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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


2002-07-30 ... 1:54 p.m.

THE JOURNAL THAT SOMETIMES WISHES IT WERE A WEBLOG (by which I mean I'm going all disjointed and choppy and Tourettic today and I don't apologize for it. Well, I do. A bit.)

(Also, it gets kind of dark at one point so turn on a night light or something.)

*More Dale Peck vs. Rick Moody. I haven't had this much fun since Franzen vs. Oprah.

*The Cha cha cha is the easiest ballroom dance in the world but please don't take this site literally and say "cha cha cha" out loud while you do it or I will be angry. I remember once having to dance with a guy who quietly counted out loud the whole time and it was excruciating.

*I link octopus-related things a lot, don't I.

*Did you know that, besides the Gideon Bible, every Hilton hotel room in the world has a copy of Conrad Hilton's autobiography in the nightstand? If I end up having to do a lot more business travel, and having to stay in a lot more Hiltons, I already have an art project in mind: I'm going to start traveling with a razor blade (in checked baggage, natch), high-quality bookbinding glue, and a supply of gay porn novels. (Note: I kind of really do want to read that one called Milkin' The Bulls And Other Hot Hazing Stories. What a great title.) Then I will systematically perform careful book surgery on each and every copy of Conrad Hilton's autobiography that I encounter, taking care to leave the covers and title pages and front matter intact. Inevitably someone, someday, will be incredibly bored in his or her hotel room, without any reading material and with nothing on television, and will decide to give Conrad Hilton's autobiography a try, only to be surprised at what a raunchy read Conrad Hilton's autobiography is.

*Best album title of the year so far: EVERYONE WHO PRETENDED TO LIKE ME IS GONE.

*Hypothetically, if you were asked to go to a hypothetical meeting smack in the middle of a very busy day, and the person in charge of the meeting had recently been to a management seminar that had obviously damaged his or her brain, and instead of discussing any actual business or resolving any actual issues that person had asked you to prepare a list of your "triumphs" of the past year and the "areas of refocus" for the year ahead for discussion, would you want to scream? Would you want to go Bruce Lee on all of upper management's sorry asses? Would you at least want to put your diminutive combat boot through a wall? I think you might. Hypothetically. Let's see: Triumphs Of The Past Year: I managed not to stab anyone. Areas Of Refocus: Sharpen the stabbing knife.

DEEP DARK TRUTHFUL MIRROR

The longer you live the more likely it is that you will at some point have to confront some painful truths about yourself. That is, unless you are a happy-go-lucky, nonanguished, not-painfully-self-aware person, in which case I hate you. Let�s take a stab* at some of these hideous truths, using the oh-so-trendy second-person address, in order to maintain the critical distance and "hypothetical" posturing that I just demolished by calling attention to it. Let's just pull a few hideous truths off of the top of the laundry heap of hideous truth and hand-wash them, if you will. (And I don't blame you if you won't. It seems to be Crap-Ass Metaphor Day at the Smartypants Ranch.) (Note: I don't really have a ranch.)

*(There�s the stabbing again! Good lord! Stabby stabby! It's obviously on my mind!)

Hideous Truth #1: You have a wonderful healthy relationship but because you are a total dork you don't always want healthy. Sometimes you want a doomed love. You want wet streets and rain and misty neon, shadowy impossible theatrical romance, and you think WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH ME because even the mental set and setting (the wet streets, the misty neon) is cribbed straight from some second-rate noir novel that you would normally totally laugh at. Honestly, sometimes you just want to smack yourself.

Hideous Truth #2: People like or love you based on some mental conception of you as funnier, stranger, more intelligent, and more eccentric than you believe you actually are. This misperception on the part of the Other, in fact, is the basis of love and admiration in general. (Maybe this doesn't belong on the Hideous Truth Laundry Heap at all. It's actually not so bad once you get over the concept of "true love" being a case of someone seeing through to your "true self.")

(Your hypothetical response to the above: Christ, Mimi, we get the picture. You come from a strong tradition of philosophical and linguistic skepticism and indeterminacy. Lay off already.)

Hideous Truth #3: You like and appreciate good food. You're maybe even a bit snobby about it, with your Pinot Noir and your cheese and your sushi etc. However, about twice a year you succumb to a craving for Taco Bell, of all things. Yes. Taco Bell. With the ridiculous "tortillas" that have about the same taste and texture of a cloth diaper. With the refried beans that start life as powdery flakes and are reconstituted with water. With the impervious-to-melting cheese product and the slightly frightening fact that everything is served just barely warm. Why god why?

Hideous Truth #4: People who are sweet but slightly dumb can be some very valuable people to know, and a capacity for affection and caring weighs in only somewhat below a towering intellect. This is difficult for you to admit, since historically you have been extremely intolerant of anyone who isn't well-read, who can't keep up, who maybe doesn't place his or her entire emphasis on the life of the mind. But there comes a time when you grow weary of everyone's little displays of genius, on the Web and in person. (Going along with this, sometimes you wish you were a nicer person instead of a prickly moody bundle of violent rages, mental quirks, illogical sulkiness, and equally-fierce loyalty and cruelty.)

THE BEST SONGS TO BELT OUT IN THE SHOWER

The Chiquita Banana Song (1945 lyrics)
Arrivederci Roma
Too Drunk To Fuck
Hit Me With Your Best Shot
Folsom Prison Blues

---mimi smartypants: she got rhythms. she got rhymes. she got the girls with the big behinds.

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