a friendly little note to myself

dear kaylen
(yes, we will be doing this in open letter form. so..)

dear kaylen,

in case you somehow forget the last twenty minutes of searing pain: crying into soap suds, shampoo suds, and towels... this is a reminder from me (me) to you (me) that it is not ever okay to use oil of oregano on your face. sure, the bottle and various sources say: it is great for your skin! well, they are raging liars. concentrated oregano oil burns like a motherfucker. as you know, i don't use this term left and right. when i say "like a motherfucker" i mean "like a fucking motherfucker". and because it is an oil it does not easily wash off. and when you splash your face, it only spreads and spreads and spreads...

you nearly passed out and, well, it has been twenty minutes and your face is still boiled-lobster red. even your roommate has pointed out you are 'glowing'. and the way he says it, it is not a good thing.

best wishes,
myself

ps: on the upside, you haven't been miserable about mosquito bites for twenty minutes.

pps: i think it is a good idea to practice saying "you are glowing" to pregnant women and say it in the way it is not at all a good thing. ha.

donatello sculpture waiting to happen

coloccini



well... if he were twelve.

time to break out my "frantic girls are sexy" dance moves

otherwise known as"mosquitos! mosquitos everywhere!"

the newscaster tonight claimed that this summer's outburst of mosquitos is the nasty "hangover" of last summer's flooding.

a hangover? i do not understand how it is like a hangover. other than you drink and sleep and wake up with something painful. no, sir. this is no hangover. this summer, well, it is more like a nightmarish one night stand. a one-night stand, wherein you drink in and reaped the wonder of massive, mind-blowing thunderstorms (oh boy!) and fall to a drowsy warm winter sleep only to wake up, go along your way...

and then

summer rolls around and you realize that you'd conceived a bazillion bloodthirsty babies, planted them in the soil, and they are now breaking out to hunt you down in droves, feast on your appetizing matter (now made all the moreso appetizing with an average of 8 mangoes a week, x amt of peaches and bananas...) and leave you to your miserable, ravaged flesh.

i am itchy and there are few things that spoil my moods like having to copiously scratch myself. fortunately, all the yoga etc, i can comfortably reach every bit of my back...

but jeez.

things that i have found to successfully irritate zookeepers & staff

1. meowing at the animals (strangely, the elephants seemed to enjoy it. the gorillas not so much)

2. re-naming the animals (those silly ethnic names- they are strangely defensive about them)

3. telling curious children special, little, made-up facts about the animals
(ex: " 'mazama' translates to 'deer bunny'..as it clearly is. the south american indians believed the earth god, the rabbit, and the river god, the deer, came together to create this spiritual little fellow! they would sacrifice them and make delicious earth/river jerky.")




4. getting impatient with kids who hog the one little window where you can see the baby hippo

5. singing "skyrockets in flight- afternoon de-light" when the monkies...you know. which is often.

6. asking the staff who give those informational, cutesie, obnoxious speeches about the animals: "do they eat babies?"

7. meowing at the zookeepers.

that's the fighting spirit...

maybe it was too much to believe that a room full of willing roller derby candidates could decide on a derby name. through email, no less. it's been a good call on my part to get a seperate email account for the occasion, because it has been pumped to the brim in the last two days.

our list of names was voted on, came down to cyanide city roller girls. and then there was some discrepency about 'girls' vs. 'sistahs'. i will not dwell on how much i'd hate to be in anything involving the word 'sistah'.

then, someone pointed out that when people asked 'what does cyanide city' mean? it is a bit lame to say 'well it sounded nice at the time'.

so on that note, the admin. rooted out a list of names that only had to do with calgary.

# Rodeo Queens Roller Derby
# Wild West Roller Girls
# Sandstone City Roller Derby
# Desperado Dolls Roller Derby
# Stampede City Roller Girls

some of these names, i hate to say, suggest that we may actually be men in skirts. the rest make me feel kind of dirty and tourist-appealing-y.

kathleen, the gem that she is, has suggested we just knock off the two names people didn't like (cyanide city, and red light roller girls) and go back to Hellfire Honeys or Dropkick Marys. i would be pleased with either. particularly dropkick marys.

in other derby news, i have landed on a personal name.

Anais Skin.

things i am reading, loving and recommending to you (because i love you)

shalom auslander beware of god stories




dustin long icelander

i will not at all metaphorically punch someone if this is a hoax

jeff mangum addresses neutral milk hotel fans, taunting new material

i kiss my sweetie with my fists

(....metaphorical fists. )

some bearded stranger has left a little note in my blog saying i am mean, jealous and have no class. at least i assume this is what they meant, because, if i am good at anything it is assuming and wading through people's sloppy, little typos. it's true. that's just how we editor chicks roll.

now, there is mean and then there is mean.

my mean comes from love. love and deep appreciation of the very beautifully accomplished.

let us take literature. you have probably heard me rant about harry potter. more than once. i really get riled up. it is not like my 'mean-spiritedness' branches from some desire to hate jkrowling herself. it certainly doesn't stem from jealousy. it stems from my deep love of beautiful literature.

john berger, for example, is amazing. and the more i love berger, the more i hate jk rowling. really, she has no intimacy with the words she uses. why do anything in any medium (words, for example) if you're just going to disreguard the medium as a whole? successfully carrying a plot from point A to point B does not justify dressing your prose in sweat pants and leaving the curlers in, to me. if you use words you should be using words.

things that are done sloppily or stupidly prickle me at the very navel. sometimes i am dismissive about it. sometimes i can laugh it off. sometimes, it honestly is profoundly funny (ie.in virgin's case). sometimes i boil right over. why? they offend me and everything that i love.

i guess the trick is adjusting my otherwise delicate nature to suck up the bad press, bite all bullets, and just take the criticism. like i said: there are much worse things to be than "mean". "mean" is just criticism. and my criticism is fueled by love, darlings.

frankly, not being critical about things just translates into: you have no appreciation for things that should be regarded highly. or you are too blind/stupid to even notice.

and you are wasting air, space, and everything that is valuable. because you will nicely tolerate our world full of complete, worthless crap.

the domestic appliance whisperer (me)

many of you, my gentle readers, have heard the numerous "oh, i just opened the mother up and gave'er" stories. " 'er " being some nameless appliance or another that has failed to work for however long it takes to get me in a fixin' mood. a mood to fix things. you know...

so once in this mood, i have a very special gift. this gift is the ability to, without any former knowledge of basic mechanics (electrical mess, or the appliance in question) i can stare at it; i can frown at the malfunctioning tramp, push things, open up things, and magically... in the end it works.

i attribute this to my a) luck & b)the ability to communicate with the very essence of machines.

sometimes it is as simple as looking at the downstairs drying machine, opening up whatever is on the front to be opened, and twisting bits against their will, in the opposite direction of their current persuasion. really, the downstairs drier works like a charm. that would be the luck end of things.

last night, kathleen and peter had another lovely bbq. i brought some nice, spanish cheese and a baguette and the company of amanda. standing in their kitchen, munching on"orange melon" and sipping water, amanda and i get the notion it is time to start the hour-long walk home. this is also when we are enlightened by kathleen & peter that it is not 10:45 as the oven clock suggests. it is actually an hour slow, because their oven instruction manual does not include the insert which gives time-setitng instructions.

i wobble over, a bit drunkenly, and frown at the buttons.

there are: 1) egg timer symbol 2) clock symbol 3)a baffling running man symbol 4)II: 5) :II 6) II:II 7) X

and a sprinkling of others.

after the usual "this would make sense" series of button pushing, i begin to give them whatever meaning i see fit. and i suggested that maybe the running man meant "run with it!". i said to the oven, "oh oven- what do you mean?" i said to the buttons "buttons, who are you really?"... i pretended to listen, punched in the time (which before would wait 30secs and then revert to the old time)... and then i hit the running man. and wa-la! what magic. clock fixed.


an open letter to the baffling running man button:

dear running man,

i assume you don't actually mean "run with it!" so, who are you and what do you imply? what is your purpose? i do not know. maybe i will never know. you are a curious and rare event.

until daylight savings, my love.

sincerely,
myself

summer reading: moby virgin

oh dear. so the virgin is writing a book. a memoir. if i were to judge her book by its cover:



...i would guess this book is absolutely hideous. that is the most un-sensual depiction of a back i have ever seen. the undies reach back into pulp fiction history and grapple at the i had two days to do this illustration sorts. the composition, the stacked type. oh god. it is like a ziggurat of horrid.

if i were to judge the book, not by its cover, but by the known literary skill(z) of the author...

...absolutely hideous.

someone teach this girl a new sentence pattern. for all her sexual exploits and writing about sexual exploits, she barely breaks the "i know more than three variations of sentence structure" barrier. oh, erotica. anais nin is turning circles in her grave. if she finds it significant. my marketing forecast, my literary spidy senses if you will, predict this plotless gem winds up in the pile of "2 for $5" (or 2/2pounds) on the tables in Chapters along with Gardening for Cats and Kosher Pilates for Jews.

her faithful readers include those who send the following encouragements:

it's been amazing to see the internet creating opportunities to for women to tell the truth about their lives in a way nothing else ever has.
...
Finally, thanks so much for all the courage, effort and frankness you put into your blog, and, doubtless, the book – as a fairly unconventional woman myself (bi, poly, prostitute and dominatrix), I feel very aware of the social pressures on women to conform, restrict their desires or, at least, keep quiet about them!

right. because no one else writes about explicit sex. unless it is suddenly novel to write poorly about it. there is barely any plot to this book at all. go amazon the sucker. this is truly (and hopefully) the end of the Sex & the City trickle-down. the last dying heaves? the death throes?

YESSSSS!!! Good for you. I hope your book is a success. I'm sure all your fans will buy it, I know I will! One thing though, will that be the cover? The picture is not very attractive. For all the amazing things it will have inside the outside does not fit it. The woman’s arms lay very stiff on her side. It’s not seductive, attractive, inviting or intriguing. It does not have to look like a porn star but I think it can be prettier. Just a little visual opinion, that’s all. Also if your arse is not that small then by all means change it!

well, a faint glimmer of discretion as far as the illustration goes.


oh boy.

...well as a consequence, i am seeing Lisa Moore with a flicker of aknowledgement previously undeclared. especially lisa moore's cover design.

a peek into my shower scandal of the day pt II

people who've been made wise as to my shower-time hobbies (pt I) actually have failed to shun me. have giggled. tittered. sung my little choral numbers along with me, as i try to remember which grain of bread i liked in safeway. i can never remember anything other than: oatmeal is too sweet.

so as a little preview for you, because i love you, here is the latest in my shower scandals along with a bit more insight into the production itself. call it, the 'behind the shower curtains' section if you will.

the rules of the scandals are as follows.

1. each scandal has 2 main characters (the big toes, of course)

2. each scandal has the use of eight supporting characters (the minor toes, of course.)

3. supporting characters can take on the forms of: a) supporting human figures ; b) animals ; c) a greek chorus that acts in unison.

4. there has to be one central scandal. whether or not more elaborate deceptions and acts of sneakiness are woven around the navel-plot, is up to the director (me) and writer (me).

5. musical numbers are never mandatory. but they are delightful. who can argue otherwise?

--

so yesterday's scandal was one that drew on my religious background as well as my more recent experience with commenting in religious blogs/forums. such touchy gentlemen. a minor shout-out to alex for backing me up, though. very noble of you, sir.

the setting for the scandal is a small urban/suburban city, mostly protestant/athiest/agnostic. you know the mix. it is a trendy, delightful little city which is thrown off-kilter by the pope. the pope! who rides into town and causes quite a bit of confusion with his alien way of life. these townspeople are not catholic, and take to looking into the gospels for answers. not answers to life's larger questions... but rather the question of: why is the pope stealing all our muffins?

(musical number here..goes something like:

why, oh, why is the pope stealing our muffins?
what, oh, what could the pope want with our muffins?
every blueberry gone from the tray,
what is his motive to sashay
every crumb from our ovens?... etc)

the townspeople, still baffled by their favourite breakfast staple being swiped at such a rate, nonetheless learn quite a bit about catholicism. however, just when i was getting pruny and figuring i should wrap things up...well, i couldn't figure out why the pope would actually steal muffins. so the end-scandal is: he is not really the pope at all! simply an out of work salesman with acute kleptomania.

roller derby names

what is new with me, you ask? well, in my verve for joining clubs and volunteering places, i have recently joined a start-up roller derby. that's right. an all-girl roller derby. the first in calgary, for that matter. while they are working out which name we're going to get (for the record, i am not getting stuck with anything involving the word 'sistah'. that is so it's a different world) we are also each, individually, coming up with derby names.

i am not sure how familiar you are with roller derbies, but traditionally, you take a sexy/cute name and then give it a scary twist. something that suggests violence. Sometimes the names are famous pin-up girls, movie titles, authors, characters, or even concepts that sound female.

ex: Betty Rage. Punchin Judy. Anna Skarenina.

here are my considerations:

1. Hysterectomy Hannah (that may be a bit too far)
2. Jane Scare (Jane Ire is already taken...)
3. Are You Pregnant? (assuming this is on the back of our team shirts, this may work to my advantage. kind of a surprise/scare tactic. super Sun Tzu, you know.)
4. This Name Serves To Remind You How Much Of A Virgin You Are (insulting. this may also work against me in case their rage makes them stronger. what would Sun Tzu think?)
5. Anne Coulter (just undeniably scary.)

the hills are alive with inept interns

who should be an intern? i should be an intern.

the hills, a shoot-off production of laguna beach:the real OC premiered last night on our single canadian channel, which pumps in MTV. lengthy advertisement breaks and all. now if you know me, you know of my love for laguna beach. not becuase it is good. because it is horrible. it is like the troll doll of tv shows.

laguna beach was a reality series which focused on a group of highschoolers living in laguna beach, california. all excessively rich, excessively tan, and excessively slutty. also, they have excessively entertaining metaphors. the purses/guys it they did, had me in stitches. i will not repeat it for you. you should just watch it (muting out the talk bits in-between splices of show). anyhow. it is a tremendous leap of non-fiction soap opera where every dilemma revoles around an item which costs three times that of my parents' house. and makes for excellent drinking games. take a shot every third time someone says "like", you will not make it home on your own effort.


to warn you: all the girl characters, save one brunett, look exactly the same. honestly, it took me a whole season and a half to be able to comfortably tell them apart.

so, the hills begins with LC getting an interview for an itnernship at teen vogue. of course she got it. despite flailing her way through the interview.

interview:
LC: like..i totally love vogue

VP: and teen vogue?

LC:well it's like..so important..and...i love how each issue has...you know an issue. for teens. like i love it. i get all my ideas from there.


i guess being followed around by cameras will get anyone in the door. along with her obnoxious roommate and obnoxious roommate's obnoxious entourage.

first celebrity-peppered event:

LC is working inside the party with strict directions not so much as to sit down or she's gone. her roommate/friends called her cell phone. and said, we're right outside can you get us in? you totally have to get us in. LC looks annoyed. but against her better judgement she asks the other girl working...the other girl proceeds to let them in.... then the roommate/boyfriend got in a huge screaming fight.

well one of the head editors asked LC what her friends were doing. and then the senior editor, the big boss lady came over and said, get them out of this area, no one should be here... we will talk about this monday.


ha ha ha.

i am pretending it doesn't hurt so much not to have an internship myself.

i'm half rhubarb all for the rhubarb of you

just before the storms rolled in, amanda and i made it down to the local farmer's market.

bought:
1- gigantic bag of rhubarb
2- raspberries
3- cucumbers

so i made orange/rhubarb pancakes. and boy am i happy about that.

conclusions:

rhubarbs are the new apples

sure, you cannot eat rhubarb raw. but i ask you. how convenient is it to eat apples raw when 1)they are dull and 2)you get skins of them in your gums/between your teeth. ouch.

double anton-dre

suspiciously erotic quotes involving 'anton' from the magus, by john fowles

1. “Five or six weeks after our first meeting he said one evening that he would like me to call him Anton when we were alone. That will tell you that we often were alone and that we had confirmed our liking of each other”.

2. “...A section of German troops was added to Anton’s garrison to ‘stiffen morale’.“

3. “That is Anton in the rear.”

4. “Then I went with [Anton] back to the school and slept under guard.”

5.“Anton’s troops guarded all exits”

6. “On the balcony above I saw Wimmel and behind him Anton, flanked by men with machine guns.”

a peek into my shower scandal of the day:

as you know (or maybe wish to not know, particularly) i am especially fond of naming my toes in the shower and acting out scandals. i refer to these as Daily Scandals.

a clip from this morning's which has had me in stitches.

the setting is a town whose ecomony revolves around an exotic marina/aquarium. for which Gerard, the handsom ladiesman, works. he is the fish's dietician. San Francisco is an artist who frequents the marina to make her lovely, but dull watercolour paintings. she is a failure and is kind of timid. timid, but beautiful!

Gerard: for you, my love
San Francisco: ...goodness! ... is that...?
Gerard: oh yes. a great fuscia south american baracuda.
San Francisco: however did you afford- oh no!
Gerard: oh yes!
San Francisco: you stole it from the aquarium!
Gerard: because i love you.
San Francisco: is this what you do for all of your lovers? it is, isn't it!
Gerard: ha ha ha. perhaps, perhaps. does it matter? my love?
San Francisco: you have to give him back. they will notice.
Gerard: not at all. they...they will think he is sleeping. or hiding. fish are very good at hiding.
San Francisco: (slap!)

note: it is very difficult to suggest a toe slapping another toe. trust me. imagination is required, big time.

i hope the universe is ready for some awesome 'hee hee'ing. i know i am!

between portrayals of our war(and republican)-ravaged world, the front of the nytimes features a special little teaser of something wholly unexpected. maybe wholly appreciable. maybe wholly detestable. i...? i am wholly tickled. we're talking a thousand bushels of "hee hee"ing, here.

star trek episodes made by and for star trek fans.




that's right. who knew trekkies were capable of filtering out bad programming from the good? who knew they would love star trek, worship star trek, invest in bolts of original star trek avocado fabric for $100.oo/yrd, and somehow turn on the television, squint their eyes at programming and say: what the hell kind of crap is this?

certainly not the sci-fi network.

their broiling, unsated hunger for quality star trek episodes has prompted an uprising of fans. these fans are now producing their own episodes. some of them old episodes, re-enacted. some original plots and scripts. some of these productions have even attracted the actors who played sulu and chekov in the original series and they're to make guest appearances. (note: i have no idea who either of these people are. all chekov means to me, is what i've got translated by mamet.)

www.starshipfarragut.com has their "scripts and series bible" for download. well, actually, you have to jump through some hoops, fill out a form, and then they will e-mail it to you. i am considering. more "hee hee"ing material.

alex says this is worse than fanfiction. i wasn't really convinced til i noticed they were "exploring homosexual themes". okay. point for you, sir. but i also completely love fanfiction. it's fantastic. but that is for another time and another place.

anyway, here are some joyful links for you.

www.newvoyages.com

www.starshipexeter.com

www.starshipfarragut.com

hold your tongues.

a break from some of the lovelier bits. actually addressing something that baffles me.

uh oh

i do not understand all the cheerleading that takes place behind a woman's claim to slamming into a guy who cheated on his girlfriend. and the need for the Other Woman to insist he tell his girlfriend. that's uncalled for. it doesn't make anything better to discuss it. to be honest.

sure, i have been cheated on. i got over it almost immediately. loyalty is what counts. not fidelity. which is almost a statistical impossibility. fidelity is not logical. it's just a matter of how far it goes. and how much you know about it.

i do not want to know. i would have been much happier- i would still be happier - not having ever found out.

if you have the balls to cheat, you should have the balls to live with it and never, ever let your significant other know. frankly, if you feel horrible that's just one luxury you've traded in.

why i must marry this man

myself:
really, what bothers you about "utilize"?

this man:
"Use" is a verb. "Utility" is the related noun. "Utilize" is a word
that used to be verb, that was turned into a noun, that was then
verb-ized again.

lovely things i recommend doing when you are bored

$ : some money required ($15 or under)
$$ : more than a little money required (over $15)
* : you can plausibly do this by yourself. sometimes i do.
-----
indoors:

1) moview reviews - ($ ; *)

get a handfull of movies in one genre. and write silly reviews. that is my favourite.
especially when you review them under the rules for other genres.

example: jane austen movies, only you debate how good of a vampire movie it is. or how it matches up to the formula of old westerns.

alternative: take movies and write out the different songs you would make, if you were in change of turning it into a musical production.

[Magnificent Seven:
intro- simple "la la la" chorus of intimidation by horsebacked men riding into small, ransacked village

this 20 dollar gold coin

all you have to do is clap!

bartender, can you hand me my gun?

where have all the young women gone?

zero

(only dead man have) no fear

take off your belts

i too, was a farmer

and for the final song- a season of gratitude, leading into a chorus of adios]


2) coloring - (*)
print things out and color them. very simple.

(note: best enjoyed with company, i think, but sometimes it is nice to do by yourself.)

3) books! - (*)
get a bunch of paper and make a nice little book together

(note: again, you can do this by yourself. some people, it will only make them feel lonely. some, it will make them feel nice and productive)

4) bug collecting - ( *)
go outside and find yourself some bugs. you really don't need to know much about bugs. just use your best judgement. which ones would be neat? give them names that you like.

keep them in a jar, or if you have no jars, you can just use a glass and some seran wrap. probably a rubberband to keep it on. if you let them escape... well, it's less lovely. unless you're very good at finding bugs without injuring them or getting your roommates angry.



public:

1) charming tourist - ( * )
get/print off a little tourist map of your city. sit in a coffee shop. and point to things and circle things you would like to visit on your pretend, romantic, last-minute trip to montreal. and then ask people around you what they recommend.well. you could still pretend. and if they ask, say you were in X city and just decided on a whim to take the girlfriend to montreal. but you both are so silly and spontaneous, you don't have any idea what to do with yourselves. you can say these things while looking at each other and grinning.

if you are single, you could just do this bravely on your own and who knows? maybe someone will have dinner with you.

2) obnoxious haircuts - ($ ; *)

you could get a $10.oo haircut. and give the hairdresser really obnoxious, fastidious directions. see how much they will take for a tenner.

if you do not like being mean, you could just give them baffling directions. like directions that start off with: "what do you know about fractal patterns?" or "if mia farrow were a beautiful man, what do you think her hair would be like? because i want that."

3) exotic/less mean alternative - ($ ; *)

simply, get a haircut in chinatown.

4) just doing something different with your hair - ($$ ; *)

go to a neat salon, see if they will squeeze you in and ask for a dye-job. express to them how much you want them to use their artistic intuition.

5) making rain moments - (note: of course you need rain for it to work best)

go out to the park. you each go to opposite ends of the park. and then run to each other. or the boy could run up behind the girl. spin her around and kiss her. take cliche movie stuff in the rain and find which seem to work okay when actually practiced. take turns. mix it up. people will believe your lives are very romantic and interesting. i know i'd be jealous.

put up your idukes, sir.

ipod vs. everything else

pineapples vs. mangoes

pineapples are undisputedly the best tasting fruit. in the universe. this is assuming that what you are tasting is a good pineapple and not a bad pineapple. good pineapples i could eat until my tastebuds are scorched away from the delicious pineapple acid. the same goes for mangoes, though.

now a great mango still doesn't measure up to a great pineapple. but let me tell you why i opt to buy mangoes instead. and in such bulk.

pineapples, simply by their size are much more of an investment. you put all of your eggs in one basket, so to speak. assuming eggs are 'delicious acids' and baskets..well i guess you do use baskets. or is the pineapple the basket... anyhow. they are huge, and not so inexpensive. it's very rare a person buys more than one pineapple unless they are:

a)going to a family reunion or
b)a living family reunion a.k.a. mormon

conclusion 1- you have one shot at a great pineapple for the same price as maybe half a dozen shots at a great mango.

now let's get into the actual liklihood of getting a great pineapple. you can sniff and pull out leaves all you want. but just because a pineapple is ripe, does not mean it is a great, tasty pineapple. it oculd be ripe but not as acidic, sweet, or tangy as The Ideal Pineapple. in fact, pineapples are kind of black and white. either you have a great pineapple or a disappointing pineapple. maybe i am wrong, but i've never found gray area when it comes to pineapples.

mangoes operate on some levels pineapples don't, flavour-wise. there are other aspects beside the balance of sweet/tangy/acid. sometimes there is a specific tartness. or a mild twinge of sourness. sometimes they just have facets of each flavour that the pineapple doesn't. this doesn't mean the pineapple has inferior flavour. at all. just less complex.

mangoes, because of their complicity, are more forgiving. there is a 'great' mango, somewhere at the top..a long spectrum of 'very tasty!' and 'good, but not impressive' before it hits 'disappointing'.

conclusion 2- you have a greater chance of enjoying a random mango than you do a random pineapple

if you do not enjoy your pineapple, you are sunk. unless you are mormon, etc, and have bought more than the one. chances are, you're just sunk. if you do happen to get a disappointing mango, well there are five other options. each more likely to be delicious on some level.

add up my two conclusions and it is pretty obvious. chances are if i get a sack of mangoes, i have a sack full of delicious mangoes. and i will enjoy them. on into the night. now, if i get a pineapple, chances are i have a disappointing pineapple and once i discover it is disappointing, i will maybe blend it into something where it will just serve as an intense citrus. not bad. but i have put all my eggs in one basket. and i have no other fruit to rely on. unless i get backup fruit and that seems kind of sad.

this is why i get sacks of mangoes.

also a little sidenote:
yes, there are apples. you can easily buy a dozen apples, just as you can a dozen mangoes. the former may also be lighter. but apples? are dull. very boring. unless you get granny smiths. and who would do that? they are horrible to have inn your mouth. unless they are baked into a pie. i like making pies but that is kind of difficult to manage every morning.

and just when you thought i couldn't get any more anal with verbs.

echolalias said...
other' as a verb? i understand. but. nouns are just not to be turned into verbs. isn't there some better term that doesn't massacre grammar?


john_m_burt said...
I like using "to other" as a verb. It resonates with the verbs "to mother", and "to smother".



echolalias said...
"to mother" is not a proper example. it is horrible.

saying "mother" or "mothering" is a verb is... just terrible. "to mother" is not saying the person is "mothering" as a person is "running". "running" is a specific movement which engages the noun on its own. independently.

"mother" is a word that exists in the realm of a subjective relationship:it's assumed and then applied between more than two objects.

it is an example of a noun in a relationship to another noun. its usage is turning the unspoken noun of the person into "mother". fnankly, either you are a "mother" as a noun or you are "acting like a mother". you cannot be a "mother" and not actually be a "mother". that's insanity.

it is a tacky, nonsensical shortcut from "acting like a mother". and it doesn't even work with "othering" which doesn't apply to the noun who activates the noun-gone-wrong, but the relationship they assume.

and "smother" is just a verb..i don't see how it applies at all.

bad form.

this woman's

minor complaints:
a) i do not see how being warmer is a negative assumption. i am cold all the time and it is horrible.

b) i do not understand the ownership of 'dreadlocks'. they are not specific attributes of an african american. i lived in seattle. they were everywhere. i go to art school. i have had my hands in them. it doesn't matter who you are, they do not look clean or attractive. on anyone. at all. yuck. and they have the most un-sensual texture.

okay, here are my thoughts.

someone in the comments said it was our duty to steep and train ourselves in african american history so we are super conscious and careful not to offend. it was horrible, yes. i had an education. in north carolina, too. i wasn't in the majority by a long shot. my principal 'hated white people'. and women. so i was at the lowest possible end of his favour spectrum.

if i offend someone, i feel bad. but i do not make a paranoid circus out of avoiding it. it is an insincere way of interacting with people. this is who i am. if it offends, that's your responsibility to point it out. if it offends, and you don't say something...or it is a ludicrous reason to begin with. well, you may go sulk and seeth.

do you want sincerity? equality? or to be kept in padded rooms of the most ginger ettiquette? you really can't have things both ways. i don't treat you differently. like it or lump it.

a little story about mangos.

this morning the lady at the cash register, she counted them and said, "six mangos?"

and i looked at her and said, "do not judge me."

license to kill the 'license to grill' host

this man is vexes me. rob rainford.

there was nothing on today, so i happened to land on food network. a couple people say they prefer it. i do not understand this at all. the food network has the most abominable tv personalities in the universe. all their hosts can fit into one of three categories.

1) over-eager

2) ignorant

3) slutty

occasionally these overlap. for instance, while emeril's entire personality is 'over-eager', some are very over-eager sluts. some are ignorant, over-eager sluts and some are just ignorant. okay, there could possibly be a third category. certain personalities are housewife to the extreme. i clump these personalities under #2.

anyway. rob rainford is a whopping combination of all categories 1-3.

1) he is very exciteable and says "OH! HOO BAY-BEE!" every time he opens the grill. as though it's really that much of a surprise what is under there.

2) he is ignorant. not in the housewife way, but in the grownup male counterpart of the housewife: the ADD child in an adult male body. only instead of "yay!trampoline!" his brain is saying "yay!jala-PENO peppers!" and then he cannnot resist saying it out loud.

3) he slips in little bits about how 'hot' he likes things. that is not only slutty, it is a terrible cliche.

at the end of the show he sits down and digs into his food among friends who make 'mm!' sounds and stare into their plates, trying to ignore the swarms of cameras. my number one complaint about this man? the way he eats. it's awful to watch. he not only wolfs it down in gargantuan bites, he completely overestimates the lateral movement capabilites of the jaw/mouth.

do you have any idea how difficult dyslexia makes these things?

alert all sassy sailors! first gay hurricane of the season.

the intensely blonde woman on CNN's weather report announced that Tropical Storm Alberto
(first introduced to you, by me, in is your doppler gay-dar going off?) is getting "even more tropical". even more tropical? amazing! but, if you're like me, you're wondering: is this woman making that up? how is that even possible? really, what does it all mean?

well, i have prepared this little demonstration for you.

let us say that this is tropical storm alberto:


now, a more tropical tropical storm alberto, i imagine, would be something like this:


or:



so far, true to predictions, friends in the south assure me of alberto's fondness for water sports. he has, in the brief span, managed to show (douse) his affection to (on) a number of people/counties/states/and sailors.

conclusion? tropical alberto is:
a) obviously gay
b) obviously kinky
c) obviously a slut
d) obviously on his way to getting more gay, kinky, slutty & colourful.

now for something not even a little gay. great, but not gay.

other things i recommend to you (because i like you)

1. i am enjoying a bowl of yogurt with brown sugar & coffee grinds. not used ones. freshly ground coffee.
2. saying 'freshly ground coffee' because 'coffee grinds' sounds shady.
3. not using 'silence' as a verb. because i will beat you down.

"silence(d)" as a verb

sansseriftrain:
resilence.... is not a word, is it?

miraculatron:
If you've spelled it right of course it is.

sansseriftrain:
not 'resilience'. but 'resilence'.

miraculatron:
Oh.

sansseriftrain:
i do not know it... m-w.com does not know it...

miraculatron:
Well why should it be?
What would it mean?
To silence again?

sansseriftrain:
it was in a book. i assumed it was a typo.

miraculatron:
Silence is a bad verb to begin with.

sansseriftrain:
is silence a verb? ew.
it should not be used like that at all.

miraculatron:
Like the gun attachment?

sansseriftrain:
...i thought it just caused a state which is a noun. or causes an adjective to be applied to a noun.

miraculatron:
"silencer" is formed from a verb.
It is suffixed like nouns are suffixed that come from verbs.

sansseriftrain:
huh... that's odd.

miraculatron:
It is a thing that silences.

sansseriftrain:
it isn't really causing the gun to 'silence'. it just replaces one noun with another.
'noise' with 'silence'

miraculatron:
Can you give me an analogous example?

sansseriftrain:
i just mean that a gun makes noise, and the object of a 'silencer' is to replace the noise with silence. a gun doesn't 'silence'. a gun doesn't 'noise'. it is just a noun-swap.

miraculatron:
But "silence" was a verb long before this thing was invented (I think).
When they were naming the silencer I am pretty sure that what was running through their minds was that here is a thing that silences guns.

sansseriftrain:
no no i unerstand. man puts hand over girl's mouth and says 'silence' meaning it as a verb... but i think it's still a noun that's demanded. i don't think it's actually a verb. i don't think it gets any closer than a noun being demanded.

miraculatron:
Well when a man puts his hand etc. I don't think he means it as a verb.
I think he means "I want silence"
You are just confusing things.
He doesn't mean "silence yourself".
Does he?

sansseriftrain:
i thought that's how it was used.

miraculatron:
No, as in "The emperor silenced his troops with a wave of his hand">
.
sansseriftrain:
... i hate it used that way... i think at the navel of it, it is a noun with relationships to nouns. and people oversimplify. in really ugly ways.

miraculatron:
A noun with relationships to nouns?
You have a really weird internal grammar.

sansseriftrain:
the troops became silent.

either
a) it was the conversion of 'troops' (which has an implied noise) to 'silent'.

b)the noun 'troops' (which has an implied noise) to 'troops' (which have no implied noise). noun to noun.

c) the noun 'toops'(which has an implied noise) to 'silent troops' (overriding the implied noun with the combinaiton of the noun 'troops' and 'silent' as an adjective)

at most it's an adjective to another 'troops'.

miraculatron:
Oh I understand totally.
I just think your way of describing it is completely alien.

it is time for fun with doug henning

why is everyone who knows doug henning surprised that i know who doug henning is? i was shocked more people didn't know who doug henning is. or was.

also, here's a nice little photo comparison for you.





in order: burton cummings, doug henning, & the actor fromwelcome back kotter. form what conclusions you will.

fibromyalgia

my aunt claims to have it. this is the same aunt who hasn't stopped my grandmother from eating three cups of chopped parsley a day. three cups. she heard parsley breaks up kidney stones and she believes it may hae a similar effect on her brain tumour.

call me a wary girl, but i do not believe fibromyalgia exists. not even a little bit.

edit:

sigh. on the other hand, insomnia?

insomnia i believe in.
why the hell can't i just sleep? i love sleeping almost more than anything in the universe...

the children's book industry has been blown out of proportion

i present to you, completely unnecessary, barely sensical children's books.

Duck on a Bike!

One day down on the farm, Duck got a wild idea. "I bet I could ride a bike!" he thought.

A duck on a bike!

From Sheep to Horse to Chicken to Goat, everyone in the barnyard has something to say about Duck's zany idea. But what are they really thinking? And what will happen next?

----

A Bad Case of Stripes

Camilla Cream loves lima beans, but she never eats them. Why? Because the other kids in her school don't like them. And Camilla Cream is very, very worried about what other people think of her. In fact, she is so worried that she's about to break out in A Bad Case of Stripes!

----

the Gigantic Indicator of my writing ineptitude:

i wrote it. i knew it was crap, as it came out. but i wrote it and left it and i was editing today....

i compared a woman's body to bauhaus furniture

yikes.

this just feels nice, to me

do you find it funny that his name is "crouch"?

i do.

ps- i have nicknamed him 'spindles' because of the spindly, wobbly giraffe baby legs. which i adore.

the reasons why football (soccer) is the greatest sport in the world

amanda came over at 7am and we had a pancake & beer party for the world cup. just the two of us. and my roommate, paul. now, paul was pretty mortified at the reasons i was enjoying the world cup. i don't see why. they are all valid reasons.

football is hotter, visually, than any other sport. and let me tell you why.

other sports vs. football/soccer:

. hockey players are grossly unattractive. missing teeth, knocked out/in features, black eyes, and generally poor physiques.

basketball players are often too gangly and ill-proportioned.

(american) football players have too much variety. too much bulk, too short hair, and big foreheads. while

football players have pristine but occasionally stubbly faces, any hairstyle from reasonably long to short, and the best bodies i have ever seen. essentially: they are dreams on legs.

. ...and what lovely legs, too.

. unlike hockey, where an unattractive man is cluttered with:

shoulder gear
plastic armour of all sorts
helmets
really loose, baggy clothing

or (american) football players, where you have bulky, mis-proportioned men of variety with:

frankly, homosexual-tight pants
again, shoulder armour
again, helmets

football players are attractive men (supremely attractive men) with:

visible torsos (only the tastiest amount of imagination required)
boxers (so help me, boxers)
crisp, white knee-socks

survey says? saucy.

sure, football players tend to fall down a lot and hold themselves. some say that makes them mamby-pamby. i think, when they do this, little blue-jays light on my heart. it is more than a little adorable. when cole was on the field, laying on his back and panting... all i could think was a)thank you paraguay and b)why is there not more of this sort of thing factored into the game? but i guess the rarity keeps these moments special.

i have to also mention, the stretching exercises they occasionally do on the field? oh boy.

yeah, that is all.

i mean, you do have the speed of the game which is preferable to everything. especially baseball. which is ungodly boring/slow. if you notice i didn't even bother to factor baseball into the eye-candy segment. frankly, i cannot stand to watch baseball. attractive men are few & far between (and often even more compromised by horrible mullet hair, nasty tobacco habits, and an uncanny affinity for bad beer and nascar).

rugby is tough. appeals to the hostility in me. it's pretty attractive in its own ways (such as the socks and outfits in general), but i'd still rate it underneath football.


i have to say. over all sports. football goes excellent with beer.

bright eyes perversity (ps- leave your mother at home)

i must have missed the news that Bright Eyes is no longer for us hardened indie "we have been here so long we have babies named after Conor" people. apparently, mr.oberst is the big teen beat. when did this happen? i was unaware. and i was stunned by the number of highschool kids, kids with curfews, kids with backpacks, kids who brought not only their backpacks and their date but their mother to the concert. their mother! who frowned and clutched her bag and gave my naughty cleavage piercing dirty looks (which it deserves, granted...but this is hardly the vennue to be reminded of that)

on this note, i would like to take a moment and clarify one thing:
if you bring your mother/chaperone to a concert you should cower in shame towards the back and not hog our delicious, sexy, conor-feasting, general front stage area.

-
dear kid,

your mother completely blew my conor mojo with her dancing and frowning to "lover i don't have to love". which is not his best song, ever, believe it or not.

sincerely, myself.
ps- your little, asian girlfriend was scoping the place for hotter guys. just a heads up there.
-
i have pinpointed the artery of my distress. the throbbing, bursting artery of distress. i tumbled into a happy music/listener relationship with Mr.Oberst when i was sixteen. and he is a year or so older, so let us take this to the max and say he was eighteen at the point of our merger. now, most of the girls there were sixteen, saying "oh my god, he is so cute!". really, word for word. you know these words. you have heard them. you hate them. you hate me repeating them. well they were said. and conor is now 25. and i am 23.

sixteen year olds (who are obnoxious and stricken with the worst emo-teen Down Syndrome equivalent) pining after him... it just feels perverse.

berger & also, my birthday

Lisboetas often talk of a feeling, a mood, which they call saudade, usually translated as nostalgia, which is incorrect. Nostalgia implies a comfort, even an indolence such as Lisboa has never enjoyed. Vienna is the capital of nostalgia. This city is still, and has always been, buffeted by too many winds to be nostalgic.

Saudade, I decided as I drank my second coffee and watched a drunk's hands carefully arranging the accurate story he was telling as if it were a pile of envelopes, saudade was the feeling of fury at having to hear the words too late pronounced too calmly.



-


For example, how to catologue a small page torn from a desk calendar, covering the two weeks from Sunday 22 September [my birthday!] to Saturday 5 October in the year 1935? In the small space for her notes, between the columns of the two weeks, are written several words. The handwriting is sloping and quick and unconsidered. Perhaps a woman's. The words in English, are: all night, all night and what is it on a postcard.


-


Circumstances! Anything can hide behind that word. I believe in repairs, as I was telling you, and the one other thing.
What would that be?
The inevitability of desire.

- j. berger

things i am recommending to you (because i like you)

1. john berger's here is where we meet along with every other book he has ever written. his video series is wonderful but you have to go through life trying not to remember he has a speech impediment. otherwise. this man, i can't read him at night because he gives me palpitations. not in the sexed way. just in the amazing way.

2. adding a little burts bees apricot baby oil to your conditioner. it's really wonderful.

3. when you are bored, or are in the bath: naming your toes and acting out scandals with them. this is a favourite. until i realized the people upstairs can hear everything- i had to cut out the greek chorus bits from the minor toes. now they are whispered scandals.

4. mangos

5. aubergines

6. rollerskating. (i may or may not be joining this little indie roller derby club)

7. bicycles (rhianna is lending me hers while she is in south america. gracias!)

8. beirut

9. giving up your myspace. i just got one. they're cluttered and ugly and the whole thing is obnoxious.

10. failing that, you should add me to your myspace.


other things i do not want you to waste your time on:


1. david maine's fallen

after ten pages, i am disappointed. you can just hear him writing it out as you read it. in the 'this is what a writer sounds like' way. unfortunately it has some of the most excellent cover design.

2. lisa moore

...is also a dull read. you know she's a good writer, technique-wise. but content. if you disagree, this is your lucky day. i've got a signed copy for you.

3. my roommate's blender. it is not the sort you can just lift off from. smoothie was everywhere. just everywhere.

enough with the "heat" already

okay, bill. bill buford. yes, you. you, author of Heat: An Amateur's Adventures As Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta-Maker, And Apprentice To A Dante-Quoting Butcher In Tuscany.



i am tired of reading reviews of your book.

first, it appeared in the NYTimes sunday book reviews. then, oddly enough, the Globe & Mail. Not only in the saturday book review (almost a week after the times!) but in a body article. then, the Onion gets in on the action. it has effectively stretched out from sunday the 28th to wednesday the 7th. of june. you have covered two months, by name.

just, enough already. alright? enough. it has been weeks! stop it.

some contemporary illustrators for you. or for me. for both of us, because this place could use some purdy pictures and wa-la...

E minor so far this has been worth subscribing to. some kind of old news. some art so new it strikes me as uncomfortably dated. that is contemporary from what i know of contemporary illustration.

some ill. i dig

my friend brian ford, or acquaintance anyhow (he is another ill. major) has a show up. also a site. which is inexplicibly done in flash. i mean i do not know why it is in flash. it also needs some finessing around the links. but when you can look at his sketchbook it is worth it. or you can just follow my link because it simply works better. his paintings live here

a little sample:

OBSERVATIONS OF X-MEN, LAST STAND BY SOMEONE (ME) WHO HAS MAYBE WATCHED A COUPLE EPISODES & NEVER LAID HAND OR EYE ON AN ACTUAL X-MEN COMIC

1. Why is every semblance of southern accent stripped from this comic-turned-film (+film, +film...)? Rogue. Didn't she have an accent? Or was that just her sauciness escaping in the only way it knew how? Gambit. Now I know he had a southern accent. As a southern girl, born in Georgia, I do appreciate a good dialect pumped full of extra syllables. Especially one from Louisianna (Georgia's delicious cousin- not that way. Don't be gross.) And a lovely, twanging "ya'll" thrown into a discourse now and then. Not only is Rogue completely without her sauciness, there isn't even a Gambit to speak of. Maybe they felt the plot was stretched thin as it was, between characters. There was little to no character development in this one (I guess they figured a generation or so of fanatics would make up for it. Well, it doesn't.)


2. That porcupine kid. (if you are not familiar, he is an asian guy who can make porcupinequils pop out of his skin and then poke back in again- for some reason he is enlisted in Magneto's special mutant forces.) How is that even remotely handy, unless you’re hugging the person you want to kill? And yes, this was how he killed someone. Though really, I figure she wakes up in a couple hours and just has a lot of butterfly band-aids to apply. Some Polysporin/Neosporin and things will be okay. If mutants are rated on a scale of 1-5... well I would give that kid like a .005. How did he make it into the group? Maybe they hire him on the side to put together those horrible neo-renaissance outfits our leading lady (with gigantimundo man-hands that they went to extremes to blot out from every scene- top thing to enjoy) wore. Iridescent fuscia? Yowza.


3. Kelsey Grammer. I love him, of course. He did an excellent job. Maybe the best job. But I swear to god, every time he stood up at the microphone, I thought he was going to tilt his head and say 'I'm listening'. That is all I have to say about him, really. I'm glad he got to rip someone's head off in a movie. I betcha he liked it. And I like him.



4. The guy who can clone himself into multiples. Magneto isn't the only one who has use for him. Hee hee.


5. ...Why does the 'cure' kid have to be bald? Is he supposed to look like a monk or a cancer patient? Or both? Either way, he was pretty useless. All he did was stare at things with his mouth open. Frankly, that's a bit on the rude side. I would hate to watch him eat.


6. This is a fantastic movie for future drinking games. You can go at it from all angles: geekish, fanatical, respectful, and more than borderline Marvel-Heretical.

drink everytime:

. someone says a line you can find in at least two other movies (there are a lot of these. Is it okay, really, to still cling to a dead lover and scream: "NOOOOooooooooo"? huh.)
. when the director screws up (...he moved the bridge it was the middle of the day. They get to the other side and it is midnight. What magical, harry-potter bridge is this?)
. someone is betrayed
. someone says "mutant" (alt: gene, cure, NNNNNnnnnnooooooooo)
. you have the overwhelming impression of someone being jealous
. someone is wearing lycra/rubber
. every time you miss a southern accent. in your heart of hearts.

7. Did anyone else think "you know, given the choice between a) being strapped down, hardcore bondage style, to a large upright device and being injected with The Biggest, Scariest Syringe Ever by a grossly unattractive woman and b) being shot with one of those teeny darts on the fly, I would opt for the latter"? I did.


8. Why do they protest all mutants being cured? What if you had an intensely lame mutant "skill" like, say, turning to butter whenever you're nervous. Or you have the lame ability to make things/people smell like sour cream? Or you can develop glaucoma on command?


9. Did you want the evil fire guy and the good ice guy to make out? Boy, did I ever.


MOST ATTRACTIVE:


o The blonde with angel wings. Sure, he was essentially useless. We actually have this conspiracy theory going, that he talked to the mutants beforehand and said "hey, don't just shoot my father, drop him off a high building, please"...then he sneaks out, swoops in, etc. Because he didn't do anything else in the whole movie but a) look around a corner b) have a really heartbreaking scene in the bathroom. If his father hadn't been dropped over a ledge, he would have had nothing to do at all. That is sad, to me.

o Not to say they are now. But after my mistake in the Harry Potter films, I am very careful to note twins in the background. There were twin mutant boys in one of the classroom scenes. I will wait. If it's anything like Harry Potter, they will turn into raging hotties. (...is it okay to say 'hottie'? I do not know these things.)

o Gambit. Who was not there at all. A pox on you, whoever you are that removed him from the script. Wolverine is a flaming redneck and the guy with laser eyes (I can never remember his name) reminds me of an X-treme dirt-biker with pepperings of homosexuality. Laser eyes are lame. You can't expect to get away with a thing. You just can't. They know it's you. There are obvious red lasers pointing right back to your face.


ACTORS WHO WOULD MAKE HORRIBLE MUTANTS & WHY:

o Julianne Moore. Her face is too tight and horsey.

o Sarah Jessica Parker. I cannot imagine her without chewing gum and complaints. Mutants do not complain. Plus, she looks like a foot.

o Bill Paxton. Self explanatory.

o Hillary Duff. Rogue would kill her on spot. I kind of sense this.

o That squinty guy who played Harry on 3rd Rock From the Sun.

o Joey from Full House.

o Dan Akroyd. He just would, okay? I don't like him. I'm sorry, but I just do not.


PEOPLE WHO SHOULD DEFINITELY BE MUTANTS:

o Ann Coulter