|
|
||
|
the latest
waddle: good morning, wordpress - 10:36 a.m. , 2009-07-03 elaborate murder attempt - 2:56 p.m. , 2009-07-01 building a tractor in the basement - 10:42 a.m. , 2009-06-19 ask no questions tell just a few lies - 3:17 p.m. , 2009-06-09 my long lasting flavor really lasts long - 1:10 p.m. , 2009-06-04
|
WHITECHOCOLATECRAPJUNK I always thought "Exile in Guyville" was way overrated, and now it seems like Liz Phair has proven me right. Her constant whining in multiple publications (eg, Venuszine) that critics are biased against her is not helping my complete lack of respect. Neither is her spread-legged pose on the album cover, her ridiculous hotpants Lolita-finger-in-mouth photo shoot in the Venuszine interview, or her very terrible lyrics. Elizabeth. Please. Lay down the hash pipe, put on some clothes, and grow up. READING ROUNDUP (1) McSweeney's Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales was not all that thrilling. I skimmed. And I never skim. Thumbs down. (2) Much better was the short science-fiction fable City of Truth (which I started at lunchtime and finished later that night, zip zap zoom). The alternate world in the story is Veritas, where everyone always tells the absolute truth, and even brand names are things like the Chevrolet Adequate and Mr. Smith's Drinkable Coffee. The story is predictable but lightly done, and easily enjoyed. (3) Although I am only one-quarter through, I am certain I am going to like the long, science-fictiony Oryx and Crake. Margaret Atwood deserves every scrap of her popularity, and she gets it because she is an excellent writer and not because she is Margaret Atwood. As opposed to those who seem to confuse some reviewers into thinking they are good because they are popular (cough---Amy Tan), and who routinely gather up accolades no matter how much their books taste (metaphorically) like a mouthful of fast-food drive-through blandness (cough---Bonesetter's Daughter). Would you like to try our new Family Saga With Cheese today? No? Okay, thanks, please drive through. HE WANTED TO SEE TIME FLY How to appropriately tell jokes about stupid people? Racial stereotypes are right out. Blonde jokes feel vaguely anti-feminist. Many style manuals and such even advise against words like "moron." Extraterrestrials are one alternative. Or you can do what my friend and I recently decided, and tell the jokes like this: Why did the Person With A Tendency To Take Things Literally take three hours to eat breakfast? Because the orange juice carton said concentrate! Yes, some of the fun is gone, but then again we do not live in an Age Of Fun. JUST A TEASPOON OF LINKS History of the merkin (scroll down). Have you ever been to the Caribbean? It looks great. Everyone stands in a line, faces front, and makes weird shapes with their arms. Also there are palm trees. I did not know that. Did you? Help me Obi-Wan! Eh. WAKE UP, LITTLE MIMI I like to write down the odd words and phrases that come to me while I sleep. Usually I do this on the back of an envelope or some other piece of oddpaper next to my bed,* but today the sleepwords did not pop into my morning brain until I was already in the kitchen, feeding the cat and making tea. So I wrote them down on the pad LT and I keep there for making lists and leaving notes for each other. I wrote: PLANT PERPETUITY Then I continued on with my morning routine, and forgot about what I had written. LT found it later and said that for a moment he thought it was a very puzzling list of things I wanted him to do. He was relieved that it was not. *I sleep on the side with the clock, as I need to know the time during my many awakenings. I also sleep on the side with the wastebasket, and the kleenex, and the aforementioned notepaper, and some candles, and whatever books I am reading, and (often) my purple vibrator. We have very lopsided bedside tables. LT has a lamp but otherwise his side table contains just the stuff from his pockets, and maybe a book or two. I am closer to the door, because I get up a lot to pee; he is closer to the window, so he can fight off any wolverines that break in to get us in the night. I am not one for traditional gender roles, but I think nocturnal wolverine-fighting is pretty much a husband's job. Things I was invited to do this holiday weekend: (a) Go camping with a large dog, somewhere in Michigan. (b) Drive out to my father-in-law's house, for an "old-fashioned" Fourth of July (muskets? slave plantations? cornmeal mush?), in middle-of-nowhere Marseilles, Illinois. (Please take a moment to imagine how that gets pronounced here in the Midwest. It is not pretty.) (c) Experience my neighbor's hardcore band at the Fireside Bowl. (d) Take Monday off, because I need a day to myself for typing and having beer. Things I am actually going to do this holiday weekend: Exactly half of the above, and I bet you can guess which. Oh blah to everything. I have much work stress and not enough interesting thoughts. I feel little cartoon-cranky lightning bolts sizzling out of my head. A symptom is me getting worked up about things that do not merit getting worked up about, such as the speakerphone habit of my new next-door-office neighbor. (So now I have SuperChristian Woman on the one side, around whom I always seem to be accidentally swearing [honest, I am normally not very foul-mouthed at work---maybe I have an unconscious desire to offend people], and SpeakerPhone Girl on the other side. I guess it�s Door Closed, Headphones On, And Never Mind The Office "Culture," if I want to get any work done from now on.) And hey, people who take the elevator for just one floor? You had better have a heart condition or a limp. Otherwise please enjoy the feeling of my dark energy as I glare at you from the elevator corner. Grrrrr. ---mimi smartypants wandered lonely as a clam. back/forward |
