det finns altid

So...so...many bizarre conversations. Because we need them.

In one spawned by Jav's guilt over possibly destroying a man's career yesterday, he recounted for the others one of my favorites. In some conference call, this dude was being an arseholio and they were butting heads a bit then the guy says, "Look, we can do this all day, and call each other names back and forth...," so J says, "Okay, you're a jerk. Your turn." Dude doesn't appreciate. Point proven - but missed. Womp.

Then, Crowley and I were bemoaning the ongoing issue with smoking still being allowed out here in Chicago. "Come on. The issue's that it affects others. Are these the same people who think pregnant women should drink? It's not like smoking is being made illegal."
"We aren't even restricting how much they smoke. Or who they subject to their smoke on their own property."
"Ya. 'It's okay. You can still lay in bed and smoke even.' But [light going off] maybe they should only be allowed to smoke in bed." And once we worked out a few kinks, came up with pretty good supporting arguments.

On another note - at once fulfilling and alarming - Ajmal has begun to exhibit nearly human-like behaviors. He clarifies they are illusions for the sake of profit, but the outcome is the same so I it's still progress for my little golem of a friend. (Ajmal has been the Pakistani Alex P. Keaton his whole life, as far as anyone knows.) At the same time, there are some political areas where we are in agreement. Neither of us knows how to process this.

Earlier yesterday, Jav wanted to finally get his Aztec tattoo, and we almost got a telescope, but then he didn't think there was time for the tattoo, and said he knows it disappoints me and he's sorry because he knows I want him to suffer. "No, not that so much. How about some acupuncture though?" No. "Need any vaccinations?" Nostril flare. "Can we say you were poisoned and need to be inoculated? Don't look at me like that. We won't really poison you." So he kept whining and telling everyone last night to check in on him every now and then, just in case. Today, however, he says, "Hey, D! Let's weigh your head!" "We'd have to cut if off, Jav." He smiles.

Meanwhile, there's a general consensus that it's abnormal-in-a-nice-way how much Augie-ites stay in touch and are good friends still. Ya, decapitation. Touching.

enviable

...my host is not.

Since arriving at my friend's, I have:

• run into a doorjamb last night, which somehow caused
• a frame to fall off the wall and break glass all over the floor, (but wait - that's not all!)
  
• when the frame fell it also hit a lightswitch and somehow cleanly broke off about 1/3 of it
• distinctly heard friend state preference for a taking of the coffee black but then watched self start slowly putting sugar into coffee while the bloated hamster on its wheel that is my brain processed it was not my coffee being so assaulted with sweetening agent
  
• thought I'd be nice and do a bunch of laundry but neglected to check pockets so now the shredded remains of a cab receipt and apparently a novella and a ton of matches are having a party all over the laundry

If I were a dog, they'd put me down.

other findings

Oops. Apparently attempts to mimic Gene Kelley tapdancing can result in accidentally striking doorframes which result in knocking down things framed behind glass and are heavyish which result in said framed things striking lightswitches which will break into thirds. But HEY! There's still this:

A BRIEF TRANSLATION IS:
You have a luscious face, and you have a celestial figure but your hair is a disaster.


How much more awesome can it get?

good gene

We're just sitting here, granted in a rather boozeeed-uup staten, och did the next natural thing - watched Gene Kelley, for he is grand. Excuse me (as I've been corrected); he is great.

Gene, vi love you. And, for the record, in My Perfect Neighborhood, you would live on our floor.

Enough said. Mwa.

andra dag

Morning: run into Anne on the way to work and we get to share our commute. Yay!

Lunch: I swwwwear I saw a Hessidic tranny. Kidding thee not.

Laterz: realize I've made one of the top ten worst footwear choices for the day of my life. (The tootsies - still burnin'.)(Unrelatedly - continue in the missing of Laurenpresence.)

Home: run into Zan on way home, who pretty much incessantly giggles at everything, but was probably pushing the merriment with my 'up from train/immediate removal of [beautiful] boots/sock-footed walk home' maneuver. But hey, guess Mazzy Star has a new CD coming out (which is painfully bad, so the heardtell goes).

Big finish! (no)

speaking of mermaids

I still want to have one day in my home - aside from the red-walled, exposed-beams ceiling dining room with floor seating despite a big, ominous china cabinet (all wood dark) - to have an underwater-seeming bathroom.

When I was eleven, we visited Mom's friend she was working with in Spokane when preggers with this fair fetus, who was living on a lake in Idaho nestled in/near the mountains and in a houseboat, no less. Getting up in the morning, walking onto the porch, and stepping off it into water deep without being creepily so was completely tickling. But it's how it looked while underwater here that inspires; looking up to the surface, the sunlight dazzled down in spotlights and the world was luminous emerald in varying shades.

This is how I'd paint the wall facing the mirror. The other walls I'd likely just do sort of a black pearl treatment to, with a bit of texture. In an ideal world, I could have a raku aki sink sculpted to seem like a giant abelone but (but but but) raku is too porous and no treatment can negate that issue. Le sigh, emphatique. I suppose the toilie would have to be black. Some of the really amazing glass tiles from Italy would clearly have to be incorporated. No pearls of any color are remotely practical, as fake ones will soon chip coatings or look cheap and real ones are far too delicate (they aren't even supposed to be in sunlight much - hello, Lanyardkindred). Metal fixtures need to be dark, and organic-ish methinks...wrought iron probably, not above toying with tridents somehow. Copper touches would also add interest, especially patina-ing over time. (The 'mermaid handmirror' I bought some years ago in Florence that's copper with blue and green agates is what pushes me over the edge to realize this thing.) It'd be bad-ass to have big piece of (pale green) jade carved and polished in the shape of coral but translucent glass in the same color is wiser. The central light overhead light would have to be very cool but wide...I'm thinking of some handmade porcelain shades I've seen with patterns that seem very fossilized-sealife, with a definite golden cast, and in a flattened circular shape but with ripples in it, like when you throw a pebble into still water. A goldleaf ceiling might be good as well. Ya. I think like that.

It could happen. I just don't know how to reconcile these with my possibly stronger leanings towards much more minimal decor, but if there IS a way then I. Shall. Find. Eet.

Crap, now it all seems like Decorating with Golem. Oh well. I likeseez heeem.

mood: transcendental

Things the appreciation of which seems to have not been merely a phase:

• ikebana
• dark chocolate (in a multitude of forms and combinations)
• vodka (hey, it's not laudanum or opium)
  
• Italy
• Southern Spain
• Moorish architecture
• good sushi
• this surely unhealthy but incredible cream of celery soup (not in soup form) with rice and tender chicken breast
• the humanities
• genetics
• archaeology & paleontology (my longest relationship outside of family, and Mimi)
• mermaids, their imagery when done well, and other bits of folklore
  
• the sea
• Vikings
• ducks
• willow trees
• Scandinavian and Japanese design
• Voltaire, Thomas Paine, etc. (Freethinkers)
• going fast
• climbing
• heights
• flying
• candlelight
• thunderstorms
• tornado-green skies
  
• these two paintings, and pre-Raphaelite paintings in general theory, at least to look upon (they're too lush to outgrow apparently)(although the one on the right, "Flaming June," is by self-proclaimed anti-PRB'er Leighton, fine, fine):
  

• this excerpt of a Lord Byron poem I had on my wall when I was fifteen:

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society, where none intrudes,
By the deep sea, and music in its roar:
I love not man the less, but Nature more...

(Then, cut off the rest, which is below.)

From these our interviews, in which I steal
From all I may be, or have been before,
To mingle with the Universe, and feel
What I can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal.

screwy

I get it when 'screw' is applied to face-making, but why is 'screwing UP' making a mistake? Upwards screwing seems better than upwards nailing, for anything you'd want supported by something thusly fastened - unless this slang derived from the other slang for screwing as in the making of the sexytime, but if screwing UP is a mistake in that context, then it seems like some awfully unimaginative screwing.

my kingdom for

...a great pencil skirt, probably a bit high-waisted...

for to make of the wearing with as yet un-attained but prospected bell-sleeved and otherwise slender blouses.

They've re-emerged on the fashion scene yet are impossible to find in stores, in fitting formats (good fabrics, well-made, quality cut, preferably a few small yet refined details). It hurts.

resurrection request of one rené lalique

Sweet, sweet Art Nouveau overlord, how I love thee. This image is just a detail from a chalice in the collection of this fascinating Turkish chap.

Yet, how disappointing your grave. (In defense of Père Lachaise, they've had to remove Jim Morrison's bust from his grave due to all the vandalism/tribute, and his would hardly have been as tempting to thieve away, so I suppose it follows Reason. I just want a giant terrarium around Lalique's grave, where vines and greenery is ever-present, with peacocks and serpents and light. On second thought, though, given a choice I'd rather have it - to enjoy with friends, and run naked through. Guess I'm selfish, when it comes to dead people. And becoming a mini-groundskeeper, even for that, also isn't terribly appealing.)

His jewelry though! Dear, glistening, serpentine aesthetic. Dear, glorious talent. I mean, just to be able to think enough beyond our societal value-ments to put diamonds and copper together? To have the frosted crystal balls to do it? And to carry out so much with arduous attentions bordering on inhumanly sublime? I curtsy and tip my fan to thee. Parasols down!

Parasol, down.

researching louis viii cognac: productive

This sounds like it'd be worth trying, and sans choking hazards (like when they put gems into the glasses).

Pickpocket Cocktail

1 oz Chateau D’Yquem Sauternes (2001)
1 oz Giraud Grande Champange Cognac
4 oz Krug 'Grande Cuvee' Champagne Brut

apple, tree. tree, apple.

KR sings Broadway-style in the kitchen: "Chemical spill. It's a chemical spiiiill."
moi von der bedroom, opera chorus-style: "What kind of chemical has been spilled?"
KR: "Not a good kind." Then, more stoccato, "There are NO good kinds." [beat] "I'm cleaning up the chemical spill."

Via phone, The Mother describing her morning dream -
"...we were in this lounge-y bar with these special seats that had infrared sensor-type things, so the chair would glow in particular colors to indicate what kind of drink you wanted [yay for Mom's subconscious mind!]...then a bunch of us were walking but having A Time of it because we all had on very high heels, the kind I just would never wear...and got off this escalator and there was a grave there. Parsley was growing out of the grave and I knew that was Mom (laughing) somehow, so I reached down and touched the parsley a bit of course, but she didn't even grow parsley."

Note: a few years ago Mom thought I was weird for threatening that if she were to have herself cremated then I'd make tea and drink her. (I have a theory about cremation, energy, and decomposition.) She has since, of her own accord, decided against the cremation. (And we are a blissful, oblivious lot - completely un-Nordic and free of Stoicism or forethought/methodical planning.)

Eyes dried after having seen Babel at long last -
If the news were half so human I would watch it again, at least sometimes. That's some damned fine film-making.

duckman revisited

First item of the day: looked for Duckman's "Prick Song" version when he closes the fridge door and he says 'prick' slowly, enunciating so we see his teeth. Sooo funny. This isn't it.

o, dickie

About 1/4 in is when it starts picking up a bit.
IMPROV

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speci-al

Owls are weird, but this one looks like a snowball with wings, which could explain a bit about why their numbers are scarce.

It's too bad Calvin & Hobbs isn't still in print.
Or not.

Xenoglaux: may cause delirium due to cuteness, loss of memory of previously witnessed adorability, eye pecking out may cause blindness. If you are a mouse, see your doctor before approaching xenoglaux. Do not attempt head rotating mimicry at home. Consult your physician if its image seems to be seared into your retinas.

Meanwhile, on pretty much the exact opposite end of the spectrum, there's this giant squid which outweighs the former record-setter by 330 at a total of 990. It was caught off Antarctica...so I guess if anyone falls into those waters ever, there's more immediate 'bad aspects' to worry about anyway. That'll make a good fishing story, though, as does the fact that they may microwave it. But that's okay - it's for science! Pinky and the Brain style...

At the time it was caught, O’Shea said it would make calamari rings the size of tractor tires if cut up — but they would taste like ammonia.

blackbird pie

The next gourmet organics fad:

Red-winged blackbird couples thought to be devoted surprised scientists that had given vasectomies to the males for population control; the females kept laying eggs that hatched. Somewhere, there's a blackbird Holiday Inn with a discreet parking lot.

"Um could I have some of the Immaculate Conceptions, sunnyside up?"

early sex ed a bit lacking

First the Creation of Man (first version, not the slightly more plausible and less insulting version appearing afterwards) - total gut buster, at least to a seven year old. Then there's the ear impregnation thing.

"And God saw Mary and said she was good. And God looked onto Mary and said onto her, Mary, I shall skullfuck thee.

And God said she was good.

And Mary thought her ear popped."

Oh, Bible. You smite me.

completely not funny: a dream

Last night's dream starts off in the Royalton lobby but there's a fireplace. A guy who's supposed to be a combo of Wesley Snipes and his old martial arts instructor (who nicely reinforced my reasoning for almost never letting males know even the cross-streets of my building) was sitting with me and we were eating this pate with olives somehow inside these nummy loaves, Gruyere fondue, and huge smoked salmon-wrapped, marinated artichokes with capers and a hint of lemon (hands down, my fav). All seemed well enough.

Then it was like a spy movie though, think Bridget Fonda's first assassination scene in Point of No Return. Dude leads me down this veneered Art Deco hallway to a room that's nice and toasty, thinking I don't know anything's up. I'm bummed because it's v. inviting in the room and there's another fireplace and candles and white flowers and a white fur rug that I'm pretty sure was supposed to be baby seal, but that wouldn't surprise me because the bed was carved ivory. (These served as further warnings of Wrongness.) I slip out remarkably easily, but wind up with a bunch of the Gigi's (Gorge-us Gouging, our female art group) in this massive tri-level pool area that's cavernous and dark but calming with lots of glass tiles and natural stones. At first the biggest and lowest pool is empty but it fills and all's well, swim, swim. Happy, nice. We decide to sauna but I am taken back, alone, to the lobby, knowing my friends will be worried.

Dude takes down an exit sign I hadn't noticed before as we enter the same hallway, opens a door I don't remember by using the sign to clumsily jimmy door, puts the sign over this door instead and leads me back to the room. I make a mental note, in case. He leaves, and my brother shows up, though he's about 13 and when we walk out then I am maybe 17 and we're in a park back home, heading to the waterfalls. He goes to his friend's car to get something but there's a dead guy inside and we're like, "Come on. We just want to be left alone and live our lives, cosmos. And do kid stuff." But someone's coming and this bag is stuck to my brother that turns out to have a severed human head inside. We spend the rest of the dream almost getting to dispose of the head but then someone almost catching us each time, and I keep saying not to panic, just stay calm. Lesson: heads - always a problem. (Also, this is likely tied directly to talk a few hours before sleep of how I should be afraid to give birth because there's a better than average chance the size of the fetal cranium will be formidable.)

qt con william

...and the 'con' was chosen quite specifically over other language 'with' words.

First, we establish incontrovertibly for ourselves that at least during our own lives, in tragic fact, time machines are never developed - or, if they are, we clearly do not have access to them. (If they are developed and we simply cannot access them, this indisputably proves the utter lack of justice in the universe. Nothing surprising.)

W: Your assignment for tomorrow is to blow stuff up.
me: Depends.
W: Plain, original flavor Mentos with diet Coke. It has to be diet and original flavor...the interaction in the phosphorus coating is what does it.
me: Got it. Oooo...the roof. Yaaaa.
[variations on the theme, detailing dangers and expectations - guess who's more concerned with safety/results]

Three drinks later...
me: Ya, guys DO suck. We probably do though, too.
W: But I said, 'Look at that shark.'
me: Oh. I'm sure that happens a lot.
W: I wonder how many times someone hears 'Look at that shark' when somebody said 'Guys suck.'

At least I think he's finally forgiven me for being sick on his birthday. (Still sorry, bub.)

shmoopytime: foreboding incarnate

It's done. Chickiechickie-Chicago, end of month. DONs, and DON-ishes, prepare thineselves. Throwdown time, word style.

Then.

There.

1975 'game'

Grapestompers unite. (Some of my guy friends back home call me this, claiming that I crush men thusly...which isn't very nice. Boo, boys, booooo. I blame it more on having crushed THEM than men as a whole. Booyakasha.)

cheek-squishing needs

It's sort of springy today. I want to cavort and dance in the streets in a sundress, to see bitty little bunnies and lay still enough in the grass that they - in all their foolish new-life-ness - will hop closer than would be wise had I any mal-intent, and to plink fresh petals between my toes.

Also, I've come to terms with the inavailability of Imhotep's DNA. It's a big step for me. Sure, I still want it but concede defeat on this matter. This general path can wait a bit anyway. However, MEANWHILE, the G-rated kind of fleshly craving returns...

Seeking: some serious baby cheeks. I need to squish. Need. And probably nose-nuzzle a belly or two, if possible. Gleeful-abandon giggles: also very welcome. Today I desire going a step beyond Facial Contortionism for Stranger Babies...but I can never bring myself to be that disrespectful of people's space. My germs are unknown, and it's their eeto baby. Oh, cruel logical empathy.

waaaaaargh!

The final Pirates of the Caribbean opens May 25th! Sweet, sweet, nourishing screeeeeen. Thank you.

(Also, does Orlando Bloom do everything in threes?)

bless yer multi-tasking, electrical self

My hairdryer is mighty! [Roar!] No hair can hold water before its force. No static can counter. It can dry entire shirts from a medium dampness in five minutes, and cause great billowing of fabric. Ionic? Yes. Doric? Nay, Corinthian. It is beyond Alpha and Omega, fierce, and having no beginning and no end...though, okay, so outlets do help.

bluh trauma

Sometimes I worry that I unwittingly permanently changed some nasal stronghold area when I was two and shoved the cucumber shavings up my nose so far we had to go to the doctor to remove them. (It was hot and they felt refreshing. What?) I say this because it's itching inside my head. Again. And what if I don't have allergies but a freak colony of parasites first drawn to the site ("Come, homestead in my head. It's dark and moist and full of wonders!") by decaying cucumber seeds. What if my nasal cavity is their space station? This would explain a lot, particularly the magnetic pull and lack of gravity inside my mouth. (It's okay. I make up for it with the gravity of what comes out of it: "Smile while you can. Later you'll find out the reason it rains really does have something to do with you. And how." "Most of humanity was probably conceived in selfish fucks." "Remember Ozymandias?") And the small orbiting stones.

run-on-ightmare

Take conversations about baking, ghosts, mounting excitement to see an infamously horrible movie (The Room), Germans, summer group vacations, design store Future Perfect, and combine with martinis, shake, then sleep...and you get a dream about a looming Victorian mansion covered in pressed tin with some goldleafing that's haunted but not until the third floor where The Unsanes used to be kept in a room that remains immaculately clean and done in the colors of a summer sky or Matthew Barney blimp insides which people keep going into, turning very white and wearing thick white face powder, and deciding to eat what they think is flour but getting thirsty and drinking water from an antique white porcelain wash basin which then mixes with what was actually an industrial adhesive and this comes gurgling up out of them doughily as they writhe in confused suffocation on the painted white wooden floors. The indifferently constant billowing of the curtains seems menacing. The ghosts can't figure out how or why this keeps happening either, but none is by their design and the conclusion is that there's yet another dimension of which all of us are unaware and that pretty much is more than we can really comprehend so we resign the room to itself and walk out then go stand in the front yard again and look up at the window though we know nothing out of the ordinary will happen and it doesn't.

beyond my control

I've decided I'd like a Smurf more than a monkey.
1) They're Socialist and
2) they're housebroken.
+
3) Hopefully, they also masturbate considerably less and/or are more discrete about doing so.

Fingers crossed!

tattoo woo

Moulin Rouge, you get me every time. Again, the greatest thing there is to learn IS just to love and be loved in return. Curse the sweet dream that is Boheme, but so it be. I cannot overcome perfection.

Back to contemplating tattooing the ideals around some limb, an unending cycle:
Freedom. Beauty. Truth. Love.

Viva la vie Bohème!

[gurgle]

snakes on a saint

Where does Nature sleep? Because I'm not above ambush and torture. Um, in the face of injustice...like this weather. Tomorrow is St. Patty's, and while I'm not Irish - never 'ave been - my hair is red this year so I have a Moral Obligation to do it up. I only have Moral Obligations so often, too, so this is serious. I mean bidnezz. Plus, ever has it been the only time of year that anything resembling Catholic comes out in me - a general sense of guilt (for slip-shod Irish impressions peppering the year), talk of penance, a desire to throw snakes around a bar (a la St. Patrick)(although Irish boys mean something different by that statement, so be warned), and a genuine sense of camaraderie with drunken priests (see: Exceedingly Happy Drunk D). Oh, drunken priests, the thought of you takes me back to my own early childhood...my atheist father having his priest friends over, them getting soused at the diningroom table, demanding I play things on my beloved old upright (piano), me sitting at the table with them instead and slipping myself booze, puzzling over men who see fit to never have romantic love or kids of their own just because some other guys decided that they shouldn't even though the lack of experience makes them by all logical counts less qualified to dole out advice in the areas in which most advice is likely sought, and flicking their little loosened collars as we all laughed. Oh, priests! Oh, Dad with priests! Being a fly on the wall in Dante's 'Inferno' couldn't compare (due mostly to a shortage of brimstones, magma, and a stretching rack but not by choice).

Want to know a great exercise in restraint? Try a 17 year-old in a philosophy course taught by a drunken priest. Proof of God stuff: good times. GOOD, good times.

And now back to our regularly scheduled liquor contemplation...

ides

Oh, Julius. You are one yummy orange drink.

Those Romans really knew how to name people, from the get-go with Romulus. Then ones like Marcus Aurelius. Augustus Maximus. Caligula Germanicus. Lucius Verus (rappers, I slap you for even thinking it). Cassius Severus. Titus Flavius Vespasian. Optimus Prime. Wait, not that last one. And J. Caesar...J-Cae, if you will (rappers, now you can slap me).

Then there's the girl name which will be a middle name for potential girlchild, which I saw first engraved on a building in the heart of Ancient Rome and will not here divulge. To look upon it was beautiful. It is, merely, glorious with a pinch of inspired awe.

Bush and Cheney just make me feel like we're in our very own Third Century. [Fog horn.]

Et tu? Who's going to do the revamped Police song for Julius? We can shoot the video onsite. Dibs on freakin' the columns though. That's ALL ME. [Cut to knife thrusting in slow-mo, woman's sexual-snarl face, Beyoncé trying to look stricken and beating her chest while bleating "Et tu?!" three times, heads rolling rhythmically down Senate steps, Brutus ripping off his own bling, gyrating women wearing laurel crowns in accidentally satirically inappropriate ways, Cassius and Marc Antony pole dancing on each side. Everyone is heavily sweating, and - horribly - their eyeliner is smeared.]

300 the movie, caffeine, slumber

I wanted to feel like a Spartan.

I did not. Although, it was extra-endearing when the audience clapped when the queen killed that dude (unspecified so as not to spoil it, and since I don't remember his name anyway).

It sated a general bloodlust, but we wanted to really revel in the glory of charges and strategies, and have our adrenalin shoot up with drums and billowing battle calls. Had it carried all this off though, my libido would've been uncontainable and BOY does that make for an awkward subway ride.

The cappuccino and then mass amounts of Coke at a 9:45 showing was likely a bad judgement call. Not so much of the sleep, and when I did have it, Drunk Self was superimposed on the Spartan world, all full of love and friendship. Seriously. The guy from Amistad was a messenger for Xerxes. We met in a field (no pit to kick him into! none!) and I talked to him about how rulers should be to his/her people as the sun to the crops, not a reaper. He thought this was lovely, and set up a meeting for me and Xerxes who was just my size instead of a towering giant in semi-drag, who arrived on a proper chariot and wearing a Persian head-dress (um, ya, their aesthetic would ne'er allowed for those asymmetrical headchains - says the Ancient World Fashion Police). The Spartan queen and I were having some tea, and up comes Xerxes and we're like, "Oh geez. It's such a nice day and he's totally gonna not let up on his conquesting business. Will someone bring grapes? Some more hot water for our feet maybe? Thanks! You're the tops." But then he was kind of in a funk and had a little tummy ache, so they brought him some special olive-rice dish that I really wanted to try but figured he should eat as much as he needed, plus...that I wasn't completely positive no one else hadn't poisoned it. Kind of poor form, really, to have just trusted like that and not had someone sample for him first. Oh, crazy dreams. First Rule of, erm, Rulers: have others die in your stead whenever possible. But Xerxes started feeling better, and we were doing funny doodles for each other and all laughing and I told him how when I was little I wanted to have a black stallion named Xerxes and he thought it was sweet...which was good, b/c I was thinking maybe I shouldn't've shared that. Some of those guys showed up in the metal masks and at first that seemed bad, but then X did this thing with his fingers and the four masks started making these hilario faces, and we were all cracking up, and he's like, "I can't attack you guys! I love you!" To which we were all, "Aw, fella! We love you too! You're so darling!"

I would-not-could-not have had this dream after the battle sequence in the final Lord of the Rings movie. SIGH. I want a berzerker dream. I want my battle ax and ash-smeared face.

Grudgingly civilized,
Wendy Warpants

corntoon

I don't know whose this is, which is sad, because they deserve some credit. It was just lurking in my old saved stuff.

fumes

Ma non fumare.

That would be dangerous.

But yay! The fumes from my paints and then cleaning brushes (with paint thinner) got my roomies and I all loopy. KR was leaving for a big Shakespeare audition (where her fluency in French 'plays' a part...sorry, incessant punning = sure sign of chemical exposure), so JS and I were trying to wish her luck.

JS: "Break a...no wait...break...merde!" Smiles, nods, "Merde."
me: "I like that, ja. Break merde."
KR: "Thanks."

viking karma

I was going to copy in an old piece for Sweet Fancy Moses that was a fairly fictitious retelling of unfortunate demises in my lineage. However, fleshing out the accidentally appropriate title of this posting, the fates seem to have ethnically cleansed my hard-drive of this. I do not know where it is. This makes me sad.

However, two other things came to light:
1) In searching through other files, I came across an old list of names. (I keep lists of many things, and names I like is a favorite though this list hasn't been opened in years.) And a name popped out at me immediately, so just like that - ka-blammy - the perfect name for a boychild. Sure, sure, I may never have one of those, but I'm keeping it all to myself just the same! It. Is. Perfect. Even saw a good girl one. I am truly accomplished.
2) My (newest) editor emailed recounting a tale from a movie theater and co-audience rudeness, which reminded me of an incident when I was about 16...[curtain drops, fade to black, re-opens in darkened movie theater] Despite the theater being largely empty, a couple chose to sit directly behind us. The woman asked me to move my head. (Insert big head joke here.) I obliged, sitting in my seat and shaking around, like a dance. My head was moving. And I was pleased. O! 16.

Back to Albinoni's fugue. (It's playing in background, and makes my chest cave in with tender mourning.)

but bet a bit of better butter bot

Great Toast Spirit, I am a-sorry...for careful introspection has produced an undeniable fact. Given that only 3/5 of the time that I re-insert you to get you 'just a bit' more toasted do I actually manage to pop you up before being charred, and that 100% of the times you are saved from charring it is because I have planted myself directly in front of the toaster, it can only mean that 2/5 of the time I am a thoughtless and/or callous bastarda perfectly willing to chance your non-carcinogenic consumability. Attention span of a flea: here! Regret: moin and mine alone. It would only be right that I drop off the toaster on the dried-leaf strewn steps of an old church in the night, but I am not right. I see myself for what I am now, Toast Spirit - a Wrong Selfish. You deserve better, and butter. The best butter!

cole porter meets 2007

Tra la la: "Birds do it. Bees do it. Even educated fleas do it. Let's do it, let's get piss-drunk, naked, and tied up in our front yards wearing several sex toys." - Israeli diplomat to El Salvador

Yes, he's been removed from his post. The CNN article notes Israel has suffered a series of embarrassing events with their officials in recent years, like:

In 2000, Israel's ambassador to France died of cardiac arrest in a Paris hotel under circumstances the Foreign Ministry refused to publicize.

Of cardiac arrest? [High-pitched Oscar Wilde-y inflection, eyes rolled back in head] MOOORtifying!

Meanwhile, media reports that the old dude was with a woman other than his wife in his hotel caused French and American political figures to shrug. Later, after scandal surrounded this claim, several furrowed their brows, perplexed.

(Big, smarmy thanks to my very dear though seldom seen friend Nice Mike for forwarding the story my way. Better, bub, or were you wanting 'props/big shout out' style?)

theoracle

Ha! I was just looking at this book:

• Baron-Cohen, S. and Harrison, J. (Eds., 1997). Synaesthesia: Classic and Contemporary Readings. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers. ISBN 0-631-19764-8.

And was like, "S. as in Sasha? He studies synesthesia TOO?" Mais non. [Pat, pat.] This S. author's first name is Simon. All's well and right in the universe, as much as ever, anyway.

But I do have a question. I must be over-simplifying synesthesia, because it seems like this isn't at all weird. Wouldn't most people probably say that music is visual in the mind's eye? Isn't this why we can almost hear songs, or at least a few notes, when we look at some of Kandinsky's work? Plus, we can giggle when we think of art depicting the experience...as...here we go - synthetic synesthetics. Ba-bing!

[crickets]

And isn't it obvious that the senses intermingle? Sweet, dear, disturbed Baudelaire (and Rimbaud) - of course you were right about this.

On another note, doesn't it seem like this study could be applied to understanding other sensory/emotive relations - like when we touch people and suddenly can see nothing but a bright wash of a color, and then we also understand what that color means?

(I know, Eastern and Western color associations are typically considered contrary to one another but that's looking more to their immediate object/concept associations rather than 'meaning' associations, as in almost on an animal level. For example, red in the West is tied to anger where it is tied to life in the East. Both cultures also tie it to love. The translation for red then should simply be 'very important,' like an unconscious highlighting marker. White in the West has come to symbolize purity - although only as recently as the Victorian Age [scowl] - so American brides typically wear it in the marriage ceremony, though white is worn for death ceremonies in Japan. [Too perfect, right? You may play your Billy Idol...now.] White then signifies simply a shift or passage. The claim is that this is what Druids wore for ceremonies as well, but like we'll ever really know. Having stolen the costume of the Nazareno in Spain where the white robes denote the time of penance, there's about a thousand jokes to be made at the expense of Klan members but instead I'll just offer up the mental fix of adding the red letters of DUNCE to their caps. It helps, at least on our insides. Still, even with the KKK, any color could've been used to cover its members from head to toe in disguise, but the costume serves to mark the shift from Known to Unknown - which can also be said of Western weddings and Eastern death ceremonies as each is precisely this shift from the Known to the Unknown. To sum up and finally begin to shut up on this, then, color-meanings do seem to be universal if we learn to look more as we do in dream interpretation - not at the object-obvious ['ping'...now a term in the world] but at the deeper association. I tink dair's sumpting to diss.)

Now who knows someone who knows someone who researches this stuff? Because I WANT ANSWERS.

o

I just had the best grape tomato of my life.

cranial cuddling

Last night's dream: v. good.

I was supposed to be in some sunny Southern U.S. city, but it was actually London. Inside the walls of The Tower, some strangers saw me oggling the gate Elizabeth I had been brought through for her 'stay' there; we decided to build a raft and somehow the gate was up, so some of us were squealing with delight and clapping our hands like village idiots as we, um, rafted beneath.

Then there were astronauts. Naturally. We were having martinis in this bar and laughing how it was really too sunny out to be starting so early, but decided we were celebrating the sun, as we looked out this immense window. Then we started to slowly move through the streets and the rather Rat Pack-y astronauts were glancing at one another, amused. I was all, "How's this happening?" but didn't really CARE. Then I started seeing waterways and covered foot bridges, and then the Bridge of Sighs and realized we were in Venice...but then they told me we were actually in a rocket and that's how we were moving through everything. (Makes perfect sense.) Did I want to go up into space with them? Wouldn't it be a hoot? Oh, I suppose we are already in the rocket! Let's!

Only after our return did I remember that the last launching had ended with the previous female astronaut's death. We'd made it back fine, though.

And sneeze. Awake.

mixed feelings

Between virgins and Mormons, the Mormons are more disturbing. And so they became the marbles.

But we're all God's marbles. He just loses His sometimes. (I know this is true. Some Mormons told me.)

"Hey, Barbara! No hands! You know the rules, silly!"

permission to disengage

Oh Ryan Seacrest, you do amaze.

"You're going to get to spend a lot more time together. Both of you!" Really. Not just one of you will get to spend more time together.

Other Great Idol knowledge: some former winner won stuff for a song called "Jesus, Take the Wheel." Okay. I support this! Let's start the spamming campaign: if you're a real Christian, next time you're driving, close your eyes and take your hands off the wheel and just trust in Jesus. Trust in Him. He will deliver you.

Via UPS, overnight.

And why has SNL not yet done a skit of Simon Cowell in bed with various lovers? "I want you to be better. I do. You just..." (They have done one, right?)

Also, Paula Abdul needs to teach break-up lessons. "It's time for you to continue your dream." Without me. [Releases doves. Doves fly out window; she motions 'follow.']

p.s. - oh no. There's no new Office tonight. There's not even an old one. We're actually sitting here, with the t.v. and now, for no reason 'hat 'hall.

please don't let paul newman ever die

This is what I was expecting in my fridge, after an accidentally especially Newman's grocery outing last week. But it seems I've eaten all of them. Those little cookies hiding in the back-left? Yes, oh YES, the first to go, in a blaze of feeding frenzy glory. The mint ones are from God, who - by the way - is this guy:

uck a duck

While posting a comment about people falling asleep on The Shoulders of Strangers (new Lifetime movie!), a terrible flashback occurred. The trigger-comment was:

Courses of Action Re: Sleeping Commuter Slump:
1) As slumping begins, pre-reaching of one's shoulder, get up. This is the course of action if one feels the person is unclean, to remind all present of isolation in a crowd, to make point of self is all to be relied upon, or (related-ly to this last point) you are either Ayn Rand or Ralph Waldo Emerson. (Putting those two together is so crazy it just might work.)
2) As slumping begins, counter slump. Do the Sleeping Tango. The SC (Sleeping Commuter) will either awaken, buckling over too uncomfortably, or not, at which point - accept defeat and be mounted* (with head onto shoulder).
3) Cough. Continue coughing as much as necessary.
4) Accept head and enjoy accidental humanity.
5) Accept head and counter cuddle in for some symbiotic napping. Aww...symbiotic napping.

*Und jetz, der Flaschbacher:
It was one of the first true days of spring. A friend and I opted to go to the park and visit an oft-frequented by ducks pond. We puzzled over some duck eggs sitting a few feet underwater, and looked to the ducks for clarification. They looked to us - for food - but shook their bills no to our askance of sharing Great Duck Secrets.

Then it happened.

There was a mighty flapping of wings as a duck swim-flew itself across the pond, posterior dragging through water, with another duck in hot pursuit - being the Peppy to the other's Le Pew. Attack Duck spotted another off to the side, doing the silent whistle, trying to slip over to the edge un-noticed. That chase begins, and ends with a forcible mounting. This is how ducks have sex, their Polly Purity whiteness serving only as a stark reminder of the complete subjectivity of all perception? Male ducks are rapists? Female ducks don't get hot ducky sex lives?

It's so unfair. Because, because, because...it's so much cuter to imagine girlducks coyly smirking, batting ducklids, shaking hips saucily ala Mae West. Sweet Nature, you mustn't be female afterall. [Sigh.]

tributaries of å

In Swedish, the letter 'å' is pronounced as a long 'o', and as a word it means small river or stream.

In English it doesn't exist, so in America they use it decoratively, naturally. "I don't know, Jim, what it 'means' or where it comes from. But do you think Mötley Crüe could-a/would-a achieved half as much if they'd worried about spelling?" shakes fist, tightly, as if literally self single-handedly fending off self-attack, "Do you? Extraneous flourishes are gold, man, GOLD I tell you." Turns on heel, lavendar satin lining of cape flips out dramatically in his wake. After five well-measured strides, he looks back smuggly at his co-workers - who remain unconvinced, thinking instead of gold and other shiny things, even crinkled aluminum foil.

What this means for you, the consumer:

The logo of the TV series Stargate resembles "STARGÅTE" and should be pronounced Stargoat-eh.

cellular waste changlings

The Great Exp-hair-iment has begun, and miei capelli/min hår return to their True(-ish) Collective Self.

wwjs[have]

If a guy wants a beard but still let the ladies know he's considerate, cares for the blemish-less-ness of their complexions, and is ready for action, this is how he should shave.

WWJD?

This.

Fresh Face!

cleopatra is my father

...but Dad doesn't have a weak chin. And does have better hair. Ancient Romans described Cleoptra [above, left] as having a great personality, being charismatic and charming, etc. Guess that meant then what it means today.

Marc Anthony though? Pretty much looks like Male Italian and/or Disney Hero Template.

gg assignment: matthew barney

as ever, moon

Thanks for the lunar eclipse on the first anniversary of Gramma's death, and thanks for not doing it last year; that might've been a bit much for Grandpa in those particular hours.

Also, the little red is appreciated. More is even better. (Just something to keep in mind for next time.)

an n and a y and a c

Today on the train, there's this kid who exclaimed with such sudden pained vehemence that I thought either he'd 1) forgotten his 104 year old grandmother's birthday, 2) left the formula for cold fusion on a Starbuck's table or 3) neglected to turn off the detonator for the train upon which we were all riding. He turned in his urban-chic brown hoodie embroidered with Japanmation clouds and overcoat to say, "My foot! Man, you stepped on my FOOT." Then he turned the rest of the way and his Tide Detergent emblazoned off-shoulder coat was fully visible.

all signs point to...

So tomorrow night is not only a full moon, but an eclipsing full moon. If there's ever been a time for ritual sacrifice, this is it. Who's with me?!

On March 3, early evening, a total lunar eclipse begins at 5:44 pm Eastern Standard Time....mid-eclipse at 6:21 pm EST. The moon begins to move out of the umbra at 6:58 EST, and ends at 8:12 pm EST.

P.S. - Ms. Stefani, I would premiere your new line tomorrow night, accompanied by a German techno piece overlayed with excerpts from Lord of the Flies. All the models should also be chubby, bleach-blonde little boys wearing glasses.

See? Only good things can come of this!

making watson proud

At first I couldn't figure out why a guy would let this [see: red arrow] happen to his face.

Through deductive reasoning, it became clear there's only one possibility. He spends a lot of time standing on his head, and always wants to appear as if he's smiling.



Jazz hands!

a jetsons-setting life

Being oggled by a heavy-breather as I was drying a load consisting largely of my skivvies the other day at the laundromat made me really wish for a washer and dryer at home again. Granted, I was asking for it, out doing my laundry in public like that and being a wearer of modern female underthings. There's a perfectly good river with lots of rocks for beating the filth out of things not too far off - and there's probably ample detergent already in the water. That's true. It's just so much harder to get your towels really fluffy that way.

But with this, bring it Heavy Breather! Breathe on!