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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
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I had fitful disturbed sleep last night. In between nocturnal awakenings I had snatches of these three dreams, which alternated with each other to form a confusing, incoherent mini-series: (a) the usual "terrible unspeakable things have happened to those I love, and now I am left in this shadowy dangerous realm to battle the monsters/stormtroopers/Nameless Creeping Horror all by myself" dream; (b) a dream where United Airlines somehow offers to pay my electric bill for six months; and (c) a dream where I quit my job to run a website for blind and visually impaired goths called darkglasses.com. (A domain that is apparently available, by the way.) Oh, and here are the two things I found scribbled on the notepad next to my bed this morning: 1. Samuel Barber's Nocturne and the dry hump heartbeat 2. The fucked eventuality of the body, the many ways it has and will fail us Scribbled without the benefit of glasses or nightlight, or even the benefit of being fully awake, it seems. It took a while for me to decipher those scribbles, and presumably I am the sleepy simpleton who wrote them. TURN THE PAGE My relationship to books is kind of odd, and so is everyone else's. When I was a kid and I read something I really loved, I didn't want anyone else to read it ever. I wanted to hide the book somewhere in the library so only I could find it again. Some nosy irritating person at work was commenting on how much I read, and you could tell from her conversation that she thought of reading as something that one really should do, and she felt slightly guilty about not doing it, but it wasn't a life-or-death situation. Like going to the dentist or volunteering at a soup kitchen. She was sort of congratulating me on being such an obsessive reader, but you know what? I don't think there's anything particularly laudable in obsession, staying inside your house reading for twenty hours straight, in a complete fog, eating and going to the bathroom on autopilot as you continue to turn the pages. I love books, but I have been known to read as an avoidance technique, to read the way a depressed person will sleep or smoke marijuana.* Nothing admirable about that. (*Depression, addiction, obsession, postmodern pot-smoking: I thought I had thoroughly sought out the meta-conversation about Infinite Jest but this was new to me.) Did you know that it was originally NOT "humble pie," but umble pie? A change in initial letter seems like a very unlikely and interesting catachresis to me�much more unusual than the very common errors of vise/vice, mitigate/militate, or compose/comprise. And the "humble pie" error has stuck, and stuck fast, throughout the ages, possibly because of the fortunate similarity in meaning despite the error. This humble pie/umble pie thing reminds me of an actually funny joke I saw on an old episode of Friends. I don't even know what I was doing watching Friends. Maybe I was on a business trip or something. I normally avoid sitcoms (at least the non-animated kind) because they tend to make me very, very depressed. As does the very idea of television in the afternoon. Some sad leftover childhood memory of being babysat in the summertime while my mom worked, I think. Hey Mimi, digress much? Anyway, the Friends joke. One of the interchangeable male characters (IMC) was talking to the Jennifer Aniston character (JAC): IMC: Anyway, it's irrelevant. It's a moo point. JAC: [snottily] Excuse me...a moo point? IMC: Yeah, like a cow's opinion. It doesn't matter. It's moo. I really like that. Language as being easily bent to our (somewhat desperate and grasping) need for meaning (a la Wittgenstein). (By the way, a Google search on "Jennifer Aniston" + Wittgenstein revealed only a few hundred matches. I'm glad this little television-related anecdote came up so I can add to the body of Wittgenstein + Jennifer Aniston literature.) THE ISLAND OF MISFIT LINKS Creeeeepy. Hey Jesus, got a staring problem? Take a picture, it lasts longer! [not safe for work] The nails! Ohmygod the nails! How can you even look at the breasts when the nails are so train-wreckingly horribly compelling? Sartre knew a lot about three o'clock. He had three o'clock down cold. RACE YOU TO THE COUCH The Chicago Marathon was this past weekend. I don't understand grueling physical contests. All you runners can go ahead and write to me about endorphins and the triumph of pushing your body past what it is really meant to do, but I will never understand it. The first guy to ever run a marathon died right afterwards.* Many runners come down with colds and flu in the weeks following the event. And let's say you finish the marathon, good for you, what do you get? Nothing much. Don't give me that satisfaction-of-a-job-well-done stuff, either. (*At least according to the Athenian legend�I am a bit suspicious because why not just borrow a horse, if time really was of the essence?) I feel similarly about mountain-climbing. I don't mind a little scenic hike up a slope...that pays off in terms of a fantastic view and fresh air etc. But something like Everest, which costs thousands of dollars and puts your life in jeopardy? It's not even like there is a really fantastic restaurant at the summit. Just some more icy rocks, frostbite, and altitude sickness. Eh. While all those stringy runner types were panting and twitching their dehydrated bodies across the finish line, I spent my weekend in a marathon talkfest, drinking beer and smoking Marlboro Reds (cough) with my houseguest, who has now sadly gone back to England. We ate massive amounts of Japanese food; dropped in at my slightly-scary corner bar, where a drunk Guido type told us a joke about a hooker and a dwarf; and stayed up until 3 am with the aforementioned beer and cigarettes. Now that's my kind of endurance test. ---mimi smartypants nibbled on your drywall. back/forward |
