Category Archives: Rantin

I Walked Five Miles Today and Now Me Bum Hurts

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But I am here to tell you I wrote about zombies today. AND, this is the last time I will bother you about this, because I have discovered you can RSS my posts at Blogher. I don’t personally know how to do that, but I reckon you clever jerks do. So RSS me, or not! I think you get the idea that I’m over there now!

Thank you Cleveland!

Also, there was an article on “suicide food” in my weekly alt rag. There is a blogger at blobspot who is writing a blog on the topic now. I don’t want to direct link him, because he scares me.

Oh, hell, on further reflection I should just link him. The internet is not that srs of bizniz.

Anyway, he writes about “suicidal food,” which he defines as depictions of animals on food packaging or restaurant signs that “want” to be eaten. Such as a pig licking his chops on the sign for a BBQ joint. “Mmm-MMM! I am sooo tasty!”

I can see the argument that this is a little creepy or whatever, I guess, but a sign like that says “good food ahoy” to me.

From his manifesto:

What is Suicide Food? Suicide Food is any depiction of animals that act as though they wish to be consumed. Suicide Food actively participates in or celebrates its own demise. Suicide Food identifies with the oppressor. Suicide Food is a bellwether of our decadent society. Suicide Food says, “Hey! Come on! Eating meat is without any ethical ramifications! See, Mr. Greenjeans? The animals aren’t complaining! So what’s your problem?’ Suicide Food is not funny.

The problem with this argument, of course, is that the food is not actively participating in these displays at all, or “identifying with the oppressor,” because they are drawings made by humans.

Anyway, he says in the paper article that the site is supposed to be funny, though he says in the manifesto that “suicide food is not funny.”

But, if given the chance and enough societal conditioning, I would probably eat people too, so I probably don’t have a dog in this fight. I mean, I just stopped eating crap off the ground like three years ago. Omnivores FTW.

Mmm, dog.

Update! 7:51 PM.

The owners of Epilogue Books in Ballard emailed me today, because they discovered that last year I was cranking in an entry about some bad customer service there. They said the crummy clerks had been let go and would I come back? They even offered a gift certificate. I like to get my complain on, but I felt bad. And the truth is, I stayed away for quite a while, but then I came back after the remodel. It is all warm and fuzzy there again, and it has been for a while. Epilogue Books ftw!

You Are Forty-Fived With Vitamin Phail

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A brilliant comment from my first Wyoming entry.

1) The reading mudflap girl has no bobbies to speak of.

2) She’s not, as far as I can tell, naked.

I think all this says more about you than the fine folks at the Wyoming libraries.

PROBLEMS WITH THIS COMMENT:

1. Referring to women’s breasts as bobbies. WTF?
2. “She’s not naked.” Your point?
3. “I personally don’t see what’s wrong with this, so it’s not sexist.” Yes, it’s our problem, isn’t it, that Wyoming is using silhouettes of nekkid chicks on its advertising and some of us find it tired or gross.

Feminism 101.

I promise I’ll get off this soon. Busy still.

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My Learningz, Let Me Show You Them

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I found lolRockyHorror last night. I just don’t know anymore.

ALSO, the rest of today will be devoted to grocery shopping, work, and cleaning my damn house, which ASPLODIE since I have been sick and also a Giant Local Software Company widow due to Deadlines.

I was lying in bed with a fever last night, watching the Giant Ceiling Head of John Travolta being interviewed by Elliot Gould when Companion came home.

“HA HA HA!” I shrieked. “You’ve been gone so long you have a beard!” He did, too. It was HYSTERICAL.

“Have you been drinking?” he said.

“No…well, earlier. But I’m fine now. HA HA HA! Beard.”

The last thing I remember was a pillow going over my face.

Anywayz, since I am sick and busy you can go peep me at BlogHer, where I inflammatorily titled today’s piece Modern Dolls: Slut Trainers or Empowerment Tools?

HA HA! The Ceiling will be right back with an interview with Totie Fields!

Shake It Like an Etch-A-Sketch Picture

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Here is my story.

I was walking around at U-Village today, with the intention of loitering at the Giant Bookstore of Doom with the new issues of Cook’s Illustrated and EW. I was not going to work this morning, or even pretend to work, which it should be noted I am really, really good at. Sometimes, while pretending to work, I even produce things that look like work, but may actually not be. Don’t count on the pretend work to substitute for, say, passenger-side airbags.

I walked by the playstructure hoo-ha thing at the mall, and it was crawling with toddlers. Toddlers be-binkied, todders crying, toddlers with mothers with Snuglis bearing Future Toddlers (lovesounds) and I knew my toddler was safely socked away at her school and I had the most intense sensation when I saw all those little temporarily-dressed feral dwarfs: I felt my uterus crumple up and turn into dust. It then, of course, fell out of my body. As it turns out, my uterus dust is puce-colored, and looks like it has a little mica in it, which will help you effortlessly transition from work to evening.

Then I came home and my kid decided to shit up the place, starting with her pants. Maybe I should be happy that so far, my little kid doesn’t seem to be a rocket vomiter like the big one, but it’s early in the game. But she has pooped so much I think I need to keep her home tomorrow. I remember last month, when colds seemed like a lifetime away.

Now I am eating my lunch, and am convinced there there is poop everywhere. On my hands, floating through the air. The big one has a sore throat. Am I going to have both of them home tomorrow, listlessly fighting with each other and making me wish I had opted for a purse dog instead? Seems likely.

There is a giant-assed garden spider outside the window that is so giant it is capturing those taco-sized moths. This should make enemies of moths happy.

In Other News

It’s been an interesting week. I keep having that feeling that I am about to be crushed by the hand of god or something, and my breathing’s not working quite right. Sometimes my hands shake. And then I remember: OH YEAS, my old friend anxiety. I remember you from grad school. I am having weird nightmares about creepy people.

I squeezed into my Italian motorcycle jacket and that didn’t even cheer me up. I paraded my increasing waistliness to Companion, and he said, “Oh yeah? I have gained ten pounds,” and did something that was eerily reminiscent of the Truffle Shuffle. (After watching that, I have to call foul, hoho, on a family that keeps a chicken for the express purposes of opening a gate. WHERE R U PETARDS?) I think Companion and I are just transferring weight around. He is trying to lose weight now and where will it land? I vote “the cat.”

In Other Other News

“What did you do at school today?”

“I do puzzle.”

“What else did you do with the rest of the three hours?”

“I do TWO puzzles.”

I Guess It Wasn’t My Lucky Lipstick After All

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Today I was on the phone with a friend for twenty-one minutes and thirty-six seconds. I know this because when I hang up my phone immediately tells me how long I talked for. I guess this is supposed to be some kind of helpful feature, so you can keep track of how many of your alloted minutes you’re using. This never worries me, though, because we have approximately four hojillion minutes in the bank. As it is, it’s just another annoyance that makes me feel like my life’s being measured out and apportioned.

At the end of my twenty-or-so minute phone call, I realized that the house had gotten deadly quiet. Like the absence of people. That feeling you get when you come home and the stove’s cold and the house is stuffy and there’s a note on the table that says, “We went to the beach! (Fuck you!)”

“I should wrap this up,” I said. “My house is too quiet.”

“Uh-oh,” my friend said. “You better go find out what Strudel’s up to.”

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Seattle’s Leader in Urban Living Can Suck My Scrabblebag

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Glover Homes, Seattle’s Leader in Urban Living, is building a cluster of townhomes on my street. I am actually urban density FTW, but this company is making me crazy. Today they parked in my driveway, and I booted them out. Their trash goes everywhere, including fast food wrappers. There was always some trash on this street, and blowing into my yard, but it has definitely increased since they started. I guess I should consider myself lucky they park in my driveway, since they park on my neighbor’s lawn, most recently Advanced Plumbing. I called to tell Glover that this was happening, and suprisingly they…don’t seem to care. What? That never happens.

This is the same construction project where the derelict wandered up to me and was ranting about the Mexican language.

My other neighbor, the one who had the party where the old lady fell into the bushes, goes out and tells them to wrap it up if they go after six. I don’t blame him; he just retired and he wants his peace and quiet, dammit. I know construction is noisy, but it seems like they could be a little more careful, since this is a residential street.

You shouldn’t have to tell people not to park in your driveway. Glover Homes FTL.

Kicked in the Hatha

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So, after a month’s absence, I got back on the yoga stick yesterday morning. A studio opened up down the street from my house a few months ago, and I kept promising myself I’d try it. I don’t really like driving to exercise; it feels weird somehow.

I hauled myself out of bed at a quarter to six and walked down the street. The birds were tweetling and the traffic fumes weren’t too nasty yet. “Ah, this could be good,” I thought to myself. I was the first one there and signed in, and positioned my mat in the back, so as not to wave my noob butt in everyone’s face.

First, the class started with some chanting, and with some heart-ball visualization. “Picture your heart, or your heart chakra, in a ball that you hold in your hands outside of your chest.” With all the external organ talk, all I could picture was Mortal Kombat. “FINISH HIM!” As it turns out, this is not appropriate to shout in six a.m. yoga.

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DID YOU KNOW That They Sell Red Boo in an EIGHT PACK? Me Neither!

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Do you ever have that thing, where you’re like wandering around doing normal stuff like snapping off people’s windshield wipers and you have this little twinge of pain somewhere, and you have it all day long, and you think it’s just a tag or a seam. And you get home and you start beating off to Snape/Mrs. Norris slash or whatever, and then you realize you’ve had this GINORMOUS zit in your butt crack all day? Or some crack. And you’re all, “My god, that’s been festering for DAYS, clearly! Where have I been? I can’t pop it now, it’s like it has its own zip code!”

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Eight Things I Hate About John Travolta

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“A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth your effort.”

–Herm Albright

Hey, sweet, my luggage came in the mail today. I have aspirations of becoming a famous world traveler, so I thought I should look the part. I almost bought some of this smurfy teen luggage, because I like the colors, but it wasn’t quite me. I couldn’t find any luggage with skulls on it, and I am too lazy to paint one on, so my compromise was giraffe print. Dat’s me.

As Halo said a couple of weeks ago, I am realizing my chav potential, or something.

1. When I was about ten, I was convinced my destiny was to become a circus freak. I spent hours trying to get rid of my gag reflex by using larger and longer objects. As I have mentioned, I was a latchkey kid, so I had the prime hours between three and five to practice. Eventually I worked my way up to a twelve-inch ruler, and worked on that for a couple of weeks.

Suddenly one afternoon, and with a terrible vengeance, my gag reflex came back and I spewed my after-school snack all over the kitchen–Frosted Mini-Wheats. I spent the forty-five minutes before my parents came home frantically cleaning bits of Mini-Wheats off the kitchen curtains. I don’t think they knew.

2. I met an adorable Canadian corn-on-the-cob peddler at Bumbershoot ’95. I hadn’t had sex in like, three whole weeks, so I chatted him up and got him to agree to meet me after his shift. He took me out in his Canadian hippie bus and we went to a park close to my house. I tried to get his pants off, but he got huffy and told me he wasn’t a slut, and kicked me out of his bus. Doh.

3. When I was eight I had a neighbor who I was friends with when our other neighbor wasn’t speaking to her. She was the craziest candy hoarder anyone could ever imagine. When Halloween rolled around, she still had chocolate Easter eggs. When Easter rolled around, foil-wrapped Santas were still staring at me from her place where she kept her stash, which was in the living room near the fireplace.

One August, I couldn’t take it anymore. She went to her bedroom for something and I STRUCK! I opened her box of Cadbury Eggs, oh dear god, what a waste to see them languishing there in August when they could be in my maw. I was restrained; I only took one. I told myself she wouldn’t notice it.

Of course she did, even though she had a stack of candy so high if it were gold it would make a dragon cream its pants. I ran home without saying goodbye and ate the whole thing in one bite in my bedroom. It was delicious!

4. My record for Barbie legs is six. WINK.

5. When I was in the tenth grade I had completely mentally checked out of school, so in my Chemistry for Fucking Morons class I used to develop elaborate plans for when (if) I would graduate and become a commercial sailor, moving goods to and fro on the high seas. I used to make drawings in my notebook of my cabin and where I would keep everything: my plants, my books, my fishbowl, my cat. I would sleep with hot bitches when I was in port, and then give them the slip, sailing on to the next port.

6. I have probably licked every surface in your bathroom. Yes, that surface too. But I’m not a snoop anymore, so I did not lick your Xanax or your fancy condoms in the gold foil wrapper.

7. If I didn’t get into library school, I was going to go to beauty school. They’re both good trades. Sometimes I wish I had gone to beauty school, because I probably would have gotten a job right away.

8. I went through a phase when I was about twelve where I would reset any clock I could get my hands on, between four minutes off and four hours off. If someone asked me if I did it, I decided that I would confess, but no one ever asked me if I did it. I even managed to get the clock off the wall of my US History classroom.

This is in response to this guy I like, Ed, who tagged me for the Eight Random Facts Meme. I am now to tag eight people, and leave them comments, but we’re all abusing technorati here, right?

1. We have to post these rules before we give you the facts.
2. Players start with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
3. People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.
4. At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
5. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

My tag-ees:

What Ladder?
Halo
JT
JB
JP
Pen Pal
Shauny
Wakey Wakey