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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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Pretty good result from a Google image search for "smartypants." Corn math! Since I last typed at you, I have been on a second talking bus on the #155 route, AND THIS ONE PRONOUNCED "DEVON" CORRECTLY. There are a couple of possibilities here: (1) I was aurally hallucinating the last time, which is certainly not impossible since I kind of have a weak grasp on reality at times, which you might call "scary" but which I would rather think of as "liminal" and "shaman-like." However, I did hear it more or less the entire bus ride, and why would I hallucinate something that made me very angry? Brain, have you stopped being a friend to me? Brain, are you now my enemy? My Black and Decker cordless power drill might have something to say about that. (2) Someone at the CTA realized their error and set linguistic things to rights, although I somehow doubt there being oodles and oodles of untapped get-it-done competence at the CTA. You know that expression "making the trains run on time"? Yeah. (More info on that expression.) (It just wouldn't be me trying to make a point without a digression or two.) (3) Most farfetched of all: Someone at the CTA actually reads this page, and that someone has sworn to improve my life by quietly noting my complaints and rants and taking steps to correct things, in which case I have one thing to say to you, Mystery CTA Benefactor: Margarita spigots in every subway car, with individually wrapped Dixie cups. Thank you. THINGS THAT ARE MAKING ME CRANKY, LET'S JUST GET THIS OUT OF THE WAY NOW (AND LET'S NUMBER THIS TOO BECAUSE WE NUMBERED THE OTHER THING AND THAT WILL MAKE US FEEL BETTER) (and now I will stop talking in the third-person plural as if I were a queen or a corporation) 1. It is really cold (gee, have I bitched about this before?), which is not so bad or surprising in and of itself because it is WINTER, but I screwed up and wore a short skirt and tights yesterday. At lunchtime I thought "okay, it is freezing cold but I can run across the street to that sandwich shop I like and that is a short trip that I should be able to survive," and then I go to the sandwich shop and it is closed. Closed. Just plain closed, on a Wednesday, at lunchtime. Abraham Lincoln's birthday was yesterday but SO WHAT, you can�t just deny people cheese sandwiches because of that, and besides, didn't we invent President's Day just so everyone would have the same day off and not mess around with all this Washington/Lincoln crud? Before President's Day it used to be like this February war for dead-presidential primacy, sort of like the East Coast/West Coast Bad Boy/Death Row thing---LINCOLN CREW REPRAZENT! AIN'T NO HOMEY LIKE THE GREAT EMANCIPATOR! or WOODEN TEETH BE THA SHIZNIT, PIMPS UP HOES DOWN! (Just for the record, I do not get President's Day off. If you do, please sleep late for me.) No sandwich for me, and then I was hungry and cold-legged anyway so I hiked eight blocks for a vegetable burrito, all the while wishing there was some retro '80s Flashdance store on Michigan Avenue so I could duck in there and charge some legwarmers. 2. Work has been mean to me lately. Basically there was a meeting about why I cannot magically transcend the bonds of time and space and quickly turn around things that come in close to or past deadline. I tried defending myself, I tried explaining the processes involved, I tried showing some old cartoons about assembly lines gone haywire, where if one piece is late or broken the whole thing falls apart, but I just kept getting blank looks, and I was all angry the rest of the day. 3. I always forget about car insurance, and I got the bill yesterday for the next six months. Expensive things that are important in an abstract way but that do not bring you any pleasure = blah. MORE TRANSIT STORIES This is my week to listen to semi-crazy people talk out loud and then write down what they say. I am on the train and there is a disheveled man standing in the aisle and singing this song: [incantatory blues style] WHO popped this popcorn? I can't help it, I just start giggling helplessly. The seed/kernel/exploding-with-blessedness-and-becoming-a-delicious-salty-snack metaphor is just too much for me, and I like thinking about Jesus standing by the microwave watching the souls of all his little believers explode and watch out for that steam when you open the bag, Jesus! Also, I have always appreciated the little ditties of the subway crazies. They really should come out with a CD: SONGS IN THE KEY OF SUBWAY CRAZY, I would totally buy it. So I am laughing and the woman next to me glances over at me from her book like I am the big weirdo, and I say, "I'm sorry, that was really funny." She turns back to her book without even acknowledging me and I want to scream DID YOU NOT HEAR THAT GUY'S POPCORN SONG? BECAUSE IT RULED! AND YOU JUST MISSED A BEAUTIFUL MOMENT OF PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION! JUST ONE MORE MOMENT OF GEOGRAPHIC INSULARITY Chicago, have you been in the newly refurbished tunnel at Jackson, between the Howard and O'Hare lines? It is all shiny clean and doesn't even smell like pee. My nose did not know where it was. Also, Chicago? You can put the flags up normally now. The loss of the space shuttle was horrible, but half-mast is always for a limited time only, or didn't you get the memo? See, if you keep all the flags at half-mast for weeks and weeks, the terrorists are going to be all like "Oh, the Great Satan is very depressed, ha ha ha, now would be a good time to dump something awful in Chicago's drinking water." Hoist those flags! Hoist them! One, two, three, hoist! (That oi sound is such a sexy diphthong it makes me weak in the knees. Hoist, moist, voice, joist, foist. Rejoice!) REALLY STUPID WORDGAME I PLAYED WITH MYSELF ALL THE WAY TO WORK THIS MORNING, AFTER SEEING YET ANOTHER HEADLINE ABOUT JENNIFER LOPEZ ON SOMEONE ELSE'S PEOPLE MAGAZINE new line of pawn shops: J-LOan I feel like this entry should come with an individually wrapped moist (ohhhhh) lemon-scented towelette, so you can clean yourself off after reading it, because looking back it seems like I made quite the incoherent mess. I blame the diphthongs. ---mimi smartypants chocolate, frosted, with sprinkles. back/forward |
