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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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Hi, my name is Mimi Smartypants and I am a little bit slow. Today I am walking past a newspaper box and there is a sticker on it. A patriotic, jingoistic sticker, like the kind we all not-so-fondly remember from approximately 14 months ago. The sticker showed a U.S. flag and said THESE COLORS DON'T RUN. And then! Something clicked! Because, see, I always thought that was a reference to laundry, like the Red, White, And Blue is made of such sturdy stuff that it can go through the washer without ceasing to be red, white, and blue. BUT GUESS WHAT! Although "these colors don't run" is undoubtedly a play on the laundry theme, said rah-rah slogan also refers to bravery, as in "these colors don't run [away, in a cowardly fashion]." I BET YOU KNEW THAT ALREADY BUT I JUST GOT IT JUST NOW. Similarly, a few months ago (I cannot remember how it came up), LT clued me in to the fact that in the [asinine] phrase "pushing the envelope," the idea is that you are inside the envelope, pushing to get out and break past the envelope's confines. I had always pictured someone boldly and aggressively pushing an envelope across a table. "Here! Here's your damn envelope!" [hushed tones] "Wow, Jim is really pushing the envelope!" Hi, my name is Mimi Smartypants and I am very, very slow. THE UNHAPPIEST PLACE ON EARTH I had to go to the bank. To get a money order for a stupid stupid government office. I HATE THE BANK. For me, major stress headaches and the bank go together like Muppets and fisting. It is a toss-up between which place I hate more, the bank or the post office. LET US TEST THIS THEORY IN AN UNSCIENTIFIC WAY. YEA VERILY. a. The post office has surly government employees who basically cannot be fired, and they know it. All the employees at my post office have permanent sneers and they are also not too bright (as evidenced by the post office employee who asked me, "Is that a new country?" when I was trying to mail something to Yemen.) Thus, the bank might have a bit of an edge when it comes to customer service. However, since the big banks are eating all of the smaller banks these days, eventually we will have one giant monopoly bank and the notion of customer service will go right out the window. Advantage: BANK (for the time being). b. You might be lucky enough to be in the bank during a holdup, which would at least relieve the tedium of standing in line as you lay down on the floor with your hands in plain sight, not moving if you know what's good for you. But there's always the chance that one of the postal employees will, well, "go postal," and he/she might yell entertaining anti-governmental slogans while shooting up the place and might even take some hostages. In contrast, bank robbers simply want cash. Advantage: POST OFFICE. c. At the post office you usually leave empty-handed, except for maybe some stamps. At the bank you sometimes leave with money. It is usually your own money, unless you are one of the aforementioned bank robbers. Advantage: BANK. Long story tedious and mundane, I walk into the Bank One at Ohio and Michigan, thinking I am being very clever for going at a non-lunchy time, and I go upstairs to where the tellers are, and the line is about a mile long. The line is so long, and the people in line are so disgruntled, that a perky blonde bank employee in a short skirt is dispatched to walk up and down the line and offer us cookies. (Note: they are crap cookies. They are the kind of cookies that are in the Family Freak-Out And Illicit Smoking Area at "viewings" and wakes. All crumbly and gross with lurid pink powdered sugar on top.) Cookies don't help. More tellers working might help, and fewer people in line might help. The line also moves very slowly, and everyone in front of me seems to require something difficult, like maybe they are trying to withdraw money from a savings account belonging to their dead grandmother in Cuba. Or they are trying to exchange Confederate money for Estonian crowns. I had a simple (if irritating) money order thing. Yeah. I waited basically forever. I'm still there, in line at the bank, in a manner of speaking. Deep inside my soul, I am still in line at the bank. If that isn't the most depressing sentence ever, I will take the Incredible Hulk out to the all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet and I will watch him eat seventeen lobster tails and I will put it all on my AmEx because profound truth will have been learned and that makes everything worthwhile. You can't tell. That I have been drinking wine. Lots of wine. You can't tell, not at all. Right? FLASHBACK Then later today I went to the bathroom at work and there was a nickel in the toilet. I peed right on top of it because I am not that thrifty. It flushed down fine. PRESENT TENSE What else can we talk about? I have had lots of wine and you have not, otherwise we could skip talking and just make out. Okay. I got a haircut today, yesterday, whenever the fuck I will get around to posting this nonsense. Now I have seriously little-kid hair. I have a straight-line no-bangs bob, like an imperiled heroine in silent films. I like it. I think I like it, anyway, when I am all drunken like now. I think maybe it will be easier to deal with and I won't have to fight the waviness (a bit like Fighting The Power, only more Mediterranean and less like an Enemy of the Public) any more. But. However. Nevertheless. The bob is a rather childish hairstyle for me. I mention that part only so that whoever CONSTANTLY, LIKE EVERY DAMN DAY, Googles "mimi smartypants" + kneesocks + catholic schoolgirl can get all hot and bothered. The guy who cuts my hair smells really good, and he's pretty quiet, and not terribly attractive, and definitely does not play on my team (which, as I think we all know by now, is an EXTREMELY CASUAL intramural team, but still, I think he'd opt out of my kind of fun). I would love to know what cologne my hairstyle guy wears because he smells great, but is that too intimate a question for a hairstyle guy? Or do notions of "intimate" shift radically when you have your hands in other people's hair all day? TWO TINY MUSICAL LINKS Music made from musical toys. It sounds a bit like a thousand stuttering Tamagotchis that snuck into a turntablist contest. And won. I highly recommend exploring this site thoroughly, especially the hypnotic purple vinyl record. Musical sand. Come play in my musical sandbox. YOUR REBELLION IS BORING God, I am the biggest dork. There was some sketchy digital video taken of me recently with the little blue plastic video camera and MY GOD DO I REALLY LOOK LIKE THAT? I would post it, but wouldn't it ruin everything for you to know what I look like? Yes it would. Then you wouldn't be able to project your sick-little-monkey mimi smartypants + catholic schoolgirl fantasies on me. RE: the video: Do I really wave my hands around that much when I talk? Jesus Christ. If you got this video from (big, burly, mustachioed) kidnappers, who e-mailed it to you to prove I was still alive, you would think I was trying to finger-spell a secret message to the police. That's how much I am moving my hands around while I make a less-than-five-second speech. Very weird discussion of a conspiracy theory about the DC sniper killings. I don't think I swallow this one completely, but neither do I exactly buy the media's version. This case was just too weird. Are you in Chicago? Please go to Bibliomix a week from Thursday. Words + beats = happy times. Here's more detail. I will be there and so should you. Wine? Was I drinking wine? No, I am just going to bed like a good girl. ---mimi smartypants sees you beneath the archway of aerodynamics. back/forward |
