Monthly Archives: October 2009

Oct 28 2009

carve pumpkins, not turkeys!

Yesterday I mentioned that I rule at pumpkin carving. Today I present you with visual evidence of said ruling.

scary pumpkin

Skull pumpkin. Due to the pepper and paprika, there was much sneezing during its summoning.

 

Frankenpumpkin

Frankenpumpkin. Scary because it elicits a bit of pathos.

 

Python and pumpkin

Python and pumpkin. Sounds dirty, but isn't.

 

Python-pumpkin tableau

Python-pumpkin tableau. I like the little screaming pumpkins.

 

Zombie pumpkin

Zombie pumpkin. Not a trick of the light. It really is that pale.

Oct 27 2009

scrapper

The incomparable Lindy Loo bestowed me with the Honest Scrap award(1)

Blog Award 1

I'm grateful. Seriously.

I feel totally honored, not just because of the award, but because my blog has its first-ever comment. A productive day, outside of the bathroom anyway.(2)

Firstly, I’m supposed to thank the person who gave it to me.

So…

thanks alien

See? How's that for grateful?!

Then I’m supposed to list ten honest things about me, followed by passing this prestigious(3) award on to seven other bloggers.

So now…what you’ve been waiting for…

10 (Honest) Things you’ll Love about Me!(4)

  1. Last night I began my guerrilla recycling program. Instead of letting the city pick it up, my landlord takes care of the trash himself. So I have to drop my recycling in other people’s pick-up bins. Going from bin to bin in the dark of night with a huge garbage bag slung over my shoulder isn’t exactly incognito, but it is funny.

  2. I will do pretty much anything if it’ll make someone laugh, even if the only one laughing is me.

  3. And I LOVE really bad jokes.

  4. Despite my love of laughter, I generally find life difficult to live. I feel as though I’m not fit to live, like I’m somehow deficient of something that other people have that, for them, makes life work like a brand-new tube of toothpaste, whereas life for me is more like the end of the toothpaste tube.

  5. However, since the re-introduction of Ashley into my life, I feel much calmer, much more accepting, and much more willing to deal with life a little bit more on life’s terms.

  6. I count the number of times Ashley and I have sex. Just the other night, we hit the 100 mark. A celebration ensued.

  7. I’ve been actively trying to lose weight for the first time in my life. I use a website to track my caloric intake and my activities. So far, my most common activity is sex.

  8. I’m fanatical about hyphen-placement.

  9. I rule at carving pumpkins, largely because I have a broader definition of what counts as a pumpkin-carving tool.

  10. I’m probably a little meaner to the new kitty than I should be. I do genuinely feel bad about this, but every time he starts being mean and manipulative to the other cat, I get kinda pissed. Rather than hurting him, though, I’ve taken to locking him in the bathroom for five minutes or so. Also, I feel like a wuss putting my cat in time-out. But whatever.

Now I’m supposed to pass this on to seven other blogger, but I’m not going to.

So suck it!

  1. Which I’m totally aware is the just newest meme-like fad racing through the Blogosphere/Internet/People’s Republic of Blogistan, and I’m even further aware that I didn’t nothing to actually earn the award other than be friends with the nonpareil Lindy Loo, IRL no less.(a)
    1. a. And possibly having introduced her to my ex-girlfriend who, precedingly, awarded Lindy Loo with the Honest Scrap award.
  2. Bathroom-wise, I’ve felt all day as though I need to drop some hate in the toilet, but nothing happens when I take the throne.
  3. And-totally-not-in-any-way-bullshit.
  4. All bloggers are liars.
Oct 26 2009

this was inevitable

I was rather busy at work today, and therefore didn’t have much time to blog.  Truth be told, I didn’t even have time to think about what to blog.(1)

Thinking the day would go unblogged, I found myself wandering the street, ready and willing to do whatever I needed to get a good story. I was in the alley behind the steakhouse with a  really nice, scraggy-bearded man named Hard-Up Harry, prepared to do something story-worthy, when…enter Ashley, with a perfect post in hand.

Namely:

You cats are hip enough, I’m sure you’ve heard of the Snuggie.

snuggie

You have a Snuggie.

And a few of you have likely heard of sex.

39-SEX

You have sex.

Well, now there’s The Snuggie Sutra!

night-in-31

This was inevitable.

This website is hilarious. Though obviously fairly new, evinced but the few number of posts, the quality of entertainment promises it’ll be around for a little while.(2)

My favorite so far:

The Cuddly Puppy

cuddly-puppy-2

The man wears the Snuggie on his front and covers her.  She feels warm and cozy like Grandma’s house, but still knows who her daddy is.

So go. Check it out. Buy a Snuggie. Have some sex. The Snuggie Sutra has you covered.

  1. Believe me, I’m more upset about this than you are.
  2. ‘A while’ in internet parlance is anywhere from three days to six months. Actually time may vary.
Oct 23 2009

real quitters never quit quitting

Well, there it is. I’ve lost track of how long it’s been since I quit smoking. Maybe 3 months? Maybe 11 weeks? Can’t quite pinpoint it. Sure, I could look it up, but the point isn’t that it’s been X number of weeks. Rather, that I can’t exactly remember when I had my last cigarette other than it was around 4PM on a Friday as I left work.

It used to be that my last cigarette was never more than a few hours ago.

I’ve been rather enjoying this nicotineless existence. Most people will comment on the money I’ve saved, but smokers don’t think too much about how much their habit costs. They just think about that they need the thing that most effectively fights The Spider.(1)

No, mostly I think about how I feel, though it’s hard to pinpoint. There are a few specifics: I can breathe more easily(2), I can actually run without getting too winded(3), there are fewer headaches – the Monday Headache has disappeared – and I have more energy.(4)

Otherwise, I just generally feel cleaner. Less toxic. Less like I’m struggling to do things. Like Ty food as opposed to Chinese food.

The absolute best part, though, the thing I think will forever keep me from picking up another cigarette, is the massive improvement of my singing voice. It certainly sounds better – less raspy, less hazy – but I have so much more control now. I can hit quick runs of sixteenth notes where before I would slur through them.(5) When I hear myself sing, I like it. For the first time in my life, I like my singing voice.

This, my friends, is a happy thing.

Last week, when we were still learning what was going on with the boy, I wanted so much to have a cigarette. I could have easily bummed one from his mom or from my brother. Ashley might have been a little let down(6), but she’d have understood. But I made it through without a smoke. And what got me through was the thought that I hadn’t had even one cigarette in X weeks. Not even one. For any reason.

This was a happy thought. And I chose to keep it.

And I choose to keep it.

This, my friends, is also a happy thing.

  1. Infinite Jest reference.(a)
    1. Since these footnotes themselves are Infinite Jest reference, and since that footnote in particular is aware of itself as footnote, I suppose this blog has officially entered the realm of post-modernism. If I had champagne, I’d break it over the blog’s bow.(b)
    2. Also, of course, if the blog had a bow, which it doesn’t. So that comment was really a metaphor for the level of celebration I’d like to attain rather than a literal statement of what I would do to celebrate.
  2. Though, when for some reason I can’t breathe easily, I immediately think I need a cigarette.
  3. Source: That one time a while back when I went for a little walk and somehow found myself running for ten minutes.
  4. Ashley says it’s affected my endurance in the sack. But let’s face it: being able to go three minutes now isn’t that big of a deal.
  5. For the non-musically-inclined: imagine Britney Spears singing a quick sequence of notes, then imagine Christina Aguilera singing the same run. That’s the level of improvement I’m talking about.(a)
    1. Not that I sing as well as Christina Aguilera. Or the same way. Nor are there any other comparisons between us other than wondering what a girl wants.
  6. She frequently mentions how proud of me she is for having quit and once even said that it’s very sexy that I don’t smoke anymore. This is awesome: I can be sexy, apparently, without doing a damn thing. I’ll take it!
Oct 22 2009

the scatterings

There are the people who are just mean. Not merely mean, but subtly mean. They manipulate and cajole not in the cover of darkness but in plain daylight, while the trees rustle and traffic speeds by and mailpersons make their appointed rounds. They aren’t afraid of the light not because no one knows, but because no one believes. It isn’t that they carry out their agenda perfectly; it’s that they know how to cover their missteps. This is why no one believes. ‘No, not him,’ people say. ‘He wouldn’t do that.’ But he would. The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist. It wasn’t a trick, though. That word implies smoke and mirrors and an audience – an awareness of the illusion. This is more of a deliberate ruse, a seamless special effect. The movie goes on, and no one’s aware that you gave them popsicle sticks when they thought they had an audience.

There are the people who don’t see. Not because they are blind or dumb, but because they are giving and understanding and honest. They believe the best, not because they have to but because they don’t want it any other way or don’t know how to be any other way. They’re like infants believing all the sounds they hear are true-blue words. These people, obviously, are easy targets for the mean people. They are preyed upon again and again. They are lied to and cheated. They are cavorted. They maybe deserve passive sentences. Are they fools? Perhaps. Should they be taken advantage of? Of course not.

Then there are those who see. They see the mean people skittering in the daylight. They see the birds up their sleeves and the false bottoms of the promises. They know how the mean people do what they do because they themselves chose, years ago, not to be one of them. But they see, and they know.

What happens when each these meet?

History, human and personal, is rife with the scatterings.

Oct 21 2009

perfectly logical reasons why you should probably be an organ donor

  1. It’s the only scientifically viable way to go on living after death.(1)

    2. No bathtubs-filled-with-ice involved

    No bathtubs-filled-with-ice involved

  2. If you do become a zombie, you won’t have as much dead weight to haul around as your fellow undead. You’ll be faster, which means more brains for you!(2)

  3. You could save the lives of eight others. If you include their families, extended families and friends, it means that you can call in tons of favors in the afterlife. You’ll never again have to get up to get your own beer.

  4. Without some type of anime-inspired prosthesis, it’s the only way you’ll ever be inside eight people at once.

  5. Some transplant recipients have claimed that they have random cravings for food they’ve never even liked before. So, finally, there will be someone else on the planet who enjoys peanut-butter-and-sweet-pickle sandwiches as much as you do.

  6. Recipients also sometimes write letters of thanks to the donor’s family, and it’s always nice to get things in the mail besides bills, fliers, overdue notices and autumn leaves.(3)

  7. Also, some recipients have dreams of people they don’t know. There’s another term we use to describe the splitting of a person’s consciousness into many others: army of minions!

  8. If your consciousness does split into eight other people, imagine all the showers you’ll get to voyeur.

  9. The ruling deity of your religion will look at it as your final act of compassion. That should totally make up for that time in eighth grade when you touched yourself inappropriately.(4)

  10. It’s the only medical procedure you can get for free. Why not stick it to the man once last time?

  11. They’ll pack your organs into coolers filled with ice. And that is just sweet as hell.

  12. The recipient will have cool scars. He or she will tell others about the scars, and you’ll get to be part of a cool story.

  13. You will give the gift of life without getting knocked up or knocking someone up. Without morning sickness. Without back pain. Without leaking breasts and raging hormones. Without midnight cravings and constant uterine pressure. Without having to pee every six seconds.

  14. You will be loved by many, many people, not just because you died, but because you chose to go on living.
  1. Zombification, of course, is still on the outer fringes of modern science.
  2. Assuming, of course, you become a zombie after you’re dead.
  3. Though the leaves are nice.
  4. And that other time in eighth grade. And that other time. And that other time. And that other time. And that other time. And that other time. And that other time. And that other time. And that other time. And that other time. And that other time. And that other time. And that other time. And that other time. And that other time. And that other time. And that other time…right up until that time not long before you died.
Oct 19 2009

two lives to live

This past week has been trying. It’s kinda funny: People sometimes say “life happens” when explaining why certain event happen outside the normal order of things, when in truth it’s that life doesn’t happen.

Our lives, to a great degree, are routine, and they are so because that routine is what helps us keep going when adversity strikes.(1)

Catching up on life – on the parts of my routine that I’ve been missing – hasn’t been easy. I’ve missed a lot of work over the last two days. I’ve missed reading and band practice. I’ve missed the cats destroying the house.

I’ve also missed my online life.

I marked most of my feeds in Google Reader as read, saving the alerts I have for cystic fibrosis in the news. For these, I downloaded the Google app on my BlackBerry so I could read them at the hospital.

I’m behind on my blog reading, and especially my blog commenting. I’m behind on emails. NYTimes.com has gone without my adoring eyes. And I’ve haven’t tweeted in two whole days.

Shit, I haven’t even checked the weather.

When Ashley and I left the hospital yesterday, the boy was in good spirits. There was talk that, after his x-ray today, he’d be able to start eating solid food and soon be able to go home. I just got a call from The Moms that the x-ray suggests otherwise.

Life will have to go on holding.
And online life will have to go on unlived.(2)

  1. Why does adversity always strike? It never saunters or punches or attacks or least of all happens.
  2. Avitable put this whole thing much more succinctly than I ever could.