next month I'm going to celebrate National Keeping My Shit Together Month, the first day of which will be Even Acknowledging There Is Shit That Up Until Now Has Not Really Been Kept Together Day, which, since we're being honest here will actually be a week, the first day of which will actually be Finding My Fucking Keys, Seriously Why Can't I Put Them In The Same Place Every Time I Come Home, God, HOW OLD AM I? Day. It will culminate in the Feast Of Oh Shit I Was Supposed To Buy Gifts.

Forgive me father, for I have touched the No-Touch Sensor

"Plenty of time for civility come January," says the shopping public. "Now get the fuck out of my way." Not one to argue with ravening (is this a word?) hordes, I oblige, and intend to continue obliging until auld has been thoroughly lang syned and singing Santas are at least 50% off.

The upside of this vow of hermitage is that I've laid in enough supplies to produce some gifts and maybe some "art," if we can go that far, which I will write about forthwith on quilting stuff.

Oh, finally, my vermicomposting workshop invitation is here.

The subject of today's installment of "Complaining about Country Songs, the Series" is "Remember When," not to be confused with the also spectacularly odious song about remembering 9-11 that I can't remember enough of to turn up a hit for on the Google. No, this is the song that contains the lines, "You were the first/so was I/we made love and then you cried/Remember when." Hurg. This makes me want to take a hot shower and exfoliate and maybe shave my head and vomit a couple times in order to feel clean again.

As if that weren't enough, it also at one point rhymes the word "sad" with - wait for it... wait for it... "glad."

It's enough to make me wish I didn't speak English.

--------------------
And now, here is a picture of my dog.

HEY JIM HALPERT, WHERE YOU BEEN ALL MY LIFE? PAM IS AN IDIOT. CALL ME!

It bugs me that the day after Thanksgiving/biggest shopping day of the year is called "Black Friday." I know it's probably called that because that's when stores get back into the black ledger-book-wise, but the connotations to the stock market crash and some sort of vaguely plaguey something are so great that every time I hear it, I roll my eyes and think, oh, yes, poor dears at the corporate headquarters are throwing themselves out windows because shoppers are insisting at buying sickening quantities of their products. Boo hoo.

gobble

One Thanksgiving, when I was about nine, probably, I taped a construction-paper-red waddle to my face, squatted down, and walked around the kitchen and the house saying: gobble.

Gobble. Gobblegobblegobble. Gobblegobble. Gobble? Gobble. Gobblegobblegobblegobble. ... Gobble.

I was also holding my arms as if they were wings.

This went on for hours.

When I the turkey needed a rest, I would go sit alone in the living room and stare at the wall, still holding my arms as wings.

I remember doing this as the stuffed turkey went into the oven, and doing it once the sun had set and the kitchen was full of dim yellow light.

"Are you being a turkey?"
"Gobble."
"What are you doing here?"
"Gobblegobble."
"Okay, well, watch out turkey, I have to take this... dish... out of the oven."

I think I finally knocked it off when it was time to sit down to dinner, and remember being proud of myself for not breaking character for so long.

One of the many things I'm thankful for today is that nobody ever told me to stop being the (damn) turkey (already).

Ummm... you are welcome?

By the way, and I've been meaning to write about this forever: "The Google?" Hehehe. Too much smoking of the pot, perhaps.

try four

This just in from the Department of Utterly Trivial Problems: my foot hurts. And I am writing about it on my website. Yeesh.

I was organizing my e-mail inbox today, and came up with this list of subject lines from Other:

the flower that drank the moon
the grammar is part of the satire
For the love of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, can we all revert back to capitalizing our fucking names, please.
brownies?
Message from a Tough Guy
ancient Chinese secret, huh?
5:00 tick tock
Re: Kangaroos
baby you can drive me coche
We need you to invent that program
Big Fat Man Has Big Fat Heart
the end of Joe-mentum?
free goo
in praise of Howie D.
thanks for the nose news, neighbor!
snake friend
don't be hesitatin'
what's the word, thunderbird?
HOLES
now I'm going to lose my job just because I'm dangerously unqualified

I am still concerned about my stream.

I was going to show you reruns from the archives, but turns out that today I am making doinstuff/orooni/OLaRT history by posting on November 20. I dug all the way back to Ye Olde Blogge of Un-disclosed Locatioun, which dates back to the year 2000, and indeed I never posted on this day there, either. Huh.

So what started out being a post of reruns ended up being a post about how I can't even supply you with those. And for sweeps week. I should be flogged.

real quick-like

Normally I regard radio banter as a toxic substance, but something I heard on the bus this morning was actually funny.

She-anchor: I heard someone say that Bo Schenbeckler died before the game so he could go to heaven and watch the game with Woody Hayes. Isn't that sweet?! [This is the type of thing that makes me want to dismantle my ears.]

He-anchor: Aww, yeah. (In an aside): Hope Woody didn't punch anybody.

Heee!

computer screen, don't fail me now

Apropos of nothing I promised to post every day, here is a list of songs I am currently digging:

"I Found a Reason," Cat Power, Covers Record
"Think I'm in Love," Beck, The Information
"Boys in the Bathtub," Aloha, Here Comes Everyone
"Trouble with Dreams," Eels, blinking lights and other revelations
"Burying Song," Hem, Rabbit Songs
"Nothing Better," The Postal Service, give up
"The Book of Right-on," Joanna Newsom, Milk-eyed Mender
"She Moves On," Paul Simon, Rhythm of the Saints

----------------

A small story: Last week, Other heard one Mr. Kevin Federline referred to as "K-Fed" for the first time, and found this so funny that he nearly required resuscitation. Once he regained consciousness and realized I was staring at him in puzzled horror, he asked, "Doesn't something ever just hit you as being incredibly funny?"

Well. People. I said no, but I spoke too soon, because at some point in the sea of football coverage we spent endless hours bobbing in over the weekend, I saw a commercial for Flomax.

It was your standard commercial for prescription drugs for old men; guy in fishing hat, soft focus, warm light. There was probably a golden retriever in there somewhere. Recommended for all sorts of bladder-related maladies, etc. etc. I was not paying attention until they got to the item in the list labeled "weak stream."

Weak stream!

"Yes, doctor, the ticker feels fine and the leg pain seems to have gone away, but I'm just not pleased with my stream."

I could have choked to death on my own tongue, I was laughing so hard. Weak stream.

yeah, I wouldn't want my license plate to be the mark of the beast either

nuh, nuh-nuh, nuh-nuh nuh nuh
nuh nuuh, nuh nuuh, nuh nuuh
nuh-nuh-nuh nuuh, nuh nuuh, nuh nuuh nuh nuh
nuh nuuh nuh nuuh nuh nuh
nuh! nuh! nuh!
nuh nuh nuh nuh nuh-nuh nuh nuh
nuh nuh nuh nuh nuh-nuh nuh nuh!
nuh! nuh! nuh nuh nuh nuh,
nuh nuh nuh-nuh nuh nuh-nuh nuuh-nuh-nuh!

nuh nuh nuh-nuh
(nuh nu-nuh nuh-nuh)
nuh nuh nuh-nuh
(nuh nu-nuh nuh-nuh)

nuh-nuh - nuh-nuh
nuh nuh nuh-nuh-nuh nuh!

List says write about...

...This American Life! I was listening to the episode about superpowers, and one of the first intros was this guy talking about how instead of engaging in stupid small talk, he liked to ask people about whether they would prefer invisibility or flight as their one and only superpower.

(Want to decide for yourself, before hearing arguments for either side? Do it now, it's fun!)






I posed the question to Other, and he said flight. I myself picked invisibility. Other said that most people probably would choose invisibility so they could steal stuff.

And you may not believe me, but stealing stuff never even entered my calculation of which superpower I would choose. My calculation went like this:

1) Well, both would be cool. If you flew, you could get places fast, but if you were invisible, you wouldn't have to talk to people you didn't want to talk to.

2) AND, if you were able to fly, people could shoot at you and bring you down.

3) AND, if you were invisible, when you got on the bus, all the people wouldn't look up at you, because they wouldn't know you were there.

So invisibility it is. I'm not sure why the inability of people to shoot me entered my calculations. It's not like I get shot at on a regular, semi-regular, or ever-in-my-life kind of basis. I do indeed get looked at, though, and it sucks.

Forever ago, someone told me the theory that fears come out of ways that you died in past lives. So I figured, since I've never felt claustrophobia, I wasn't ever buried alive. If that's true, I guess I was either bitten by a huge spider, or shot out of the air.

Maybe I was a duck.

I don't think you're crazy.

People!* You know that scene in Ghostbusters where** Winston tells Ray that when someone asks you if you're god, you say YES? Well, people, when you hear about an Arrested Development movie (or at the very least a movie starring G.O.B. and directed by Bob Odenkirk -- I don't want to know ANYTHING about it other than that it exists and that I can go see it at a particular time and place) you TELL ME ABOUT IT.

DUDES. This is so great. I miss that show something awful. It's warped my whole worldview. When I went to see The Illusionist, I spent the first half hour wondering why Edward Norton wasn't wearing billowing pants and dancing around with a knife clenched in his teeth.


*I do not know why I start so many sentences, posts, and paragraphs this way. Maybe I feel like Bernie Mac. "America," I would say. But actually this blog has at least a tenth of a score of international readers, so I'm opening it up.

**OMG! (I do not really say OMG.) I am a multiple-window lady, and in my other window I had clicked on the link to the blog of the guy who's awarding a painting to a random NaBloPoMo participant who didn't fuck up and sleep through the end of a non-posted-yet day (for example), and god damn if we do not have Ghostbusters on the brain! America: that movie (II) scared the living bejesus out of me. TO THIS DAY there are still moments where I turn on the bathwater and fear for a teeny moment that pink ooze will come out. America: cut me some slack, I was eight! Or maybe nine!

give her the wings to fly from harm and she won't bother you no more

Tonight I read the Eating Disorders chapter of my abnormal psychology book, and am thinking about a girl I knew who died of anorexia when we were in college. I dug out my journal from that time, and there is some stuff that I remember that I didn't record, plus some stuff that I recorded but didn't remember.

I remember that she and I ran into each other a couple weeks before she died (turns out it was six days), and that her little sister was with her, and that we talked for a few minutes. I was with one of my roommates. What I didn't write down, but still remember, was that upon seeing her, I thought, wow, she looks great. What that meant to me, I guess, was she looks so thin. (I didn't write that down at the time because of the crushing awfulness of it.) She was pretty, too, though, in a traditional blonde, blue-eyed way.

She was a kind of pretty that I steered clear of, a kind of pretty that had absolutely no use for people like me. She was a kind of pretty that, honestly, frightened me. Everyone frightened me at that point in my life, but the pretty people especially, who highlighted the ways in which I would never ever ever be pretty and, by extension, worthy.

The thing about her, though, was that she went out of her way to be kind to me.

We worked together, along with 20 other girls, as waitresses. Generally the divide was between the mousy girls who did a lot of work, and the pretty girls who did some work but mostly talked. She and a couple of her friends bridged the divide, being pretty while simultaneously working really hard and being competent. They were nice to me, me, who was neither pretty nor especially competent.

Once they dragged me 'out' for an evening of 'college fun,' and what I remember of it is seeing her tiny studio apartment and then going to a midnight pancake breakfast, where I watched her show up and help, seamlessly integrating herself onto the wait staff, handing out food and bussing tables and making sure everyone had silverware. I remember watching her and trying to figure out how to be that at ease with people, that naturally helpful and thoughtful.

The anxiety from that period of my life is actually back with me now; I'm tense and shaking and breathing rather shallowly. (No wonder my journal from that time is so harebrained, if this is what I constantly felt like.)

When she died, more than one person from the restaurant called me to let me know. I felt awkward about going to the funeral, not wanting to claim something that wasn't mine, though I did go. I didn't even know she had anorexia. I can't even really say we were friends. I don't even know what to say now, about knowing someone, being someone's acquaintance, or having a friend who died of anorexia.

Proof!

Starve a fever, feed a cold, and drink a sinus infection under the goddamn table.

People, I'm really sad about this whole failing to post on November 12 thing. Seriously, I had big plans. I had a list. On the up side, I did get to use up the rest of the sick time that, had I not used it, would've turned into some extra vacation time. Woohoo.

Although, hey, I see that a consolation prize has been added, so now I have a good reason to keep going.

One of the things on the list was to start a directory of Spamkus, and at some point I will do that, but for now, here is another single poem.

Spamku #6

News, non-sex linked
worn accompany;
He nodded I've done so don't;
backscatter backhand.

elko

Spamku #5

Korea face
gold specific clock;
no rent land meter angle;
diameter spring.

This Idea Stolen From Briantology, Part II

A Profile of My Other Dog

Name: Jane

Nicknames: JaneDog, Janie Brainy (Drivin Me Insaney), Scrunchface Doubletooth, Satellite Dish Head



Name Story: When I was 15, or 16, I wrote in my journal, "someday i will have a dog named Jane."

Breed: Both of her parents were chow mixes of some unspecified variation.

Adoption story: We had been looking for a dog to keep Lou company and had actually auditioned two, who had proven incompatible. Because Lou is particular and grumpy, we figured we should find a puppy (who might grow up worshipping Lou as a God), and we both wanted a female.

One day, Other and Lou were doing their long walk around the city, letting the traffic lights determine their path. A fateful light change led them down a side street where they came upon people getting out of their car with a teeny puppy. They struck up a conversation, he got their address, and about five hours later, we were bringing the Jane Dog home.

She was five weeks old when we got her -- you're not even supposed to wean them until six weeks, but she was being fed reconsituted milk when we adopted hre, so I have no idea when she was actually weaned. If it affected her adversely, we can't tell. If she'd been nourished properly before we got her, she'd have to take up a life of fighting crime and doggie heroism, because she's incredibly strong and incredibly smart. I tried to teach her to roll over, and could only get her shoulders on the floor -- once she plants her back feet, there is no getting her onto her side.

Personality: Jane is the mellowest animal I've ever met. She loves to run and play, but if she's flung the ball at you several times and it's apparent that you're not going to play, she can be asleep within 30 seconds.

She knows at least 28 words, and is very obedient, especially when we're in the woods.

When we first got her, her coloring was exactly the same as Lou's. She went through what we politely refer to as her "awkward" phase, and now looks very different. The people we got her fron estimated that she'd grow up to be about his size, and ended up beging taller and skinnier, though about the same weight. Unlike with Lou, we were able to watch her grow up, and it was often amusing. We would wake up in the morning and her legs would be longer than they'd been the night before. One day she'd gotten muscles. One day her head had finally caught up with her body. One day her ear stood straight up, then, later, the other one did.

Janie's unhappy with people she doesn't know coming into the house, and will bark and hide until they're gone. She's learned to accept running into people and other dogs in the woods, and unless they startle her, she won't bark and make a big promotion commotion (Ed. Note: wtf?). She really likes to run alongside joggers, though.



Hobbies: Playing (vastly preferring Pull Toy to Ball), running, chewing on her feet, napping.

Worst thing Jane Has Ever Done: Jane chewed the noses off of every stuffed animal I still had, which means that it was every stuffed animal that I'd kept because it had special significance. That was bad.

Favorite Jane Stories: One of Other's favorite Jane stories happened when she was around a year old. We got pizza one night, and left the box and leftovers on the coffee table unattended. Somehow the box got put back into the fridge without either one of us noticing that it was completely empty, courtesy of the dogs. When we pulled the box out of the fridge the next day, Jane's eyes nearly popped out of her head, and she bolted before we'd even opened it. ("Why isn't there any pizza left? Hey, where's Jane going?") She does exactly the same thing when she's gotten into the trash upstairs. She'll beat us to the top, see what she's done, and nearly knock everyone down the stairs as she flees the scene.

My favorite Jane story involves her creative problem solving. One of our games involves taking away a toy or bone and hiding it somewhere or desiging a challenge for her to get it back, e.g. sitting it up on the bannister. We had done this once with a bone when she wasn't yet tall enough to get it off easily, and she'd spent several minutes trying to jump up and get it, to no avail. Then, you could practically see the lightbulb go off over her head, and she ran downstairs. We heard Lou yell, then she came racing back upstairs with Lou in disgruntled pursuit, because she'd stolen his bone.

Lou Dog suffers greatly. Jane Dog is funny.

Hey, shit!

Well, I did not get a post in today, today being technically yesterday, 11-12. The kicker here is that the ONLY productive thing I got done today was writing a post, but that happened at the coffee shop and did not get typed and posted before I passed out around 6:30 -- I laid down because, as I would have put it at that point, must... get... warm.... Neither did I eat dinner or shower. I'm sick.

So, I'll type up the JaneDog post and post it now, because I want to keep playing even if it doesn't count. But I'm going to hurry, because I'm freezing again.

How early did I get up this morning? NPR was still playing jazz, that's how early I got up this morning.

I made the long, immutable drive back to my alma mater today, and witnessed this exchange:

Guy standing on patio: Hey, guess what?!
Guy in car: What?!
Guy standing on patio: FUCK MICHIGAN!!!
Guy in car: Hey, yeah, man, FUCK MICHIGAN!!!
Guy standing on patio: Whoooo!
Guy in car: Whoooo!
Light changes, car drives off.

Generally I'm mildly annoyed by drunken yelling, but something about this was heartwarming. I grew up where I had no reason to prefer either of the rival teams, and when asked to state a preference for the fiftieth time, believe I made my decision on the basis of the prettier school colors. My family-honed loyalty was to a team that I wasn't ever asked about. If I'd grown up where I eventually went to school, I probably would've grown so sick of hearing about it that I'd hate the team, but it seems that exactly the right circumstances came about to make me actually have, if not team spirit (I don't "watch the games" or anything), a deep-seated loyalty.

At least the drunks there can agree on something.

And, get this - I was walking toward this guy (a student) on the sidewalk and had to walk a bit in front of him to get to my car, and he moved the same way that I needed to move and we almost crashed into each other. And guess what he said? He said, excuse me. And I said it too. That's big-city living for you.

Current total: 0

I was saving this stuff for when y'all were REALLY sick of all my blah-di-blah, but since I have four minutes to post tonight, I'll give it up now.

1) Go visit lawyerish.

2) After you've killed several hours reading that, go visit Miss Doxie. Her dog yells, too.

If I ever have twins, I'm naming them "Noumena" and "Phenomena."

It's funny, because I said to Other just yesterday that it's incredibly unfair (waah waah waah, I'm a liberal and I want everything to be fair!) that there's this dichotomy between liberal NPR and conservative talk radio, when in fact the opposite of talk radio does not really exist, because what talk radio is is basically a bunch of bullies sitting around and saying mean things about people who disagree with their ([I'm sorry, I have to say this] utterly uninformed, jingoistic, and paranoid) political views. NPR is relatively neutral news plus a bunch of entertainment shows* written and performed by people with generally liberal viewpoints.

But, wait, that's not the funny part. The funny part is that when I got on the bus this morning, I heard a snippet of talk radio that really really supported my argument. It was said that people who voted yes on two ballot Issues were, and I quote, "stupid." And perhaps I should have said up front that this story is not funny-ha-ha, but funny-maybe-God-thinks-it's-funny-but-I-do-not. I kind of believe that I should be able to ride on the bus without being called "stupid."

I'll save further analysis for the 20-page report I intend to issue at some point, the working title of which is "If by 'liberal' you mean actually reporting on events outside the country, using four-syllable words, and occasionally implying that it's okay to express opinions contrary to those of the president, then I don't want NPR to be conservative," and follow instead this strand of Bus Story, and tell you what happened next.

I expressed my displeasure with the involuntary exposure to the talk radio by, get this: not saying thank-you to the bus driver as I disembarked. I know, right? But that's the sort of behavior that talk radio perpetuates in the world.


*This American Life, I love you darlin!

and sweet you roll

My political coming of age can be traced through the Bush administration. When Bush took the presidency, I was ambivalent; a person who my parents supported couldn't possibly be all bad, I thought. Maybe he is a charming guy.

I remember thinking of Donald Rumsfeld as "Uncle Rummy," and I remember when I indefinitely stopped thinking of him that way: April 12, 2003. That was the day that the looting of Iraq's National Museum made news. That was the day that he dismissed it impatiently, saying "stuff happens." That's a real quote, by the way.

That's what I'd like to reflect on with today's news in mind. We invaded a cradle-of-civilization country the size of California with three soldiers, a tank, and millions (billions?) of dollars' worth of neat-o technology, and when 170,000 objects are destroyed or stolen from the National Museum, it's because "stuff happens."

While I believe that the value of human life (American and Iraqi) didn't weigh heavily enough into the calculations for war, it seems like such glib dismissal of heirlooms of the human species exists on a different level. (Not higher, even -- just different.) How hard would it really have been to have soldiers protecting this museum? Vases, sculptures, artworks and artefacts of all different kinds survive hidden away for thousands of years, are eventually placed in a museum for protection and appreciation, and then are smashed and hauled away by a mob because Donald Rumsfeld wanted to try out some light warfare.

Am I crazy to argue that this qualifies as a crime against humanity? It's a crime against everyone in the world. Every single person in the world deserves to be able to go and look upon objects made by early members of our species. It's fucking tragic that we can't do that anymore. It was a completely senseless oversight. It's almost beyond comprehension.

Looking at the picture of him hanging his head, I feel a bit bad for him. He looks sad to be leaving his job. And yet, of course, I also think he should've been forced out right around the same time that he was explaining why the looting was no biggie. I wonder if privately, he understood the gravity of what he and his cronies had done -- maybe he cried himself to sleep that night and prayed to God for forgiveness. If not, I would like to see him properly punished. I would like to see him sat down and made somehow to understand exactly what he's done to the world.

Barring that, I'd accept permanent imprisonment.

Not now, man, I gotta po on my blo

Two stories with the same structure:

(1)

Awhile ago I started wearing my hair in ... how to describe ... half-up in pigtails. Looks childish, but also is different from the way I wear it, oh, every single other day ever. My informal sociological experimental data has shown that people (strangers, customers) are actually nicer to me when my hair is like this.

I can be pretty grumpy sometimes. It's almost always because I'm displeased about something, and not just random. I wouldn't say I'm "moody" at all, but it might appear that way to people who don't know that I'm actually just fuming (usually with indignant rage) over something.

So there have been times when my hair is up all cute-like and I've also been trying to kill people with the laser beam eyes. I think this can be jarring for people.


(2)

I like to fiddle with things. My most favorite thing to fiddle with is the antennae on my cell phone, which pops in and out of its little cell phone antennae sheath. I use my thumbnail to pop it in and out of place.

Last week I bought a lighter on an impulse, because it was at the cash register and because I recently spent way too long in the dark trashing the house looking for one. It's in my coat pocket.

It is also very nice to fiddle with, or it would be if I didn't catch myself each and every time I have my hands in my pockets. It is only a matter of time until I set myself on fire.

Following your dreams is, like... hard.

Overheard at the mall:

Girl 1: That looks gay.
Girl 2: Oh. Well, like, gay or like, stupid?
Girl 1: Like, stupid.

Let's be specific now, shall we?

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So, do I need to say something about voting? Out of all the people who I actually know who read this, I know you need no exhortation to vote. If I don't know you and you are new (and wow, there are a lot of you! hi!), I hereby exhort you to vote and vote for Democrats. Together, we can halt -- or at least stunt -- the assault on the Constitution.

I can't go into any more detail than that because I don't even know where to start. And, really, who would want me to? All I will say is that I'm going to be on pins and needles until about 9 tomorrow night.

In related news, All Things Considered aired this very funny interview this evening of two guys who do the voiceovers for political ads.

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And finally, because hearing horrible country songs is much less painful knowing that I have pilloried them on my website...

There is nothing like a song that emphasizes the object of affection's crushing insignificance in the grander scheme of things. Baby, it says, even though nobody else gives a shit about you, I do. Awww.

.

If by "avoiding delicate eye area" you mean "rinsing directly into eye," well, then, I'm way ahead of you.

When I was in high school, I had three distinct groups of friends who didn't often overlap. The main group solidified around my junior year, and came to include a girl who I'll call Ryan. Ryan had hung out with, and dated, a whole different group of people up until this point, and to be honest I'm not sure how she ended up with us. She was pretty quiet, not much of a force in our group.

I've mentioned before, I think, how 98% of my free/social time in high school was spent either at Denny's, Perkins, Steak 'n Shake, or TGI Friday's. If not one, the other, and often in succession. The thing about Ryan was that we would lose her between locations. We'd usually meet up at the first place over an hour or two, whenever people got off work, or finished dinner with their parents, or could sneak out. We'd talk with Ryan, and she'd say she'd be there after a run, or a shower, and three hours later, there she'd be. We would drive several miles, say from Denny's to Friday's, and she would arrive forty minutes later than the rest of us. Without fail.

We couldn't figure out what the hell she was doing, where she was going in the intervening time. How long can it take to buy cigarettes or chapstick?

I remember once, I was riding with another friend from one place to another, and we decided it would be funny if we took longer than Ryan to get somewhere. So once we'd lost her, we ducked into an out-of-the-way parking lot and turned off the car. And waited. We listened to the radio, talked with another friend who would meet us at the second stop of the evening, told her what we were doing and giggled. We waited and waited. This should have been an especially short trip, 10 minutes at the most.

And of course, when we got there an hour after we'd left the first place, we found that we had beaten her there.

That made us pretty mad, but when probed as to where she'd been, she was practically puzzled at our interest. We never got a straight answer out of her. To this day I still don't know what was taking her so long.

I've met people like this since then, people who, when they say "I'll be there by two," can never be understood to actually mean that. They disappear for hours at a time. You know where they're coming from and where they're going, and it's somehow impossible for that to happen for them in the same way that it happens for other people. Where do they go?

Already dreading discourse about "my weekend."

Okay, so, tonight is definitely one of the nights that I would not normally have posted. Thoughts keep falling out of my brain. Foughts theep falling out of my brain. Not functioning well.

I worked for 8 (and a quarter, DAMN YOU PEOPLE who saunter in at 5:07 and inquire innocently, "oh what time are you open 'til???" and I try to kill you with my mind but am just so so tired that it's clearly not working and then I marvel at my coworker who is doing a much better job than me at covering up her killy thoughts*) hours today. And as my recent days have been filled with dizziness and hunger and general all-around feeling weird itude and then today was too with all the standing up and walking around and the lack of the ergonomic cushy mat you stand on thing (*sob*) ... what the hell was I saying.

So I hope I do not anger the breast cancer survivors of the English-speaking world.

Once I was at work at my old pharmacy, my favorite place in the world, and I was sitting on a stool cleaning the pharmacy shelves (GOD HOW I HATED DOING THAT) but anyway I was down below the counter (by the way, do you know why the pharmacy is always up higher than the rest of the floor? they started doing that so that nobody could see the freaky shit they were putting into the "pills") and so no customers could see me and these two guys came in and coincidentally both of their wives were going through treatment for breast cancer at the time. The pharmacist, one of my favorite people in the world, and also an engaging, gregarious people-liker, knew this and got them to strike up a conversation about it, then left them to talk.

And the ensuing conversation was wrenching. I listened to them until I was sobbing, hunched over on my squeaky footstool, trying to be silent. One guy's wife was just starting chemo, and the other guy's wife was almost done. They were doing for each other what only people in that situation can do for each other. How awful it was.

God, okay, I think I must usually decide to post when I'm in a good mood -- or blind with rage over politics. Drunk with exhaustion, not so much. I'm going to take my remaining ... can't think of word for small amounts of things ... uhh ... this is ridiculous ... bits of energy and try not to fall asleep before I'm out of the shower and at least halfway down the hall. Bonus points for being toweled off and/or clothed.

*or not even harboring them at all, the humanity the humanity!

Oh, my aching knees, ankles, and hip joints.

Now that October (a.k.a. Breast Cancer Awareness Month) is over, I can ask: is there some kind of event horizon of awareness? Some sort of diminishing return? Because, honestly, I think I've reached it. Okay. Breast cancer. Got it.

Please do not take this to mean disrespect to anyone who has had breast cancer or has lost someone close to them to the disease. In all weird honesty, when I was nine or so I saw a commercial (likely aimed at awareness) about how 25% of American women would at some point have breast cancer and sort of concluded that I probably would eventually get it. I walked around for years assuming it was an inevitability. Now, having acquired information about my family history and a slightly better understanding of statistics, I no longer believe that it's inevitable. But still wouldn't be surprised if it eventually happened to me.

However, to paraphrase a grumpy editorial on Salon I read about a year ago, companies slapping pink ribbons on everything and hiking up the price a bit, then giving the extra profit to various foundations isn't probably the most effective solution to the problem. As the editorial pointed out, it's a hell of a lot easier to focus on early detection and cure-seeking than on what we might be doing to our environment that increases the incidence of cancer.

The more I think about it, the more instances I can find where we as a culture go full-tilt toward a solution without pausing to think about the cause of the problem.

Baby, you can sequence my genome anytime you want.

Jonniker wrote about invalidation recently, and I wanted to both direct you to her post and take up the subject myself.

My youngest brother used to cry on his birthday. He didn't want to get older, he didn't want things to change. He had a happy home life, many friends, parents who were nice to him, and siblings who stopped short of giving him permanent psychological and physical disabilities, and yet, at six, and seven, and eight, he was capable of profound grief about his life. It's easy to say, kid, you don't know how good you've got it. It could be so much worse. And of course it could've been. But I've always thought that there's no reason to belittle that grief, because while it may not be as worthy of a documentary or All Things Considered coverage as other things in the world, it was still real. It might even be the most basic kind of grief there is, or at least tied with People Are Cruel to One Another. Things Change.

I remember a conversation with Other one fall evening. We were walking along the cracked, uneven sidewalks of campus, talking about grief and as Jonniker puts it "discomfort," and talking about my sad brother and childhoods that were sad overall. I think the conclusion that we came to was to hold in mind the understanding that suffering isn't a zero-sum game. A person will experience some depths of grief and hardship and has to accept that as what's real, even if it isn't as profound as The Worst Suffering Ever Experienced By Anyone. It may not be that, but it's not nothing.

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Now I have to go, because I was going to respond to all the Borat viral and non-viral marketing by refusing to see it, but it seems I'm going to respond by seeing it on opening night.

Candles: Not Just for Smellin'

I seem to have misplaced my little yellow notebook, which cost 69 cents and which holds a scattering of phrases and ideas for posts (and grocery lists) from about the last year. My little universe is one in which I could glance at it fifty times over the course of the day, sitting at my work-desk and not notice it or remember that I've been occasionally checking all my pockets and bags and stacks of random crap for it over the last week. So I will do what I usually do and smile blithely and hope that it turns up eventually. Which things usually do. For example, in the course of looking for the notebook I came across the hand-knit hat I hadn't seen in a while and was mildly concerned might be gone forever.

But this also kind of means that I'm winging it. On day two. Hm.

Oh yeah! Someone is offering a bag of homemade doggie treats to the best post about a dog and I've already written a post about a dog! And I have another one all queued (whoa) up! In my brain! I just hope that Lou doesn't find out about the contest, because there will be hell to pay if I lose.

ALSO! Um, remember how I said that Beck sang about a hot dog? Well, I heard those lyrics totally wrong, and it's pretty clear that the Lord is not, in fact, bringing him his hot dog. No, the Lord is "knocking his front door," and asking him what he has to show besides the dust in his pocket, which seems like a rather traditionally Lord-like thing to do. Sheet.

But, hell, if you know me as well as I do, you know that Beck could sing freaking Bible verses accompanied only by a lute and I would still think it was great. I get this way about some people. Once I decide you're good, you really have to do something drastic (like kill off a fictional dog) to get me to question you. Don't worry, Beck. You're safe.

Plus, does Scientology even have a Lord? I forget.

A note about NaBloPoMo:

Because while I do happen to go to the grocery store every damn day of my life, such trips do not always result in moderately interesting grocery store stories. So, I may have to pad the old blog-o with actual "content" from time to time. I guess we'll see how that goes.

I generally work from 8-5, and during those hours any documents that I produce are not legally my property. So, because I also am not ready to commit to hauling myself out of bed any earlier to get a post in, I won't usually be putting anything up until the evenings. In case you find yourself surfing around in the middle of the workday looking for something, anything to relieve the oppressive boredom pooling in your brain stem, don't expect to find it here.

Cheers!
M

This Idea Stolen From Briantology

To kick off NaBloPoMo, I give you:

A Profile of My Dog

Name: Lou, fullname Louis Mumford Monk (after the magician and then the jazz musician).

Nicknames: Louie, LouDog, LD, Violencio Pugnacio, StinkDog, Stinky D, Sarge, Eeyore, Notorious (L.O.U.), Fuckster McHumpenstein, Murphy Do, Murphy Doodle, Murph, Grumpster, and Sen(~)or.



Breed: Beagle/Austrailian Shepherd

Adoption Story: Other and I were moving in together, and both missed our home-dogs on a daily basis, so the decision to adopt a dog was easy to make. We chose an apartment in the "doggie ghetto" -- a set of 3 or 4 big apartment complexes that accepted dogs -- and went about finding one to adopt. I can't quite remember why we ended up going through The Columbus Dog Connection instead of a shelter, although I suspect it's because I was so impatient for a dog that I started looking online way before it was time to move. Louie, then Trevor, was the perfect size and about a year old, and we loved his face. When we went to meet him, he and Other hit it off immediately. He ran in a circle around the yard basically the whole time we were there. We found out later that he'd met other families before and after us, and we seemed to be by far his favorite. The very very nice foster mom agreed to foster him for a bit longer, until we moved, and we went and got him the day we moved in to our new apartment. And then unpacked really fast, lest a stack of book boxes fall on our new dog.

Personality: Grumpy. Lou is the grumpiest dog I've ever met. He "vocalizes," which sounds a lot like growling but is actually more like howling in self-pity. He does this if you put your head by his head, or press on his stomach or chest, or try to pet him. He also talks back to trains when they go by in the in-between seasons, when the windows are open. He starts on a high tone and falls several octaves to land in a pool of pathetic moaning. His eyes shift around and his ears go up and down, but he doesn't lift his head up and barely even seems aware that he's making noise. He also squeals a bit when he yawns.

If Lou were human, we suspect he would be: A policeman or loan officer. Remember the Onion Statshot Why Did We Enter Law Enforcement/Teaching? (Like to wear short-sleeved shirts and necktie, yell)? Lou is that guy.



Lou got the Austrailian Shepherd genes that make him a serious work dog. Lou wants the same thing to happen at the same time every day, and he wants at least two of those things to involve sustained physical activity. If we do something at 5pm two days in a row, the next day at 5 he will be ready to go. He goes to bed at 10pm. He can be incredibly annoying if he's not getting something he expects. When we leave the dogs with the grand-owners, they report that he stares at them until we return. And wags, grunts, and moans impatiently every couple of minutes.

He also got the Beagley genes that make him a smell hound and a little too good at catching little critters. And short legs and a stocky body.

Lou is also an angry loner. When the family is all hanging out in one place, he will be elsewhere. When he is in the same room as the rest of us, he will sit with his back to us, even if that means his nose is an inch from the wall. We try not to take this personally.

Hobbies: pooping, smelling, yelling, writing angry letters to Congresspeople, updating his shit list.

Worst thing Lou has ever done (besides terrifying small children): One morning, Lou walked himself several blocks, across what you could argue is the busiest city street on campus, to a nearby park. There was a little park in the middle of the doggie ghetto, and the person who had taken him out that morning dozed off on a bench and that was all Lou needed. We found him chasing squirrels, and he came prancing up to me all like, "Heyyy! Glad you could make it! Beautiful day, eh?"

My favorite Lou story: When we were looking to get a puppy, we took Lou down the street and let him interact with several 5-week old littermates, and he kept growling/vocalizing and looking up at us. After scolding him a couple times for this, I looked down and realized that one of the puppies was chewing voraciously on his tail.

Poor Lou Dog. He is misunderstood.