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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


2002-10-01 ... 9:41 a.m.

VARIOUS TYPES OF RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE (FUNK, SLACK, MR. T, BIG BOOKS, ROBOTS)

Funkadelia is upon thee!...Verily, those soulfulifically jaded swashbucklers of agitproptic burnbabydom have descended from the Original Galaxy Ghetto to cleanse thy wayward souls through music worthy of the immortals themselves!...that what shall penetrate thine ears shall truly be a gas!...For the truth is the way, and Funkadelic is verily the truth! Awake not, and earth remains as this solar system's space strumpet...sour milk from the breast of Mother Nature!...The ass thou pimpest shall be your own! Cease all manner of exploitive jivation!

(Incantation taken from here.)

Because I am a slacker today: The Idler's Glossary.

Live by the T and ye shall be free.

I am about to start reading Gravity�s Rainbow for the third time. It's been five years. Pray for me.

You don't need much fancy technology to beat me in an arm-wrestling match, I am sad to say. I think I am improving somewhat, but that's a subjective thing. (Speaking of robots: serious Lego indeed.)

AN INTERVIEW WITH THE CRAZY GUY WHO RIDES MY BUS*

*(IMAGINED, BECAUSE I'M KIND OF CHICKENSHIT WHEN IT COMES TO THE VIOLENTLY INSANE)

Mimi Smartypants: Hi there!

CGWRMB: motherFUCK! [pounds on window]

MS: You know, I see you every day and you are perpetually muttering and angry about something. What gives? It's a beautiful day.

CGWRMB: Don't hit your sister! Don't hit your sister! Don't hit your sister! Don't hit your sister!

MS: You are absolutely right. Friends come and go, but sisters are forever. Physical abuse certainly could ruin that relationship.

CGWRMB: Everybody off the bus!

MS: No.

CGWRMB: Everybody off the bus!

MS: No. It's not my stop yet. I've had a long day, I'm not walking twelve extra blocks home.

CGWRMB: Ahhhhhhh! Blarrrggggg! Fwwwoooomahhh! [makes exploding noises with mouth]

MS: Thank you for taking the time to speak with us today.

Although I do prefer to sit where I can keep an eye on CGWRMB, I think he's pretty harmless. He's kind of an interesting character, actually, since he is very clean and well-dressed and is obviously coming from somewhere at the same time everyday, and his outbursts are not classically Tourettic but rather seem to stem from some sort of private dialogue.

A RANT ABOUT GENDER*

(which includes many heterosexist assumptions in order to make a point)

I poop on the following:

1. Men who believe that women are like some sort of complicated video game that needs puzzling out. If these men are looking for love, they tend to overinterpret every glance, gesture, and word from us exotic creatures to find the hidden meaning. If these men are partnered, they tend to read the moods and reactions of their partner as being somehow tied to the fact of being female. Some particularly gross subsets of these men have "seduction techniques" or other night moves that they are actually crass enough to speak of. (I met someone like this Friday night. He was drunk, I was in intelligence-gathering mode, and thus I learned a whole lot of too much information about what a great lover he is to his girlfriend.) There aren't any cheat codes for sex, people. Approaching sex as a series of Streetfighter moves (down down forward down!), or even (to use a gentler metaphor) as a tai chi routine deprives you of having an actual experience---it's like going to see the Taj Mahal and only looking at it through the lens of a video camera. Not very nice. (See also Brief Interviews With Hideous Men, #31.) Nothing like making half the human race so very Other that you can't possibly form anything other than a stilted, hackneyed, flowers-and-chocolates-and-candlelight relationship with them. No wonder so many men are so fundamentally lonely.

2. Women who profess a belief in gender equality and then are amused by jokes along the lines of "Grow your own dope---plant a man!" or "10 Reasons Computers Must Be Male" and so forth. Again with the exoticizing, again with the reductionism, again with the lowered expectations for human behavior ("what can you expect, he's a guy.") I vaguely understand the frustration that lies beneath jokes and comments of this sort, but they are not helping the situation any. We should all start objecting to them the way we do to racist jokes. The worst part is that women who think this way, whether or not they intend to or realize it, start to change their own behavior to fit the spectrum of their own gendered assumptions (and thus you get the phenomenon of a woman who is totally smart and together and brilliant but acts like a complete idiot in the context of a relationship.)

Arrrrgggh. Enough of these big issues. This diary is probably in much better form when I stick to the details of life, like mustard cravings and new shoes and the strange creatures that live in the sea.

BRING EARPLUGS

Not this weekend, but next weekend, kids of all ages will be having anxiety attacks as they try to figure out which show to attend. Chicago is hosting Clinic, Apples in Stereo, Pansy Division, Sleater-Kinney, No Doubt, Melt-Banana, Jason Loewenstein, and the Strokes. I think you can figure out where I'll be. (I can't help it, okay? They are my Beatles. I got all choked up at the last show and any rock band that can get you all choked up, or who can actually make somewhat-soapboxish lyrics danceable and fun, deserves every line of ink they have received.)

THE WHEELS ON THE EL GO ROUND AND ROUND

What plastic-printing concession convinced the Chicago Transit Authority that they needed personalized garbage bags with the CTA logo? I noticed these this morning. Fare hikes my ass. Lose the fancy trash bags before you start crying poor. What could be more pointless? Is there some reason we need to have the CTA trash clearly labeled?

Am I the only one who tilts her head way up like a turtle's as the El slips down into the subway? Watching that slice of sky narrow like a diminishing pie chart? (Statistically Smaller Sky Pie?) Am I also the only one who sometimes wants to cheer when the El climbs up out of the darkness, at Fullerton or at 22nd/Wentworth or at Damen? No, I don't believe that I am.

---mimi smartypants is part of this complete breakfast.

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