snail stomper, squirrel hurler

I made the move to Burbank last weekend, and let me strongly recommend never moving your entire life to the Valley in a Honda Civic. The damn thing won’t accelerate when I have too many pairs of shoes in the back let alone 900lbs of books, clothes, and furniture. It also didn’t help that it was POURING the entire time I was dragging IKEA furniture piece by piece from my second story apartment. Not only was everything waterlogged, but the garden snails decided to congregate on the sidewalk for their annual “mill around on the sidewalk and tempt fate” party. As a result, moving sounded like this “ahhh, this furniture is huge and heavy, but I can mana ::CRUNCH:: ge. ::CRUNCH:: ::CRACK:: ::CRUNCH::” It was nauseating.

But I made it, and while unpacking I found several rented DVD’s I thought I lost. Blockbuster charged me a small fortune for these movies and for some reason the words "you're destitute" flashed through my brain in such a persistent pattern when I found them that I decided to drive to my old neighborhood for a credit on my account.

So I’m driving back to West LA and it’s at this point, while stopped at a crosswalk, that a man walks across the street with a cup of coffee in one hand, his morning paper in the other, and a dead squirrel poking out from between the pages. This raised several questions: Why does this man have a squirrel hanging from his morning paper?” Will he eat the squirrel for breakfast? What kind of breakfast can you make with squirrel? Does it taste good in oatmeal? What if you use a lot of brown sugar? Does he do this every morning? Has he been fattening it up? Did he wait till Sunday so he could bludgeon it with a bigger paper?

Squirrels are rather popular these days. My internet-savvy co-workers showed me a video clip called “squirrel hurler”. In the clip, unseen nature lovers-- I’m going to go out on a limb and speculate they're bored male teenagers-- build a small catapult at the edge of a lake and load it with food. The unseen nature lovers wait for a squirrel to wander onto the platform and release the catapult. I’ve overheard several people watching the clip, and the first thing out of their mouth as the squirrel hurtles toward the water is always “can squirrels swim?” There’s a tense moment after the splash and everyone breathes a sigh of relief when it pops up, dog paddles (squirrel paddles?) to the edge of the pond and sprints into the woods.

Maybe the man crossing the street hunted and killed his Sunday paper squirrel in the hopes of testing his own animal hurler... an ocean version perhaps?

And then the light changed, as lights in intersections often do, forcing me to leave the man, the squirrel and all my unanswered questions at the corner of Barrington and National. I think I'll miss West LA.

Suzy Stockmarket

I am absolutely a person who would hide their savings in their mattress, if that was a viable option and also if it wouldn't completely ruin the mattress. Matresses are expensive. You'd have to use your savings to get another, and then you'd have two mattresses and no money. Stupid. Thus, I reluctantly keep my money in a bank, the bank pays me 0.000000296% interest on my savings account, and that is fine. You don't even have to pay taxes on income equalling less than a billionth of a penny.

Well, I am surprised to learn that some brave souls go even further than entrusting their tuppence to the bank. It turns out that when you have a job you're supposed to like seriously save up or something? For retirement? And like, you are supposed to "grow" this money so that you can retire at the age of forty like the people on the cover of the pamphlet I was given on the subject. People who are white-water rafting, by the way, without lifejackets. Low risk-aversity crowd, apparently. I guess that's how they got rich so early. Or they sold their souls to the devil. Or Jack Abramoff. Or is there a difference. (Oooh, as they say, snap.)

I was told by my mother that starting a retirement plan now would be Wise, so when Eloise offered me one, I said, "Okay."

Foolish mortal.

Today I got a phone call from the company's financial man. We'll call him Peter, because that was his name. And here is how our conversation went:

Peter: The government encourages us to save so that we can pay for our retirement.
Me: Right.
Peter: Now, people don't usually wake up one morning all excited about saving for retirement--
Me: Oh, I don't know about that.
Peter: --well, most of my clients are not all excited about saving for retirement, but the closer you get, the more important it is to have enough to live on. How old are you, Simon?
Me: Twenty-three.

Pause.

Peter: So you'll have some time.
Me: Yes.

This is how I came to be sitting at the dining room table with my father tonight, signing away enough of my paycheck to theoretically be able to buy myself a pre-owned pair of orthopedic shoes in 2055. I say theoretically because I firmly believe that if I invested my entire paycheck, even with 8% growth over 50 years, I would eventually be forced to eat the orthopedic shoes because . . . I am very poor. Evidence:

Me: What tax bracket am I in?
My father: What does your tax return say?
Me: Zero.
My father: Well, you didn't really make anything last year. I guess you'll be in the lowest tax bracket this year, but I don't know what that is.
Me: What if I just put a sad face after that question?
My father: That would be appropriate.

I hope the orthopedic shoes come in grape.

And as if I was not concerned enough, my father then told me about how some people instruct their financial advisors never to invest in anything having to do with tobacco or oil or Ruby Tuesday's or whatever area in which your moral outrage happens to fall, and suddenly I had this strange feeling. I thought to myself, this might be it. You might never be able to be a viable candidate for public office because you are starting a paper trail at this very moment. Eventually someone will discover you signed off on investing in, say, ZQ Babykilling, Inc., totally by accident because you do not know what the hell you are doing. Someday you'll have to give a press conference at which you will be forced to utter the financial equivalent of "But I didn't inhale" or "But I don't remember anything about being in that exclusive club at Yarvard" or "But that DWI arrest made room for Jesus Christ in my heart."

Let's stop for an update. So far, this savings plan has me eating used, though grape-flavored, orthopedic shoes and barring me from the political career I always dreamed of (on Wednesday nights at 9/8 central only, but still).

Then, this savings plan, much like Financial Man Peter, who actually made a joke about absconding to Mexico with my money, decided to terrify me further by requiring me to fill out a questionnaire detailing precisely how averse to risk I am. I think I can tell you I am PRETTY AVERSE TO RISK. At the very least, I do wear a life jacket. Around town. No, just kidding. Only in the car. Anyway, the questionnaire repeatedly asks, in eight different ways, "If there was a small chance you might get a mind-bogglingly enormous return on a $10,000 investment, and a much larger chance that you wouldn't, and would in fact go completely broke . . . would you invest?"

No. It will be such a pain to dig that $10,000 out from inside my mattress.

Nothing sums up Los Angeles more accurately than "Annie Hall" when Diane Keaton says "It's so clean out here" and Woody Allen replies "That's because they don't throw their garbage away, they turn it into television shows". You have no idea how many trash ideas are thrown around out here. And the people making these shows LOVE to advertise. When friends visit they often remark on the number of film and television related billboards we have. Each studio stakes out several blocks and advertises the hell out of their productions. As I was pumping gas this morning I realized how much I was going to miss the FOX collection of billboards, including, but not limited to the rather savage American Idol one posted above my favorite gas station.
It's best to go on a Thursday morning after they vote someone off. You can actually see men scale the billboard and paint over some poor kid's face, officially ending of their 15 minutes of fame. It's brutal. It's entertaining. It's reality television at it's finest.

the internet knows all.

In college, we would consume large amounts of alcohol and attempt projects that involved skills like "coordination", "creativity" and "the ability to see straight". Why we threw back three bottles of wine and decided to finger paint my room, I will never know. It's not an endeavor I will attempt again, but college is good for lessons like that. On another occasion we decided to bake... The night is rather hazy, but I do remember the cookies catching fire and screaming "EVERYONE GRAB A UTENSIL" and people trying to fling flaming snickerdoodles into the sink. We were hungry and decided to eat the cookies anyway. Upon our initial taste test we realized we had rolled the dough in salt and paprika instead of cinnamon and sugar.

What triggered this tragic memory? Well, lately everything I eat has been tasting very, very salty. Things that have no business tasting salty... cookies for example, cookies I haven't had a hand in baking. I googled my symptom, "everything tastes salty" and learned I'm either dehydrated or I have brain lesions. I'm trying to decide if this diagnosis is better or worse than the plague.

I think I'll go drink some water.

Observations, Flights of Fancy, Blasphemy, and Vulgarities, Not Necessarily in that Order

Flight of Fancy
Item, there is a gas pump one town over that has a flawed LCD display and instead of **authorizing** my debit card, it blandly notifies me that it is ** uthorizing** it. Whenever I see this I fully expect the card to seduce Igraine of Cornwall, kill her husband, and spawn that poor, tortured creature of misery, King Arthur, and I kind of want to mumble to the gas pump, "Please stop Utherizing my card. I do not need an Uther, unless he's going to stand quietly beside me all the time and hold my money." Then I picture John Cleese (evidently he equals Uther in my head) following me around with a sack of gold, bumping into me, spilling it, picking it up, spilling it again, and then sitting down to have a tantrum, before going off by coconut to seduce more women and father accursed offspring. And then I would cry out, "O! if only I hadn't accidentally Utherized my debit card!"

Observations
Item, the best book title in the world is Wirnt von Gravenberg's Wigalois. I am pretty sure it's German but how the hell do you pronounce Wigalois in German? So I pronounce it French-like. For those of you who don't speak French, that would make it more or less "wiggle-wah." Those of you who do speak French, please pretend that I am right about that.

Item, the best name in the world is Ewart Oakshott. No special instruction necessary.

Item, today I learned that Otto does not save anything he does on his computer because he doesn't know where it goes when it gets saved. I made fun of him, and then I used the fax machine wrong and got an e-mail from the recipient asking me whether I could please send it again because the pages were blank. Karma, it is real.

Blasphemy
Item, today Lindsey sent me a link to the thousand books most commonly found in libraries; you know: the Bible, Homer, Virgil, Calvin and Hobbes, etc. Having taken a look at the top 300 or so, I feel moved to say something truly terrible. SHAKESPEARE REALLY ANNOYS ME. It's like, ease up, dude. You don't have to knock us unconscious with your genius. "What is in that word honour? what is that honour? air. A trim reckoning!" What a jerk.

Item, I've gone off both bread and chocolate. Either it's a phase or the apocalypse is coming.

Vulgarities
Item, e-mail received from fellow West Winger, Katie P., after last night's episode.

Subject: ?????
First line: What the crap was that supposed to be?

This about sums it up. I felt that the episode left some questions unanswered, questions which I shall ennumerate now. Donna, where did you go? What if Josh had wanted to accidentally make out with you again? Bruno, why did you allow that to be done to your hair? Santos, why are you so dull? Hawkeye, why didn't you rewrite your lines so that they didn't make you look like a mediocre actor, which you are not? Jon Bon Jovi?! DEBORA CAHN, DID YOU GET LOCKED IN THE SECRET SERVICE VAN WITH BONO? HOW COULD YOU LET THIS HAPPEN? Oh, and Toby, I love you. That's not a question.

Let me just say, us girls in the forums (huggles!) [Becky, that's for you] were pret-ty bored during that dismal episode and the only thing that cheered me up (aside from getting that e-mail from Katie P.) was that someone on the forum linked to a picture of "our schmoo, Josh", looking utterly pwned, with this single, brilliant, perfect word: dipshit. I haven't heard anyone be called a dipshit since seventh grade, but boy does it fit Josh. How telling. Don't you all want to see the show now?

I will be very impressed with anyone who followed all of this. Probably not impressed enough to give you that proverbial cookie people are always talking about, but I might say "well done, you" and maybe kind of punch you in the arm.

That's all.

I will soon become a shipper, like them.

Right now I am downloading music videos made by West Wing fans featuring certain star-crossed West Wing characters. But the songs are so bad I have to mute them, so really I am just downloading silent film clips. I am, in effect, collapsing a pretty intelligent drama into a soap opera of heartbreak and tragedy, of hyper-expressive eye movements and ten different shades of repression, and, oddly enough, a lot of people looking spiffy in outerwear.

It's so great!

I think this is what they call "the first step in a long downward spiral into fangirldom." It's very much like the wraithing pro-cess, only instead of passing into the shadow world, I'll just get really, really annoying. The next thing that will happen is I'll "delurk" and start posting on shipper threads in West Wing forums. Under a name like "JealousofJaMo." Then I'll start saying "squee" a lot. In a fit of delerium -- a smack high, you might say -- it will come to me that editing together a string of fairly random, low-res clips and laying a Celine Dion ballad over it is the best idea I've ever had. That will be hitting rock bottom.

This is all Ivan's fault. I specifically remember her saying to me, one prophetic day in high school, "You should become a speech writer like Sam Seaborn. Have you ever seen The West Wing?"

Thanks, Ivan. Super. NOW I AM A SLAVE TO ITS WILL.

Vikings Take the Capitol, then Give it Back

On Sunday, 19 February 2006, a horde of Norse invaders touched down at Dulles Airport in Virginia and proceeded by coach into the Nation Capitol Region, whereupon they took the subway to central D.C. and trundled four or five blocks with suitcases to the headquarters of their political-insider comrade, who in order to protect her identity shall be referred to as A Lover of Trotsky and Other Dead Philosophers. The next day, the Vikings and A Lover of Trotsky and Other Dead Philosophers met up with their old friend She Who Makes Obscene Sounds with Mars Mud, and here is what they plundered, in chronological order.

Tuesday: National Zoo

A Lover of Trotsky and Other Dead Philosophers had plundered tickets allowing the Vikings and She Who Makes Obscene Sounds with Mars Mud to see the baby panda recently born at the National Zoo. This was of particular interest to the Vikings as they had been hearing about the panda from Ivan. Over in the land of fleas and smog, Ivan had been editing a TV special on the panda for weeks, which drove her mad for a period.

Exhibit A:
Ivan: I HAVE HAD A LOT OF CAFFEINE
Ivan: AND NOTHING TO EAT
Ivan: I NEED TO EAT
Ivan: MAKE ME A PANDA SANDWICH

Exhibit B:
Ivan: pandas
Ivan: running amok
Ivan: mating everywhere

Naturally the insanity-inducing panda baby became of interest, and so the Vikings went to plunder it.

Sitting in this tree, like a very large furry coconut, is a panda cub with superb balance. In front, Viking warrior Svartr, showing his enthusiasm.

Svartr found that being photographed fed his vanity so efficiently that he encouraged all the Vikings to join in. Next up: Haukr in front of the capybara cage in the elephant house.


Unlike cheerful Svartr, Haukr doesn’t look very happy. This is because the zoo does not appear to recognize the marketability of giant South American water-hogs, the largest rodent on earth. Why should a capybara be in the elephant house? Why do the elephants get names, and the capybara does not? And why, in the quarter-hour that Haukr stood mesmerized by the enormous cousin of the guinea pig, did no less than four people say variations of, “What is that, some kind of rat?” Haukr feels capybaras do not get the credit they deserve for being the darlingest creatures on earth (Haukr’s words), as evidenced in Bill Peet’s wonderful and tragically out-of-print book Capyboppy, which the populace would do well to check out of the library and read and immediately become converted to the cult of the capybara.

Darling.
Darlinger.
Darlingest.
Most darlingest.
Unrelated: This picture is totally unedited. Witness the power of Odin. And sunlight probably frying the lens of my camera. Neat!


Thursday: National Gallery Exhibit Cézanne in Provence


Óláfr, pictured here in front of one of his favorite Cézanne pieces, The Bay from L’Estaque, thought Cezanne’s use of color “was thoughtful.” Pressed, he said the piece was “excavatory, immersive, a contraction of the spirit, a descent.” Óláfr then wept heartily and had to be taken to a corner to regain composure, mumbling about the “nullity of the extracircumferential phenonemena.” Svartr had to be removed to a quiet corner as well, but that was because he found it too, too funny that Cézanne’s eloquent description of his own new, impressionist style was “ballsy.”

Friday: Smithsonian American History Museum & Monuments

A Lover of Trotsky and Other Dead Philosophers and She Who Makes Obscene Sounds with Mars Mud, represented here by Tyrfingr and Úlfarr, conceded to being photographed in front of the sign that said “Whatever Happened to Polio?” because golly, those were the good old days, back when sometimes kids would wake up paralyzed for no apparent reason. Cheers to that. The poster shows Elvis being happily vaccinated. In some archive somewhere there is probably another picture showing that they needed a second dose for his hair alone.


Then Tyrfingr also wanted to be photographed in front of the Smithsonian’s token Disney artifacts: the Dumbo and teacups rides from Disney World.

Tyrfingr is levitating in this picture. Shh.
Tyrfingr remembers how, as a very young child, these rides were such favorites with him that he once threw a royal fit when made to get off the Dumbo ride after his fifth or sixth turn. The life of the Viking child is often full of such privations, and he wiped away a bitter tear before becoming distracted by all kinds of Nationally Important Things, like the Original Kermit and Mr. Roger’s Sweater and the First Teddy Bear.

Little known fact: Oscar the Grouch is considered by Vikings to have come straight from Valhalla.
Also on display: the Star-Spangled Banner and a lot of dresses and Abraham Lincoln’s hat. When Tyrfingr commented that the hat looked a little worse for wear, it was pointed out to him that the hat had “been through a lot” such as the sudden murder of its owner, but Tyrfingr still insists that there is no excuse for neglect in one’s personal appearance, and Tyrfingr should know.

The Smithsonian’s gift shop, incidentally, sells Mars Mud. It does not say so on the label, but if you add some liquor and give them both to a certain one of the Vikings’ friends, the combination creates She Who Makes Obscene Sounds with Mars Mud. Her middle name is And Laughs and Laughs.

But before all that happened, the Vikings walked around the Washington Monument and through the World War II monument and down to the Lincoln Memorial, stopping to see both the Vietnam and Korean Memorials, through all of which the Vikings were very well-behaved because it was too cold to pillage properly, and if you can’t put your heart into pillaging, you oughtn’t to do it at all.


Óláfr, here being very naughty and climbing on Abraham Lincoln, said the experience of seeing the monuments “was thoughtful.” He expanded to say, that the “nullity of the extracircumferential phenonemena” was “excavatory, immersive, a contraction of the spirit, a descent.” It transpired that he is prone to quote Beckett when moved. Haukr, ever the optimist, said he thought of Anna Laetitia Barbauld’s anti-war masterpiece Eighteen Hundred and Eleven, in which Fortune forsakes corrupt England for the innocent new republic, America:

But fairest flowers expand but to decay;
The worm is in thy core, thy glories pass away;
Arts, arms and wealth destroy the fruits they bring;
Commerce, like beauty, knows no second spring.
Crime walks thy streets, Fraud earns her unblest bread,
O'er want and woe thy gorgeous robe is spread,
And angel charities in vain oppose:
With grandeur's growth the mass of misery grows.

Haukr continued on to say he was indifferently curious to see for what country Fortune would forsake America.

His dire sentiments, however, fell away upon the momentous occasion of Einarr being made an Invasive Weed Control DEPUTY. The event occurred unexpectedly at the National Botanic Garden when Einarr was handed the following item:


Einarr takes his new position very seriously.


Oddly enough, he seems to be under the impression that the “Invasive Weeds” are social conservatives, which misunderstanding can lead to nothing but his eventual arrest for assault.

Sunday: No, You Cannot Take a Club in Your Carry-On

Having successfully plundered the zoo, a number of museums and their gift shops, the Library of Congress, and the White House (from a distance of course; otherwise they shoot you), the Vikings sadly parted with She Who Makes Obscene Sounds with Mars Mud and A Lover of Trotsky and Other Dead Philosophers and went back to their desk jobs, saying to each other, “Alas. But we shall always have the Capitol!” which of course translates as NARGH PANDAS NARGH!

Hugh

I bought Hugh last Friday and at the time he was a very handsome Cyclamen plant. Long straight flowers pointing toward the sky, deep leaves of green, a complex root system. Hugh was an excellent specimen. Past tense. Can I just start this post with my plant death count? I have five plants in my room, half of which are in various stages of death and dying, bringing my total number of plants killed to six-- two lost to spider mites, two to over-watering, one to replanting and one to the Forces that Control the Universe because I swear I didn't do anything wrong. But Hugh seemed hearty- that's why I bought him! And I wanted to give him a good home, so I put him in the window to get some quality morning light. I went to bed and when I woke up and opened the blinds, Hugh looked like this: actually, that's Hugh on the mend, originally he looked like an Orca Whale in captivity, flowers propped up on the ground for support. So here's Hugh looking like a mistreated SeaWorld resident and here's Ivan smacking her head and saying over and over "why, Hugh, why?!" But Ivan, always the optimist, thought "ok, window bad, lets put Hugh on the balcony" which got us to exhibit one. And then I put him indoors in a dark corner and that got me to exhibit two:
"Hugh the Sun Hating, Fluorescent Light Loving, Miracle Plant".
But who knows, by tomorrow all his leaves could fall off and he could sprout flesh eating fungi, he seems like that kind of plant. I'll keep you posted.

things you don't want to hear at your first pool workout after a three year hiatus...

"hey, nice to meet you! great day to start... we're doing a one mile swim... for time!"

moving on

today I went downstairs and told my landlord, in 30 days, i'm outta here. "but why?" said helen, a sweet 70-year-old who has been nothing but wonderful to me for the last year and two months. I explained things just weren't working out with the roommates, that my repeated attempts to do things like "clean" were being thwarted by idiots who can't keep iced tea in a glass instead feeling the need spread it all over the floor. or cook popcorn in oil and then leave the oil all over the stove.

And that my repeated attempts to do things like "sleep" were being thwarted by idiots who watch movies like "saving private ryan" and "apocalypse now" and "rambo 7" at 3am. movies that make me to wake up in a cold sweat, thinking I'm not in my expensive, cozy room on the west side, but in the middle of normandy beach. "can't you look the other way?" she said. I could, but the short one has a cat, a cat he is intent on killing, but it's alive right now and that's all that matters. this cat has fleas, lots of fleas. idiot roommate has done nothing about this. oh! wait! i forgot! he sprayed the floor with a flea killer and then let the cat walk around on it! problem solved! but they're still in the house (the roommates and the fleas) and i hear they are known carriers of the bubonic plague (the fleas... and possibly the roommates. one does have a nasty cough) and i refuse the die from the plague! i deserve better than the plague! i want dysentary or brain leisons at the very least!

But poor Sol and Helen just looked at me like I was ruining god's master plan. "You're never going to find a better place. We keep the rent low for you. I say 'lets not raise the rent for the young ones, it will not make us any richer, they need the money more'" and then Sol pipes in, Sol who lived through Auschwitz and loves to tell me "could be worse" because literally, it could be, says "and the lemons! we give you all the lemons you want!" and at this point my heart breaks and I promise to try and work things out with the boys.

But really, things can't be worked out. You can only change a guy who plays online poker 9 hours a day so much. It's time to move on. I don't think I'll ever find an apartment where the landlords care so much and the lemons are doled out so freely, but at least I won't die of the plague.

Speedy Delivery

This morning I came in and took off my coat, hung it up, and put my sweater on.

Then I took my boots off and put my shoes on.

Then, from downstairs, I heard the delivery man say as he was leaving, "Have a FedEx day! And a FedEx weekend!"

And the conclusion I formed was that I did not wake up on the wrong side of the bed this morning as much as wake up in an episode of Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood.

Never again will I doubt my ability to contribute to the general happiness of others.

Me: Achoo!
Eloise: God, I love it when you do that. It's so funny.

To Semi-Accurately Quote My Father: "Why should 'nuisance of cats' be plural? It only takes one."

Last night was my first night house-sitting in the Land of Wind and Snow. After lugging all my stuff inside, through the aforementioned wind and snow, I went to get the mail. Discovered the snow plow had come by. Evidence: mailbox looked like it had been hit by a mean right hook. It was off-kilter, dented, slack-jawed and appeared to be wincing. It reminded me of the flower in Catullus 11. But mostly it was funny.

I passed a reasonably pleasant evening locating things in the kitchen, unpacking my stuff, and making the acquaintance of all three cats--one brain-damaged, one feral and one which seems fairly normal but may be possessed of some hidden madness. I also re-learned how to use the kind of television that doesn't have a remote control. It's been a decade since I heard the term "UHF." Amazingly, I did not miss it.

Upon retiring to bed, I quickly discovered that the cats, all of them, expect to sleep in the master bedroom. With me. Sitting on me, creeping over me, meowing at me, doing everything but actually sleeping. As a result I have been wide awake since 5am. This in combination with the opera that is playing right now at work, and by playing I mean terrorizing my ears, may prove to be terminal, which is why I am blogging at work. I will die before they have a chance to fire me. And my cause of death will be "surfeit of cats."

Yes, I did just photograph my chest and post it on the Internet.

This post is going to be about things I forgot to mention at the time. For instance, for my birthday, I got a truly amazing sweatshirt from Ivan, specially embroidered with that timeless exclamation, "Nargh!"

Viking loungewear


While I thrust my narghy chest in everyone's face for a month afterward, saying "DON'T YOU WISH THIS WAS YOURS? WELL YOU CAN'T GET ONE! IT'S ONE OF A KIND!", I never posted about it. It came with Reeses Peanut Butter Cups and smelled like chocolate for weeks. It baffles my coworkers. I guess they don't realize that Vikings are intrinsically funny. Some people are weird. Anyway, I've been thinking of other things that would be great on a sweatshirt and although many of them are Latin obscenities I think also a large HWAET! would be enjoyable as well. But only for me and the two other people who have read Beowulf.

For Christmas, I got something I should have taken a picture of and posted immediately. My grandmother, the one who met President Bush and said later she almost bit him, saw this in a catalogue and apparently thought of me.

Patchogue


As far as I know, Simon and Ivan are strangers to her, and so it is rather a startling coincidence, really. It is named Patchogue, after a town on Long Island near where my grandparents live. You can't tell from the rather yellow quality of this picture, but Patchogue is olive green, patterned, and in every way splendid. You should have seen him with his wig. Also splendid.

Also concerning my grandmother: she learned that I needed a hat and after Christmas, I got one in the mail. It was grape purple, thick, and . . . splendid. About a week later, I got another, modeled here by Patchogue.

Hat


The note said "For your more fantastical occasions." Indeed! My grandmother descends from ministers and educators practically as far back as Plymouth Rock. When I was little there seemed to me no explanation for the strange ways of my family other than that all these forefathers were Puritans, whose hellfire-and-brimstone work ethic had been passed down to us later generations mainly in the form of an unbelievable consistency in preparing meals with all the food groups, going to bed before ten, and using the television solely to watch the McNeil-Lehrer News Hour. But I guess the truth is that my grandmother is a sort of New Puritan, the kind that buys a sinfully gaudy hedgehog doorstop, knits a jester hat really just for the hell of it, and would happily bite the leader of the free world as revenge for him being a total idiot. And even if New Puritanism involves eating a lot more vegetables than a rational person would ever want, I think I could really get behind that lifestyle. Unless it forbade me to take pictures of my chest and post them on the Internet. That right I will never surrender.

In other news, and I don't have a picture for this, I am no longer Simon, Girl Reporter. I gave up my job at the local paper because I was very bad at it. Also I hated it. Also I had one of those moments of clarity when you realize you are wasting valuable time doing something that brings you no joy (except for the rare occasion when somebody says something SO outrageous it's funny, like "Why can't we close the parks on Sunday mornings so kids don't have to choose between sports and church?" Answer: "Because of the Constitution.") and you might as well use that time doing something that brings you monstrous levels of frustration, irritation, and anger, such as writing. If I did have a picture of this moment of clarity, it would be of me at my computer surrounded by Greek muses cooperatively engaged in throwing thousands and thousands of hardcover copies of the Riverside Shakespeare at my head. Parts of me would be bleeding, but the general feel of the composition, I believe, would be happiness. Because while procrastinating I would be posting pictures of my chest on the Internet and blogging about it.

that darn cat

Maude moved in last week. She's a rather intimidating spider, but she curled up in the corner such a sweet, non-threatening, "i'm going to die in four or five minutes so don't worry about me" way, that I let her stay. We fell into a routine, a rather elaborate ritual where I would blow on her to see of she was alive and then yell "What are you doing wasting your life in a corner! What did he do to you! No one puts Maude in the corner! Pull yourself together, Maude!" and she would extend one leg, as if trying to pull herself from the depths of despair, and then crumple into a shape that only a severely depressed spider can achieve.

That was life with Maude- until I let the Cloudy in. The cat has taken to mewing for thirty or forty minutes outside my room in a manner I can only equate with Chinese water torture and I was so close to digging my eyes out with a fork I opened the door. Cat made a beeline for Maude and knocked her cruelly, brutally, from her corner. She curled up and took the beating until I pulled the cat off and threw it back into the living room. "Maude!" I cried. But she was motionless. Goodbye Maude. It crossed my mind she might be faking, that she might just be wounded, playing dead to fool the cat and that she might be angry I didn't intervene earlier.

Naaahhhhh. Maude's dead. I went back to watching TV but for some reason i felt the need to look at the wall RIGHT next to my head, AND THERE WAS MAUDE.

AND SHE LOOKED ANGRY. Now she's stalking me. I swear to god wherever I move in the room she follows. She's no longer depressed, she has a PURPOSE in life. So in light of Maude the killer spider, I'm letting Cloudy hang out. He seems pretty hell bent on eating her and I have to say, I whole-heartedly support his efforts.

The Missing

The pasta strainer went missing just after the new year. I was annoyed for six or seven days but I got over it and started using a slotted spoon. And then the pasta strainer magically reappeared and I find myself wondering what exactly one of the roommates was doing with a pasta strainer, in their room, for sixteen days. For all I know they've been using it to strain stray hairs out of their bathtub or as a planter for whatever strange fungi grows on their side of the apartment. A pasta strainer should never leave the kitchen. It serves no purpose other than to drain water off your soggy noodles... Either way, not knowing where it's been makes me never ever want to use it again. I've been thinking about building a cage since it's now unfit to drain food. I will rig the pasta strainer so every time that stupid cat comes near my room it will drop Mouse Trap style and teach the damn thing a lesson. Yes. That is what I must do.

zephyr

it's windy here in january. no one really cares about a breeze when it's 75 and sunny, but since it's the only climate related abnormality we have, it's officially a conversation piece. so it was inevitable on the walk to seven-eleven that someone would say "it's windy out here," and it just made my day when dylan pointed to the man with the leaf blower and said "yeah, those things sure are powerful."

Christening

This is my car. It suffered four months without a name. But it suffers no longer. Now I suffer, having discovered the mischevious spirit that lurks within its innocent, shiny white exterior. This car longs for one thing and one thing only. Mud. Not the fine coating of grit that every car develops in the winter, as if it hasn't shaved for three days. This car wants to wallow. It wants to sit in a mudhole and flap. It wants to dig with its snout in the saturated earth, and it wants to roll over, and it wants to wiggle its wheels in the air as it coats itself in mud. And it takes every opportunity it sees to do this. I could have named it Questionable Turning Radius, or Needs Better Treads on Wheels, or Thank Goodness Its Small Enough to Push Out of Holes, but those are obviously too cumbersome to shout when its back tires start gleefully spinning mud up, over, and onto the windshield. And they do not do enough to implicitly absolve me of any part I may have had in the escapades to which I refer. So I name it, with affection, Pig, and please forgive me if instead of breaking champagne I pour a bottle of Mr Clean over its hood.

Snapshots

I was pretty happy to put 3,000 miles between me and my family (glad none of you are talking, good way to keep the verbal abuse down) and I have to say, I was in a decent mood when I got to my apartment Sunday afternoon. It was a nice day of unpacking, watching tv, flipping through the mail... flipping through the mail! wait! a letter from the Traffic Violations Bureau. what?! I have no violations! I am an excellent driver! (no comments, please). I opened the letter and found pictures of me in the process of what the state of California calls a "Fail to Stop Red Signal" and what I call "Making it Through the Intersection in a Timely Fashion". For my convenience they provided two candids of my crime, enlarging the second to reveal the driver of my vehicle. In this case it was in fact me screaming "FUCK" and making faces at the person in front of me because they STOPPED in the middle of the intersection and that is why I didn't make it through. The ticket was issued by Deputy Zenon Porche. Zenon Porche, closely related to Ford Prefect, reviewed my photo and decided the best way to deal with me, the menace to society that i am, was with a $350 fine. $350 for a traffic violation he did not witness! Zenon Porche, had you actually been sitting on the corner of La Brea and Santa Monica instead of at your desk, eating doughnuts and looking at pictures of people who committed NO REAL CRIME, I would have some respect for you. Alas, I think you're a raging ARSE. I googled you and found you'd given over 5,000 tickets in the West Hollywood area. JERK. So, let this be a warning to all those visiting southern california: Big Brother is Watching and he thinks you're a terrible driver.

Warm Wishes for a Very Merry Armageddon!

This came in the mail at work. Surely I will not be dooced for scanning it (at work) and then posting it on my blog, because I have cleverly removed the name of the company that sent it to us. I don’t think we work with them anyway, which is much to my relief because all I could think of when I saw this was Harold Pinter and his “comedies of menace.”

Harold Pinter, whom I had never heard of until my class on British playwrights, is, surprisingly enough, a British playwright. He writes what critics have called “comedies of menace” which are, surprisingly enough, plays that are both comedic and menacing. When the Nobel Committee chose to award Pinter the Literature Prize in October, they specified that he “uncovers the precipice under everyday prattle and forces entry into oppression's closed rooms” and that is precisely what he does, usually much to the theater-goer's discomfort.

If this postcard isn’t the very picture of oppression’s closed room, I don’t know what is. It could easily be an illustration from one of Pinter’s later, little-known forays into children’s literature. It is never too early for the little bastards to learn that a socio-political Armageddon is on its way, and that they had better prepare themselves for the ugly truth that Jolly Old Saint Nick is a fascist who claims to know everything about everyone and dispenses justice quite freely without so much as a glance of recognition at the Hague--and all this while posing as a kindly father figure whose great beneficence it would be unthinkable to dispute.

Meanwhile, little Rudolph, easily recruited on account of his unpopularity with the other reindeer, finds himself under the thumb of a ruthless tyrant. Below, the text of Pinter’s timeless children’s classic, “Christmas Eve.”

Santa: Ho, ho, ho.

Pause.

Santa: Ho, Rudolph, pleasant evening, wouldn’t you say?
Rudolph: Yes, sir.
Santa: Nice and cold.

Pause.

Santa: Wouldn’t you say?
Rudolph: Yes, sir.
Santa: Then say it!
Rudolph: Very cold, sir. Very nice.
Santa: Yes, I think so, too.

Pause.

Santa: What does my watch say, Rudolph?
Rudolph: It is approximately half past five, sir.
Santa: Is it? Oh yes. I must have looked at it upside-down. I thought it was nearly midnight.

Pause.

Santa: If it were nearly midnight, you’d be in bad shape with those Christmas cards, wouldn’t you? You’d be five minutes from the deadline.
Rudolph: Yes, sir.
Santa: You know why the call it the deadline, don’t you?
Rudolph: Yes, sir.
Santa: You say you do?
Rudolph: I do, sir.
Santa: Brave of you to keep up the leisurely place, then, isn't it?

Pause.

Rudolph: Yes, sir.
Santa: Very brave indeed. Well, good luck, Rudolph.

Pause.

Rudolph: Thank you, sir.
Santa: And Merry Christmas.

Slight pause.

Santa: Ho ho ho.

THE END.

The moral of this post is: Do not send Christmas cards to your friends that make them want to phone Amnesty International and turn in Santa Clause.

Abbie, Doctor of Philosophy

My mother has been teaching the dog to count.

She says, "I teach, it's what I do. I don't care whether it's a dog or not, I'm going to teach it."

Apparently, for the last nine years, my mother has been counting Abbie's muddy paws as she dries them. When I asked whether she did it the same way every time, whether Abbie knew her hind left foot was #3, she said no, and seemed to think that was odd.

Abbie stood there and panted. Outwardly she was saying, "Duhhhhhhh, I'm hungry." But inside that furry little head she was thinking, "I have already extrapolated the existence of the quadratic formula. Now feed me, because I am a genius."

The only thing holding her back now is not having opposable thumbs, but I'm sure she'll take care of that as soon as she maps the canine genome, which is probably her plan for next Tuesday between 3 and 5pm. Until then she will devote her time to deconstructing the Shakespearean canon with an eye toward his treatment of women in Greek myth, and in her spare time she'll fine-tune her artistic style which, until she gets thumbs at least, will likely be reminiscent of Jackson Pollock's.

Any day now we'll come home and find that someone has painted "Four legs good, two legs bad" on the garage door. Inside, we will hear the strains of Abbie fluently speaking multiple languages as she simultaneously disarms the Iraqi insurgency, creates peace in the Middle East, opens a can of whoopass on North Korea, and practises juggling with bowling pins.

So I guess some good can come of this. But I want my collection of Dickens back and no, I will not man the keyboard so she can try to beat my time in Minesweeper.

Harriet Goes to the Dark Side

[There is a heating man checking out the insulation in the ceiling.]

Otto: Does he realize he's stuck up there if we move this ladder?
Eloise: You could mention it to him.
Otto: Hmm.

[clatter, bang]

Harriet: I can see I'm going to have to keep a better eye on Otto.
Otto: What?!
Harriet: Did you just move the ladder?
Otto: Oh, I was just getting water!
Harriet: Did you put it back?
Otto: Yes!
Harriet: Good.

[Pause.]

Harriet: God, wouldn't that be funny?

Atkins would smile

i purged all products containing grain from my cupboard yesterday- not because i believe in the benefits of a low-carb diet, but because my rice was starting to grow wings. yes. wings. like, each kernel is going to fly away, wings. my bags of rice and whole grain pasta and my box of grits were completely infested with grain moths. i don't know how they got there, but they actually burrow into your food and spin webs in it and hatch in it and i'm so ridiculously grossed out, that i can't bring myself to eat carbs again. grain moths: yet another reason i will smile when california falls into the ocean.

awesome is...

awesome is: ending a verbal altercation with your coworker by shutting the door... on your boss' hand... severing the nailbed and breaking his fingernail cleanly in half... and then spending the evening with him in the emergency room... while he calls his friends and leaves messages like "hey, yeah, my employee cut off the top of my finger... we're gonna have to postpone the golf game".

plea to a psychic spider

i was watching a spider on the wall. and then i got distracted. and now i can't find it. last time i lost track of it, it showed up in one of my sweaters. and yesterday it was on the bathroom windowsill. it knows i washed it's cousin/brother/wife (who can tell with spiders) down the drain last year. and i watched my boss kill a black widow with a golf club last week. psychic spider knows these things. please forgive me, spider... and please don't climb up my nose while i'm sleeping. please. please.

A Simon and Ivan Thanksgiving

The proper Simon and Ivan Thanksgiving begins, as all good things do, with Wegmans. In fact, it is with Wegmans that this post is principally concerned. Where else can you have a five-course meal starting with poached Etruscan salmon, just by strategically hitting up free sample booths? Okay, maybe Harrods. But where else can you wash down your kingly feast with Magic Hat #9? Only Wegmans. Thus, the traditional celebration starts with a midafternoon drive to Wegmans, which is always always always held up by the traditional Slow/Drunk/Extremely Aged Driver whose Tercel we generally follow all the way from the blinking red light on 251. Thanksgiving just wouldn't be the same without this person. It would be a lot better.

This year, both of us being persons of independent means (or practically), we allowed ourselves to be seduced by the case of glazed fruit tarts and tartlets, custards, eclairs, napoleons, and mousses. They have names like "Dôme Chocolat" and "Napolean Vanille" because this is the "Parisian-inspired desserts" case. Evidently the butter is French and the vanilla is from Madagascar. I don't care if the butter comes from native Iowa cows, there's nothing like a glistening fruit tart in a fancy box that would have cost £6.50 at Betty's.

So that took care of the Faux Parisian Dessert food group. We still had the Nacho Cheesier food group and the Melts in Your Mouth, Not in Your Hand food group, which holes in our nutritional pyramid we filled with a swift trip down the snack aisle. And then we decided that was enough because even during the holidays, you don't want to overindulge.

A Simon and Ivan Thanksgiving is not complete without a ritual viewing of Anne of Avonlea, during which one struggles with the following issues:

(1) Do you or do you not feel sorry for Morgan Harris when Anne rejects his proposal? (Ultimately it was decided that Morgan Harris might be dashing, but Gilbert Blythe has better handwriting.)

(2) Do the charms of turn-of-the-century fashion (i.e. gloves, the vest/skirt ensemble, the dramatic poofy hair) outweigh the glaring horrors of period headgear (i.e. giant hairbows and things that were clearly walking around saying cluck cluck or tweet tweet or hee haw before they were shot and made into hats)? Still undecided.

(3) Do Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island have anything to do with Idaho? Yes, but we can't say why.

If there was a Simon and Ivan Thanksgiving Blessing, it would go like this: Dear Bob, thank you for Wegmans and Kevin Sullivan Productions and old friends. And thanks also for mint M&Ms. Better late than never.

I'd Like to Issue a Statement

Last night I did some laundry.

I realize now that this was very irresponsible of me and I would like to apologize to the families of those people who will surely suffer as a result. Sorry, Cheneys. Sorry, Blairs. Sorry, Other World Leaders, namely U2 and Oprah.

There is reason to believe my socks are planning a world takeover, and I know for certain that they will not be defeated by the discovery that this planet is 70% covered in water. They know. And they're not allergic to soap, either.

Their ringleader is a certain sock of mine whose identity cannot be ascertained. Whenever questioned, my socks pull a Spartacus on me and tell me they are all called Joe Boxer. (This is the name of their gang, which is tattooed in their soles.) We will call this sock Agent One. Agent One is a Ringspun Cotton Double-Cushion Reinforced-Heel-and-Toe Quarter-Cut Women's Shoe Size 5-9 Sock, but don't let his nancy-boy description fool you. This is a heavy, durable, almost bulletproof sock. A sock you wouldn't want to meet in a dark alley.

Agent One has made several escape attempts already. It falls on the floor between the washer and dryer whenever it can. It hides in the dryer every single week, waiting for its chance. It jumps out of the laundry basket regularly and has been intercepted during escape several times by my mother, ever the foiler of evil plots perpetrated by laundry, or the worlds of mathematics and science. Agent One is motivated entirely by either

the desire to become the Pre-eminent Sock Emperor of the Millennium (the fact that it spent a year in Europe in and is still going strong is evidence that it is working on technology that will someday render it immortal) or

freedom.

It will stop at nothing to achieve these sinister aims.

This brings me to last night. Last night, whilst doing my laundry, I made the terrible discovery that Agent One, too high-profile to do it himself, sent out another sock as a scout. Right now, the suspect, which we shall call Agent Two, is roaming free. It is a thin, slightly dressy Gold Toe sock, which is why I never suspected it. It made its escape at approximately 8:27 EST and hasn't been seen since, but is known to be in communcation with Agent One and the Joes Boxer. I suspect they are planning further atrocities.

It is on the strength of this evidence that I suggest that in order to prevent the assassinations and widespread barefootedness that will occur if Agent Two is not quickly apprehended, we should raise the Terror Alert Level to Orange and go about our daily activities with extreme caution. The sock is on the march.

Obviously written during a lunch break.

First I want to say that this is the season of apples. Apples should be everwhere, they should be fresh, and they should be crisp. Yet what I find is that the apple I have before me, sitting innocently on my desk, is of abominable quality. It is misshapen, first of all. Its color is lacking: beneath the pleasant red-green blush lurks a foundation of brown. But these are merely cosmetic flaws. The real problem is that it is irreversibly bruised. Not the kind of bruises where your mom tells you about all the starving people in the world and makes you eat it anyway. No. Not that kind. The kind where, if it was a person, they'd amputate. The kind where eating it is like nipping through a minefield. For the taste of rotten apple flesh is the taste of DEATH. These bruises are terminal. We must learn to treat apples with care, as we would treat, for example, a hemophiliac. If you know an apple farmer, or a supermarket manager, please tell them to stop holding impromptu baseball games with their produce before selling them to the unsuspecting public. This is abuse and it must be stopped.

Overheard

"The TRUTH?! ... The truth only sets you free and that's not even true."

CRAWL FOR IT!

And that's just one of many things Ivan and I will yell at trick-or-treaters, after hurling their candy as far into the darkness as possible, when we are acerbic but spry white-haired cat ladies.

X=Eat the doughnut.

If someone at work brings in donuts for your birthday, and the apple you brought for lunch is suspiciously squooshy, do the combined factors of (1) it being almost the 30th and (2) your healthy food having literally rotted make it okay to substitute two donuts for the one apple? There is so much air in doughnuts, and apples are so dense. In fact, if I were to establish an equation describing the relationship between apples and donuts, it would probably say A+3/2G=3D(2H)(1/2R), with A being Apples, D being doughnuts, G being guilt, H being death by heart attack before the age of thirty, and R being the part where I vow to run every morning for the rest of my life. And the numbers being randomly assigned so as to create the illusion of complexity. Unfortunately the equation is rendered undefined on account of the fact that I can't figure out which spelling of donut/doughnut is correct.

Wanted: Small-Town Lex Luthor. Must Refuse to Mow Lawn. Desire to Subdivide and Develop Property Required. Untrained Black Labrador a Plus.

I was promised juicy material when I signed up for this job with the local paper. I was told the meetings would be full of yelling and that I shouldn't give my phone number to local officials because they would use it if they didn't like my articles. I was made to believe I might find myself uttering the words, "Look, mister, this town ain't big enough for the both of us," and "You better make like a tree and leave, bigshot." But this showdown has not occurred. Nor have any showdowns occured within my hearing. Negatory on the showdowns. In fact, here are some words I wrote down at a recent planning board meeting, to give you an idea of what an adorable and harmless town we really are:

Big Bertha
clambake
Doc Whatsit
signage
verbage
cow

So harmless we are almost lethal. The closest I've gotten to scandal is the following statement: "Yeah. That's what we listen to in the Clerk's office. Cop-killing rap. That's what me and a bunch of 65-year-old ladies listen to. [Pause] They complain if I play country." So, not very close. Welcome to Lois & Clark: The Boring Edition.

movie of the week

we went to lunch with our boss. the following is a reconstructed conversation:
Boss: So guess what.
Us: What?
Boss: I got an email from some girl on Friday. Hadn't talked to her in 13 years. And guess what...
Us: you have a 13-year-old son?
Boss: Actually... yes.

Justifications For a Promising Future in Homicidal Mania

-I drove to my aunt's house for the 800th time since moving to LA this weekend and for the 799th time got on the 10 West instead of the 10 East only realizing my error upon that critical "point of no return", where going the direction I meant to go would cause a 500 car pile up. Since I have made this mistake 799 times, I have spend a total of 600 more hours in the car than necessary.
-I arrived at said aunt's house at an hour only suitable for sleeping so I decided to wash my face. While attempting to remove the only cleanser in my eleven-year-old cousin's bathroom, a foaming bubble-gum scented hand soap, from my eyes, I slammed my forehead (with an impressive amount of force) into the faucet. I now have a severe headache and a bruise in the middle of my forehead. The headache may be from the injury or from the bubble gum scent. I will keep you posted.
-The job I quit because I was going insane hired someone else and when they realized the new employee was incompetent, they called me to do the actual work. new employee is now my assistant. I was proud for .02 seconds until I saw his timecard and realized they pay him 25% more than me to do my bitch-work.
-I keep having dreams where an ex-boyfriend returns to collect the futon he left at my apartment. I'm not sure what my subconscious fears more- the loss of the futon or confrontation with the ex.
-My hour of Sunday escapism, Grey's Anatomy, was interrupted eight times with a ticker proclaiming "RAIN!!! IT'S GOING TO RAIN!!! YOU MIGHT NEVER MAKE IT TO WORK AGAIN!!! TRAFFIC WILL STOP!!! RAIN RAIN RRRRAAAAIIIINNNNN" get over yourself, Southern California.
-I'm trying to turn myself into a morning person so I set my alarm for 6:45 every morning and every morning, instead of running, I go back to sleep and wake up with 37 seconds to get dressed, brush my teeth, eat half a handful of peanut butter m&ms for breakfast and leave for work. Things are not going well.
-NARGH!

Game Show

It's called "Guess What Scene in the Book of Genesis this Illustrates!"

For Ivan!

I realize now that my last post did not really make sense. It was late and I was carrying on several conversations, live and electronic, all at once. What happened was that I went to my sister's house to watch Alias, which led to watching CSI, which led to watching Without a Trace, which is a pretty dumb show but oddly mesmerizing. At about 11:00 I headed home. Pleasant drive. Very dark. A few deer. Christine's latest mix. Yes, very nice. All very nice.

Then I pulled onto my road and there was this van pulled over on the lawn by my house. Odd, I thought. Then I revised that to Creepy. It reminded me of the time I was walking home one night in the dark and there was a truck pulled over on the road and its lights were on and I had to go right by it and it was shortly after I had seen Joy Ride and all I could think of was that insane truck driver saying "CANDY-CAAAYNE?" and it started to feel like the first five minutes of an X-Files episode--you know anyone who appears in those first five minutes is doomed to die some strange and horrible death--and yeah, this reminded me of that.

And then I realized it was Matt and Adam, who are sketchy but not dangerously so. They had apparently stationed themselves outside of my house some time earlier in a sort of friendly stakeout, waiting for me to get back. Along with all of their other blogiversary items they brought the card from above, which Ivan might like to see. So there it is. Happy anniversary, Ivan! I'm not having Magic Hat and cupcakes without you, so you better be back for Christmas. Then we can start planning out how to make money with the blog. I mean, you're in LA after all. We can turn this to our advantage. Next time you see a famous person I want you to go up to them and say in a booming announcer voice:

"From the creative team that brought you the political thriller Eddie Happlin and the title of Body in the Closet, Captive in the Car comes a new, feel-good comedy with all the suspense and great titles of the past but none of the violence and bloodshed. See what's in store for Ivan as she dodges flying ash on deserted Los Angeles freeways! And find out how long it will take Simon to scratch her new car! This and more on Les Fabuleux Destins de Deux Herrisons, the bicoastal blog with the French title, hedgehog fixation, and truly dizzying intellect. Rated G for Great."

They might think you're insane, but that won't necessarily mean we can't option our blog as a movie. In fact it would probably help.

No Fair!

I find it incredibly unfair that I had to miss the one year agouti and donuts party, but I will celebrate our blog from afar. Being 3,000 miles away means I have to miss things like that. But The Forces that Control the Universe did not forget about me. They sent me a special "Happy one full year of complaining about Los Angeles" present. When I got on the freeway this afternoon it was practically empty... 5:00pm and I could go a whole 27mph all the way to the valley. I think I might have gotten up to 32 once. It was nothing short of amazing. Granted, the valley was on fire and it rained ash most of the way... but hey, glass half full. Happy Blog Anniversary, Simon! It has been a wonderful year of writing. Your posts never cease to amuse me, though they often make me miss you terribly! Have some Magic Hat and a Cupcake for me! ~Ivan

And the Only Thing Missing Was Ivan

Happy First Anniversary to Us.


Compliments of Matt and Adam, loyal readers. The reason I know they are loyal readers is they sat outside my house in a car waiting for me to come home. At midnight. In the dark. Wait... Ivan, I think we have our first stalkers.

Agouti?


And yet... stalkers who bring cider, a box of donut holes, and an agouti-figurine from the "mammal bin" at Party City. The agouti is in the place of a hedgehog. The agouti was chosen because Matt miraculously remembered that I like capybaras. An agouti isn't strictly a capybara but it's pretty damn close and I like it a lot. For the 1.25-years anniversary, when Ivan is home, we'll have to throw another midnight donut/agouti party.

And to our Other Loyal Readers, thanks for reading. Yeah. And hey, thanks for sending all that cash. Yup. No really. We love you. Both of you.

Bike Ride

I rode a bike today for the first time in probably nine years. I don't know when I stopped riding bikes. Probably around the time I realized that my pink and purple bike was searingly uncool. I should leave that thing out in the rain and put it out of its misery. It's not assassination, it's euthanasia.

It was autumnally cool and sunny this morning, and seemed like an excellent day for adventure. So I stole my mother's bike, which is markedly adult in color, with the idea that I would try to locate the site of the proposed park that keeps coming up in the town meetings I'm covering for the local paper. I am going to start calling it Atlantis: The Lost Park because I did not find it.

My skepticism began when the press release for the park quoted a board member saying, "Ye, unto us the oracle did tell of the founding of a sacred park, and ye, the oracle's rock does indeed release hallucinogenic vapors, and ye, the two are not connected." I don't know, it just seemed suspect. And now I know that it is, after all, mythical, for I cannot find it. Some might say, "Simon, you know you've never been good with maps." To them I say, "Shut it." I'm not incompetent. This park does not exist.

Happily, the search for Atlantis: The Lost Park was truly a delight. I forgot how much fun it is to ride a bike. I don't think of cycling as a viable travel option in this town, mostly because as a driver I hate those suicidal road-hogging cyclists, but on this nice new bike path the risk of gruesome death is much reduced. Also I had a great time singing songs to myself, although apparently the only songs I can sing off the top of my head are the ones I learned in nursery school. So anyone who lives near the trail may have heard me singing Ten Little Indians and Oh Susannah and the like, which is embarrassing.

I also started singing Do Your Ears Hang Low, which never, ever made sense to me. I always had a disturbing mental image of a sad man with revoltingly large earlobes. For some reason he was always shunned by the rest of the army. I think he was the Continental soldier; he seemed French.

It turns out, however, that Continental in that song refers to the American colonists. So says a random internet site: "This is a slight by the Loyal British about the American Drummers. The ears are the tabs on a rope drum. The British drummers kept their drums tied tight with a specific knot called a drummer's knot. They alleged that the Americans could not tie their drums tight enough so when the heads were tensioned the ears were at the bottom of the drum."

Burn.

Unfortunately in the process of making this discovery, I learned about another version of the song in which it isn't the ears that are hanging low. I really should have just stuck with the absurd long-eared Frenchman because the new mental image is a whole lot uglier.

You Can Never Go Home

I: What are you up to this weekend?
J: Oh, going to Santa Cruz, see my family.
I: Awesome, you're so lucky. I would kill to go and sleep in my old room right now.
J: Yeah, it's not that great. They gave my room to the turtle.
I: The turtle?
J: Yeah. The turtle. She crawled in there one winter to hibernate and they just let her move in. They yell at me when I try and open the door. "Do NOT disturb the turtle!"
I: Wow. Your parents gave your room to a turtle. Those things live a long time, too.
J: Yup, at least another 40 years till she dies...
I: Gave your room to a turtle. You know what this means?
J: They don't love me?
I: Yeah, pretty much... but have a good weekend anyway!

The Picard Maneuver

What I learned today is that Patrick Stewart (1) once had hair, (2) likes Beavis and Butthead, and (3) appeared on Sesame Street, to quote the man himself, "in praise of the letter B."

Here is the scholarly debate that followed:
Maeve: Are you allowed to say you like Beavis and Butthead on the set of Sesame Street? You should be. They're all adults there. Except for the children.
Katie: Right.
Maeve: And the puppets.
Katie: They're kind of on the line.
Maeve: They're in that awkward puppet stage.

I have not saved a single cat since being here. I just want to note that. If my train home is delayed two hours (again) it's because I have spent the day marvelling at Patrick Stewart's hair. Yeah karma.

karma

I really want to blog, but every time i read a simon/.M post all i really want to do is cry. While they are discussing goats and wolves of roman times and proper conjugation of latin insults I am watching raw reality footage with the sole direction "he yells some quotes from mommy dearest. they're very funny. you'll find them." my life only resembles Simon's in that my BRAIN is the consistency of marshmallow fluff. i am what's wrong with society. i try to give back, but it's difficult when eight hours of my day are devoted to voyeuristic couples therapy, house cleaning and property rehabilitation and another eight are spent watching pandas trying to mate, while over-involved zoo keepers scream "PLEASE, JUST COPULATE!".

I did rescue a cat yesterday. and it was an ugly cat so i deserve double positive karma. and right after the heinous cat encounter, i ran by a carnival in the park. and i was like "oh! carnival across the street from my house! cute... why they didn't they advertise?" and then it dawned on me that FOX studios had constructed a fake carnival in the park just to torture real, tax-paying community members. this was probably my actual karma coming to pass because i didn't save the ugly cat per se, i just herded it back onto the sidewalk. so i tacked two more miles onto my run to make sure the cat was ok. (alright, i was just thinking about the carnival... that maybe if i saved the cat the carnival would be real and then- COTTON CANDY FOR EVERYONE!) so i ran and ran, but the cat must have either been hit by a car or found its way back home because it was gone. so i finished my loop and when i got back to the carnival, the gods smiled and said "she has a good heart, she ran two extra miles just to check on an ugly cat" and there was a flash of light and the carnival revealed itself to be THE SET OF ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT. and Portia de Rossi turned and i did a double take and almost fell flat on my face because really, she has the best hair on the planet. and that is the thrilling account of all 45 of my free minutes this week. now, if you'll excuse me, i must attend to the panda footage, the bears on the verge of successful copulation and the zoo keepers are getting rowdy.

Back to School

So far I have been making excellent use of my time during this post-graduate visit to my former institution of higher education. Whereas I once studied classic literature and learned obscure languages and analyzed ancient history, I now devote my energies to the things that truly matter.

For example, Fluff. That's right. Marshmallow Fluff. The kind you put in your peanut butter sandwich. The ambrosia that, like some kind of addict, I could only get at my friends' houses because my mom would never buy it when I was little. It turns out there is a Fluff website which has not only a three-page history of the Fluff company but also a scrapbook with pictures of happy children whose faces are covered in Fluff. It is very wholesome and I am determined to bring Fluff and peanut butter sandwiches (or "fluffernutters" to those in the know) to my place of work because they will demonstrate my knowledge of haute cuisine, which is sure to impress my new colleagues.

I also learned many dirty Latin words from the poetry of Catullus. This is less wholesome and less likely to impress my new colleagues, so I will probably have to forget my new vocabulary as soon as possible. But of course "scortillum," mildly translated by William Whitaker as "wench," is precisely the kind of thing that will stick in your mind even after you forget how to conjugate sum.

As for scholarly debates, there has been no end of discussion as to whether, if you had a time machine, Catullus would be someone you'd necessarily date. I vote yes, because everyone knows the Romans were an attractive people; just look at their statues. Maeve and I have also hit upon a principle of great use to the study of history, and it is this: the natural habitat of Emperors is Rome, and the natural habitat of wolves is the forests of Germany. It follows that the fact that wolves ran free in the medieval forests of Germany is not a basis on which you can fairly criticize the reign of the Emperor Charlemagne because wolves and emperors are not supposed to have anything to do with each other. Charlemagne did not campaign on wolf removal reform.

This is the conversation that followed the composition of that paragraph:
Maeve: Wolves are cool. They will eat you.
Katie: Did you really just say that?
Maeve: Yeah, I even kind of thought it through first.

Maeve is now sitting on her bed saying, "Fornicator! Fornicator! Fornicator!" and giggling. She is still translating Catullus.

The other scholarly debate we had earlier concerned Merovingian kings, the predecessors of Charlemagne, who had a habit of riding around their kingdoms in goat carts. This is what we had to say about that:

Katie: Goats can be regal.
Maeve: No, they can't.
Katie: Sure they can. They have . . . the beards . . .
Maeve: No. They eat everything.
Katie: They are . . . exploratory. They are tireless scholars.
Maeve: Maybe I should change the title of my blog to Le Fabuleux Destin d'une Chevre.
Katie: . . . Are you a goat?
Maeve: I'm a tireless scholar.

It is a haven of learning, Maeve's room.

Chronicles of Simon

Item, new favorite abbreviation "Messrs." Replaces former favorite abbreviation "v." Unfortunately much more difficult to work into everyday conversation.

Item, have now attended two town meetings as reporter for local paper; am half hooked, half bored to death. Status of desire to dress like Jimmy Stewart while in reporter mode: unconquered.

Item, have acquired temporary emmployment as Marketing Assistant at smallish publishing company. Begin work next month; desire to blog about job already problematic. Determined not to give in (cf. Dooce).

Item, new favorite abbreviation "cf."

Item, process of applying to graduate school proving identical to process of having soul sucked out through nose with Shop-Vac. Or heart broken.

Item, finished longest book in history of universe aside from Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People (clocking in at 1,500 hours plus two years off the end of reader's life): The Once and Future King. V. good despite extended passages on merits of goose lifestyle. Recommended.

Item, began Annie Proulx's That Old Ace in the Hole. Identify wholeheartedly with main character Bob Dollar's directionlessness, though miss presence of evil fat boy in life.

Item, watched Series 1-3 of Monarch of the Glen, i.e. 28 hours of television in period of time too short to publish. Result: inner monologue habitually slipping into Scots; hard-pressed to supress overuse of "och" and "wee" in regular speech.

Item, new favorite abbreviation "i.e."

Item, have depleted bin of Items; awaiting refill.

delicious

simon wanted to know why my away message for the weekend was "delicious". it's because all weekends are delicious. lunch time is delicious. that hour break i took at work to watch the oc was delicious. any moment of my day that doesn't involve working is delicious. even cleaning the apartment qualifies as delicious. on the other hand, the roommates who soil the apartment will never qualify as delicious. they are decidedly not delicious. they are not even tasty. not even lightly salted. they are smelly and dirty and boring and annoying, all rolled into one heinous version of a human being. i thought about how much i hated them while i cleaned for three delicious hours friday afternoon. i thought about them while i wiped the dead bugs off the counter and the pound of cat hair from behind the sink. i thought of them while i swiffered the floor because i knew that the drips of slim fast and the empty "i can't believe it's not butter LIGHT" containers were not mine. these boys consume more processed food and diet products than any girl i've ever met. other baffling behavior for 20+ year old men: they lock the door while they're in the house. not just lock, dead bolt. why, you ask? what are they afraid of? is our 87-year-old landlord actually an axe murderer? does the high number of luxury cars parked out front imply more than white collar criminal activities? are they worried someone will break in and steal the pleather couches WHILE THEY'RE SITTING ON THEM? god knows we have at least $20 worth of ikea furniture in the open. wouldn't want that to walk away. also, the short one keeps putting his ralph's brand imitation vanilla extract on my pantry shelves. this is unacceptable. i'm sorry you bought enough popcorn and diet bars to last you till the next millennium but i don't even like sharing the apartment with you, what makes you think i'm open to joint storage space? I'M NOT. oh well, i'm sure the protein shakes will come in handy, i think i heard the widow and the chubby spanish lesbian planning a siege on the laundry room. lock the doors. batten down the hatches. it's a rough neighborhood.

HELLO LORD. OW.

The DVD player at the town house last year said HELLO LORD when you turned it on. The DVD player at home says OW. I think in this day and age it should not be that difficult to make an LCD display that actually works. Therefore I conclude that one of the following is true: (1) the DVD player makers are a funny bunch of people, or (2) the DVD players are actually an alien race who have accidentally identified the human race as superior and/or are easily bruised. I'm sure that somehow either conclusion can be made to prove something about the existence of God.

A New Favorite

Formerly I thought "Mansquito" was the most amazing title for a SciFi Original Movie that anyone could ever have thought up. However I now believe the latest one, "Frankenfish," may be even better.

revelations

so i turned 22 on monday and it made me realize that i hate life and my job and my apartment and my car and los angeles and anyone and everyone i've ever encountered here (not including ellen degeneres, she seemed nice). so in the spirit of sanity, i'm cutting back on one of my jobs and purging my life of everything irksome. it's strange because i'm simultaneously on the brink of self destruction and bored out of my mind. things have to change. i need a tattoo or a piercing or some blue hair. maybe i'll paint my room or learn to sew or just ask someone to add another dent to my car. maybe i'll just move back home and live in the basement of my parents house and sneak out to buy beer and fancy cakes with simon.

that would be quite nice.

WARNING: This gum is NOT to be used as a substitute for sleep.

do you think speed is an acceptable substitute? crack? i need something...

In Which: Simon Vows Never to Watch the News Again

Top three things news broadcasters habitually do that annoy the bloody hell out of me:

1. That thing where they cut from the anchor to a close-up of a correspondant and then zoom away, revealing that the correspondant is crouched, often holding some strange object he or she has felt compelled to pick up, being so close to the ground and all. The correspondant then stands up, chucks the object aside (litterbug!) and starts walking toward the camera. I just don't understand what this brings to the relation of factual information on a news broadcast. Why why why?

2. When anchors make questions out of statements so that you'll stay tuned to be assured that the answer to the question is, as always, exactly what you knew it would be. For example: "Is there a reason gas prices have gone up so much?" Yes. Next story. "Will Christian video games sell as well as Grand Theft Auto?" No. Next. "What's it like inside the mind of a serial killer?" Ugly. And I'd rather watch CSI to learn about it. Duh, people.

3. When anyone anywhere uses the phrase "women and children." I feel like there's something odd about that phrase, like something's missing. Women, children, and your pet goat named Ron? No... Women, children, and the three-piece dining room set? No... what is it... oh yes. MEN. It was my understanding that the term we use for innocent and defenseless people is "civilian." In case any of us have managed never to come across this word in the 170 years since its invention, that word was civ-il-ian. It means non-combatant. It does not specify gender, and the reason it does not specify gender is not all men go to war. Even in ancient and medieval civilizations, not all men went to war, and back then, as now, male civilians were just as innocent and defenseless and female civilians, young and old civilians, hircine civilians (that's the adjective for goat, I had to look it up), and civilian dining sets. Removing male civilians from the group of people who are innocent and defenseless implies that women and children have equal capabilities, while men are more able. In other words, women are weak. Why this perception persists, I do not know, but I would appreciate it if it was not spread by the evening news anchor of a major television network. Not only does it degrade women and men, but it implies that gender can make the death of one civilian more regrettable than the death of another, a conclusion I find appalling.

Higwit

The people for whom I was house sitting have hedgehog-themed items all over their house. Adam counted them once. I don't remember what number he got to, but there were a whole lot. So many that this is what I am prone to hear when I invite people over: "This hedgehog is great -- what is that?"

Actually, it's more like, "What the hell is with all of the hedghogs . . . and what the fuck is that?!"

They are referring to the other noteworthy decoration of the house, which is a postcard standing against the books in the bookcase. It's a picture of a bleak room empty except for a small TV in the corner and a man wearing only a shirt hanging from the ceiling (although you can only see him from the waist down, which includes, indeed, his naked buttocks). It's in black and white and at the bottom it says, "Den ganzen Tag vor der Glotze hängen."

Oh hell, I'll just put it in here. This blog is now rated PG-13.



With the bleakness and the black-and-whiteness and the German at the bottom, it gives you the feeling it's supposed to be tragic social commentary on the plight of East Germany or something. I guess that may be true if East Germans were subjected to television propaganda. But probably not. The German translates to, "Hanging all day in front of the TV." Hanging, get it? Hahaha . . . ha ha . . . no, it's still disturbing. Curse my addiction to six-hour BBC costume dramas!

Wegmans, Magic, and Existential Crises: a Hedgehog Reunion

My co-blogger has returned to her native coast. Tradition dictates that the Hedgehogs of Fabulous Destiny eat Fancy Cakes, but these delectable delicacies are nowhere to be found. Fortunately the other tradition dictates nothing more specific than going to Wegmans and buying whatever looks good. Some Wegmans employee, or at least I think he was an employee, recommended the large chocolate chip cookie cake and continued to put in his two cents after we had moved on to consider the virtues of the old fashioned double fudge cake. When we returned to the cake section jealously guarding a six pack of Magic Hat #9, this same man offered the further counsel that alcohol and chocolate do not really go together. Doubter! The Magic Hat and the cupcakes we finally settled on went very well together.



It was under the power of the magical hat and the sugar that we decided that when our fabulous destinies lead to us being old, white-haired cat ladies, we will name one of our feline friends Richard Taylor; R.T. for short. And you never know; this could happen. After all, Magic Hat reminds us that the Universe Always has Other plans. Since it also advises us to Enjoy a 9 when you Dine, which is so true, I feel confident in trusting Magic Hat bottlecaps with my future. Much more confidant than, say, this Magic 8-Ball I found in my room makes me feel:



That's what you call a real existential dilemma, when your 8-Ball can't decide between answering with gusto and not answering at all. Magic Hat, you not-quite-pale-ale, you--you've saved us!

The Well-Dressed Cat: An Essay on Style and Sensitivity

This is Rhubarb, a Well-Dressed Cat. Rhubarb’s real name is Lord Randall Smythe Marjoriebanks and the question of why he is being referred to as a vegetable is constantly perplexing to him. Perhaps this nickname, Rhubarb, has been assigned to him because of his bittersweet personality and the tendency of the fruit to wake people up at 5:07, 5:09, 5:11, 5:12, 5:19, 5:26 every single morning by jumping on their bed and meowing loudly, but he still finds it a shocking affront and hopes that if he never answers to the name, it will fall into disuse.

Lord Randall Smythe Marjoriebanks patently ignoring the photographer.



Lord Marjoriebanks never allows himself to be seen in his dressing-gown; he consistently goes about in the silk-lined tuxedo with the starched shirt, gloves, and breeches that give him such a trim appearance. He finds that this modish yet dignified clothing goes over just as well when he is hunting mice in meadows and dashing across the street in front of enormous dump trucks as when he is enjoying cocktails in the city.

Inclement weather sometimes forces Lord Randall Smythe Marjoriebanks to cancel evening plans.



His Lordship is often disappointed by the quality of service his people provide at home. Sometimes he has to use his stentorian meow for ten whole minutes before his people realize that his food dish is not completely full and cannot, thus, be eaten from. He hates it when the other cats leave evidence that they all feed from the same bowl; his mother always told him it was an ignominy to share dinnerware.

Lord Randall Smythe Marjoriebanks out of temper because of the poor presentation of his supper.



If you find that his exacting behavior and raffishly crooked jaw, a war wound which popular myth says was dealt to Lord Marjoriebanks by Napoleon, make him seem heroically formidable, you may not wish to be disillusioned by the knowledge that while he will not answer to Rhubarb, he does come to the door when he hears the sound of a fork banging on a can of cat food. Not to mention that when he is very sleepy he likes his ears to be scratched.

Lord Randall Smythe Marjoriebanks at rest.



Nevertheless, he would wish you to know that it is still true that he will creep across your sleeping body to meow in your face every morning at 5:07 and 5:09 and 5:11 and 5:12 and 5:19 and 5:26 . . . If Lord Randall Smythe Marjoriebanks is never indolent, neither should you be.

The name on everybody's lips is gonna be . . . Rosie.

Chew, Lucy! Now fluids, Lucy!

So I’ve been house- and pet-sitting for the past two and a half weeks. This is what house-sitting means: no Internet, no cable, and a very effective feline alarm clock that goes off before the sun is up. Fortunately it also means I have had a lot of time to read, write, watch BBC adaptations of classic novels, and play with many very adorable animals. I shall comment on each in turn.

I spent most of the first week reading The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon. I will forever love Michael Chabon for the speech he gave when he visited my school, in which he talked about how he was having trouble with a certain scene in one of his novels and came up with the solution when he passed a man on the street with a nosebleed. He said, “Either chance favors the prepared mind or God smacked that man on the nose.” In that case, Kavalier & Clay is 656 pages of God smiting people for the benefit of Michael Chabon. It’s every bit as great as Adam has been insisting for the past four years. Everyone should go buy it. Now.

Then I went through a phase of watching BBC adaptations of classic novels. Curiously enough, I have also met Andrew Davies, who does a lot of the BBC’s adaptations. Andrew Davies is the man responsible for the bathtub and wet-shirt scenes in Pride and Prejudice. For those of you who have never watched the miniseries, both of these scenes are completely superfluous to the plot and seem to be there solely to showcase Colin Firth’s considerable physical charm. In fact, Davies’s script originally did not include the shirt itself in the infamous wet-shirt scene, which is all the more reason to revere him. But really, Davies is a brilliant adaptor, and I can attest to this because he made Middlemarch absolutely absorbing, which not even George Elliot could do, and the fact that the combination of Jane Eyre and Timothy Dalton could not save the BBC’s production of that excellent novel only further proves that the BBC should never adapt anything without first consulting Andrew Davies. Also, they should have abstained in general from functioning in the 1980s, because the entire decade’s productions are casted horribly, acted lifelessly, and lit like a soap opera.

Then I actually did some writing, and no, I will not discuss it.

And all along I have been a dedicated animal wrangler, the most taxing part of which involves going running with Lucy every day. If I go up the road, there is absolutely no shade and both of us want to die when we get back. If I go the other way and turn left, there is a medium-sized vicious dog with whom Lucy does not appear to be friends. If I turn right, there is a bear-sized vicious dog, and if you thought this dog was behind and invisible fence, you’d be wrong about that. And whichever route I take, I come home and have to deal with the fact that the dog, who is always very hot and thirsty by this point, will not drink from her bowl unless I stand there and give her moral support.

Robin Williams has this routine about George W. Bush choking on the pretzel that nearly killed him a few years ago . . . let’s pause for a moment as we ponder that . . . So Robin Williams has this bit about how we’re spending all this money on national security and the President’s choking on snack food and he says, “What do we have to do? Does someone have to sit with him and go “Chew sir! . . . Now fluids, sir!” Well, this is roughly how I feel about Lucy since she started doing the same thing with food. The other day I had to go stand by her bowl while she ate because she’d stop if I left. I think she might be eating cat food on the sly, which would account for her being less hungry, but come on. Millions of years of evolution and the dog is such a slave to human company that she’d rather die of thirst and hunger than risk missing something.

Fortunately, those millions of years of evolution did make her irresistibly adorable. (Photo taken after second bath necessitated by dog rolling in own poo for second time.)