Speaking of Licking...

On Saturday, I discovered that Del Monte made Daniel Craig-sicles on Britain. According to The Daily Mail, the frozen treats were available from June 1 to June 7. Curses! (I am incredibly impressed at the artistry that went into the popsicles - they really look like Daniel Craig in Casino Royale!)

Anyhow, that afternoon, Husband and I went to David Farmland with Alex Elliot, her husband, and their two kids. I am as impressed by Davis Farmland as I am by the Craig-sicles. The animals were all very well-behaved (including the human ones also visiting) and I enjoyed petting goats, sheep, and calves.

One calf, in particular, really seemed to like me and would not stop licking me, including my butt as I bent down to pet another calf:





She even licked my armpit, which was more than enough for me - I finally left the calf pen. I bet that calf would also have enjoyed a Daniel Craig-sicle, though.

Blowout!

Dana went to her six week post-birth doctor appointment first thing yesterday morning, (foolishly) entrusting the care of Marcus to my mom and me. Fortunately, the little bugger slept a lot, but when he woke up, it meant it was time for a diaper change and eating. I volunteered to be on diaper doodie (heh heh) while my mom heated up the bottle of pumped breast milk.

The changing process started out well. Marcus screamed himself red in the face while I removed his diaper, but I heard him fart and kept his poopy diaper in place, thus catching the burst of crap that he forced out. As I congratulated myself, however, he peed, which went directly into his face, all over the mat on the changing table, and on the new diaper I set aside to use. Damn. I'd witnessed this before, though, so I knew to wipe him down with wet wipes. Except that he was now soaking wet, and I had nothing to towel him down with before putting on his new outfit, so I grabbed a receiving blanket. While I dabbed him dry, I realized that the changing table was wet from pee, so I wiped that with a wet wipe, and put him down, not realizing that the mat was still wet from the wipe, and making him wet all over again. I picked him up again, wiped down the mat, and as I dried Marcus again, he peed on himself and the mat. I wanted to join his screaming.

Eventually, the stars and moon aligned and I redressed the dry squirmer. We went downstairs for a bottle. We sucked down five ounces in less than 20 minutes. When I burped him, he gave me a very big belch, which made my mom and I grin. We put him in his bouncy chair and watched him while we ate breakfast.

I was almost finished with my eggs when Marcus began crying again. As I lifted him out of his bouncy chair, I noticed a yellow stain near the back of his thigh. Shit! A blowout! (When my friend Dianne's daughter was a month old, I witnessed this horrible phenomena: baby makes a crap so big that it blows out of the diaper up the baby's back.) Back to the changing table, this time with my mom to help.

More peeing, screaming (Marcus, not my mom and I), drying, and re-diapering ensued. By the time Dana returned, Marcus was cozy, clean, and sleeping. Go us! I don't know how anyone does this job full-time.

I Had a Really Nice Dream Last Night...

Two days ago, I discovered a package in the mail from my pal Mara, who has the good fortune to live in London. She sent me a tea towel* from Emma Bridgewater:



When I showed it to Husband at night, he made his squinty eye, pursed lips face. It was very cute. The next day, he sent her an email objecting to her gift:

Thank you for the thoughtful gift of a dish towel, but I am afraid we cannot accept it. Although Daniel Craig brilliantly portrays militant Jews in motion pictures (three times by last count), he has insufficient acting credentials to be worthy of a prominent place in our home. While it pains me to reject high quality household goods from Europe, I cannot see how I can put anything in my kitchen that references an actor whose principal roles included casting in such notable films as "Lara Croft: Tomb Raider" and "The Golden Compass". Rest assured, we would proudly display a towel if made reference to one of Mr. Craig's more respectable British peers, such as Robbie Coltrane or Robert Carlyle. Thanks again, but please be considerate of good taste when purchasing presents for us in the future.

What's truly hilarious is I had a really nice dream that night about... Matt Damon. Man, I just love him from the Bourne series. Then, yesterday, I was flipping through the channels while I waited for Husband to get home from work. Casino Royale was on USA! O, be still my beating heart!

Of course, when you are lucky to have a husband as witty as mine, who needs Matt Damon or Daniel Craig?

*If anyone knows what that is, please let me know - I use it to wipe my hands in the kitchen, which seems to work well.

Tea Bagging

The phone rang. I picked it up.

"Hello?"

"Did you know," a recorded voice intoned, "that Americans across the country are hosting tea parties to protest high taxes?"

Click.

Damn. I've been tea bagged! I feel so gross.

Up (and Back Down)

The new Pixar film Up garnered solid reviews, so when my friend asked if I wanted to catch the flick yesterday, I agreed, even though the theater charged an extra $3 for the fucking 3D glasses. (This is on top of the $1 internet ticket purchase charge, bring the total to $16.50! Man, no free fucking cheesecake here...)

Since every review I read mentioned the four minute silent montage that captures the cycle of a loving marriage made the reviewer cry, I knew that I would cry my eyes out. Two different points turned on my eyeball waterworks, and a third prompted my ducts to get wet. Plus, there were several moments of such hilarious hijinx involving talking dogs, that I practically sobbed with laughter.

All in all, an excellent movie. Perhaps not worth $16.50, but certainly I do not regret shelling out Husband's hard earned cash for it. (He enjoyed it as well, but definitely felt it not worth even the regular $12.50 admission, although he also believes that no movie is worth so much moolah. "Up is going to be a classic," he said. "It was very well constructed.") Although the 3D glasses package specifically says not to wear the glasses as sunglasses (the diagram indicates that a ray from the sun will penetrate one's brain while wearing the glasses), I planned to do so anyway until I realized that all my salt water left spots on the lenses. Foiled again!

Free Cheesecake!

"Shavuot* starts tonight," my friend Sara reminded me in an email on Thursday afternoon. "The JCC has a free, all night program (and free cheesecake**) so I'll probably be there for a good chunk of the night/early morning."

"Free cheesecake?!?!" I emailed back. "I am SO there!"

"What about the rest of the schedule? There are at least two programs that you would like, I bet: one on Hannah Arendt and Lucy Dawidowicz, and one on similarities between gospel music and the melodies of traditional Jewish prayers."

"Yeah, those sound good."

I looked up the official event schedule, which ran from 10 pm to 5 am, in accordance with an ancient practice in which people stay up all night at a tikkun (study session). The two sessions Sara proposed ran until 12:15. At 12:30, there were two movies I wanted to see, and a session on "Laughter Yoga." Following that, I was interested in the Alexander Technique workshop. This assumed that I could stay awake that long (which I ultimately decided I could not).

Anyway, I given that this was a free event serving free cheesecake, I should have known that the place would be packed. The line to get into the JCC snaked around the corner when I arrived at 9:50. This made me laugh a lot.

Once I got in, I made a beeline for the food table, only to find it empty. At least Sara happened to be standing there. She explained that the cheesecake would not be broken out until 11:00. My stomach rumbled. (This could have been due to the hunger brought on by the idea of free food or an ominous warning, given what I ate over the course of the rest of the day, to let the free cheesecake go or else.)

Sara and I went to the serious session on Arendt, Dawidowicz, "New York Intellectuals," Yiddish culture, Holocaust interpretation, and everything else under the sun. 40 out of the 60 minutes of the session were fascinating, so I thought that was good. Then it was time for cheesecake. I valiantly fought my way to the tables and grabbed slices for both of us, losing Sara in the process.

We met up again at the gospel session. It was taught by this half-Jewish, half-African American, all awesome woman. Her voice was incredible. When she sang "Wade in the Water" and "Eyes on the Prize," I felt every hair on my arms rise to attention. Unfortunately, she concluded with a group sing-a-long, and I am tone deaf. Still, it was cool singing a spiritual in the JCC, and lots of fun overall.

Now, I make good on my promise to go to bed. As they say, hag sameach!*** May a free cheesecake come your way today.

*Shavuot is holiday celebrating the revelation of the Torah to Moses at Mt. Sinai.
**Basically, no one was kosher before Moses got the laws, so when he came back down, no one could cook meat in their pans because the pans weren't yet made kosher since no kosher law existed until then. So everyone ate dairy products until they got their pans blessed or whatever it is that was required. Hence the cheesecake.
***Happy holiday!

Doody by the Pound

Whenever I am distressed, I give in to my cravings for sweet and fatty food. Throw in the recent holiday weekend, and the recipe is for overeating disaster. My problem is that eating so poorly tends to make my digestive tract explode. This is uncomfortable and smelly.

After a particularly fetid incident late Monday night, I crawled into bed and told Husband that I just evacuated pounds and pounds of poo.

"Doody by the pound?" he giggled. "That's gross. Especially because when you get it by the pound, the store wraps it up in wax paper and writes what it is on the outside, and everyone in the store knows what you have. It's so embarrassing!"

Damn, I love this man.

Free Hot Dogs

On Sunday, the City of New York shut down traffic in Times Square and created a pedestrian and bike zone. Normally, I hate Times Square (too much traffic of all three kinds) and avoid it at all costs, but Husband and I were curious to see what it was like without motor vehicles, and the weather was gorgeous, so we strolled down to check it out.

Cars and trucks or no cars and trucks, Times Square is a nightmare on a holiday weekend. As we wove our way through the crowds, I noticed a lot of people munching on hot dogs. Eventually, we stumbled upon a man stood on a corner, waiving an aluminum pan in the air, yelling, "Free hot dog! Get your free hot dog!" Hebrew National had set up a slew of tables and served up the foil wrapped dogs. As I watched people eat the juicy wieners nestled appealingly in fluffy buns, my mouth watered.

"You know, 15 years ago, if someone tried to slip me a free hot dog in Times Square, it would've meant something completely different," I told Husband.

Sexual Eating

Lately, I can't keep my hands off the tasty treats, thanks to emotional eating. However, it seems that Mars candy company thinks that women eat chocolate to satisfy sexual urges. Their first new product in 20 years is called the Fling, and it is described as a slim chocolate finger that brings guilt-free pleasure to the ladies.

I compare the Fling to Nestle's Yorkie and Cadbury's Mr. Big over at BlogHer. While many temptations cause my "mouth" to "water," not all satisfy my "hunger" equally.

School Dance Dream

The buzzing alarm clock cut through the picture unfolding in my head. It interrupted my ascent up a grand staircase dressed in a green knee length silk dress and matching bolero jacket and black satin shoes with chunky two inch heels. The dance was just about to begin.

In only the way a dream can unfold, my friends (I think from New School, but also from my previous graduate program at Columbia) and I were excited for our graduation dance. We spent hours picking out dresses, putting on make-up, and styling our hair. When we got to the dance, I immediately saw my ex-boyfriend from when I was 16. I worried that he would think I was following him, and somehow lost the group of giggling ladies who I accompanied.

Attempting to go in another direction, I headed up the stairs. At that moment, Mayor Bloomberg swept down with his entourage, ready to open the ceremony. It occurred to me that Mayor Bloomberg looked like my ex-boyfriend's unemployed, alcoholic father: short and overconfident. That's when the alarm ended it it all.

Usually I have no idea what sparks my crazy dreams, but I'm pretty sure this one came from two sources. The weather was perfect last night for a long stroll, so I walked home from school. That led me through Times Square, where I saw several groups of high school kids departing from proms in fancy gowns and tuxes. School dance: check. Then when I arrived home, I read an article about how Bloomberg is once again buying an election for himself (last election, he outspent his opponent by 10 to 1), not only through campaign ads, but also by buying off the best Democratic consultants through hiring them to run his campaign. Mayor Bloomberg: check. The ex-boyfriend tends to show up in my dreams when I'm upset about something in general, so that explains that.

The dream, though, made me miss the good old days. I would love to gather up my friends, get dressed up, and go to a school dance. How fun would that be?

No Cush for the Bush?

Sometimes a topic so ripe for mockery just falls into my bushy lap. Yesterday, I stopped rocking back and forth, uncurled myself from the fetal position, and wrote one of the best posts I've cranked out in a while on BlogHer about a product known as "The Cuchini." God help me...

As part of the post, I decided to run a contest:

Granted, I would not want everyone and their pervert uncles seeing my cooter silhouette, either. Of course, my solution is not to wear absurdly tight short shorts. This also helps avoid the dreaded "crotch rot." (Man, I can't wait until someone invents an anti-crotch rot product. I challenge readers to come up with a name for that, and I promise $10 to the best one. Seriously! Leave a comment with your anti-crotch rot product name...)

I am really excited about this contest! I'm sure we can develop something really exciting, and then we'll be rich!

Poked by the Doody Finger of Fretfulness

My adorable little alien nephew* finally proved that he is a member of our family when he took his third extremely nasty shit. (Fortunately, I missed Nasty Shit #2, and as I reported yesterday, was peed on during Nasty Shit #1.) As I helped clean up the squirmy, screaming kid, doody got on one of my fingers. I knew that I loved the goober because I didn't mind at all that he managed to smear poo on me; I found it oddly endearing.

Other than Marcus's arrival in the world, things have been extra special stressful lately. I feel like the Doody Finger of Fretfulness poked me in the eye. Seriously, my right eye is punishing me for something. It is super allergy angry, and my contact gets blurry and dry at the same time. My glasses are very nice, but the last time I had the prescription updated was 1999 since I just wear them around the house at night, so I don't see so well out of them, either.

Our bathroom is still not fucking fixed. The person from the management company neglected to respond to my last email about what the status is. Things are going on in my professional life that keep me awake at night with anxiety. (Worse, the anxiety leads me to pick my cuticles, which then got baby doody on them...) School, which I love right now, is ending in three weeks.

I guess things could always be worse - the Doody Finger of Fretfulness could have poked me in both eyes...

*I swear, photos to come. I need to be sleeping now but am waiting for some stupid USB port to format, so I thought I'd blog a bit, but can't find the camera.

The Vagina Visor: Protect Your Inner Vulva Today!

Many thanks to frogger for directing me to Va j-j Visor:
My life was seriously lacking without this valuable piece of plastic, which is designed to "protect all of those tender and sensitive parts that you don't want exposed during various methods of hair removal." Or naked tanning. Or pubic hair dying. Not only is the plastic cup stylish and eco-friendly ("your body's natural muscular tension holds it effortlessly in place.* It is also hypoallergenic, disposable and recyclable."), but it's doctor recommended! Er, sort of:

A well-respected gynecologist in Tacoma, Washington assisted us in the development of the Va j-j Visor. He answered pertinent questions, gave expert input and opinions, and found that the Va j-j Visor offered a great fit and would help in protecting the inner vulva area during its various uses.

I love when the people who help develop a product don't share their names because perhaps they might be a little less "well-respected" as a result.

Anyway, I don't know how I've managed to go on all these years without a special vagina visor, but please, do not use the Va jj Visor to try on bathing suits without underwear, as the website touts as a potential use for this versatile product. Your delicate flower and its potential seeping nectar may be covered, I still don't want your naked ass all over something that I am potentially going to purchase.

Dear fellow humans, why must you vex me so with your creativity?

*"To create a more powerful seal, spread personal lubricant around the upper inside of the Va j-j Visor. Saliva can also be used in what we like to call the 'lick it and stick it' method."

Meet Maurice

Advances in brain scanning photography are so sophisticated, that an image of Maurice recently became available:


Maurice is, of course, the hamster who runs on the wheel that powers my brain. This picture of him hard at work clarified many things for me. First, I noticed that my brain hamster is incredibly furry. I assume that he sheds a lot, which may explain the fogginess that I often experience. With all that fur flying, who can think straight? The fluff is also probably why I have so many sinus problems. And forget the wood chips...

Still, I am impressed by Maurice's dedication to keeping the wheel spinning for 16 hours or more a day. He is a very hard little worker. Unfortunately, I have been rewarding him with treats rather often these days. Today we had a rocky road brownie as a bonus for making it through a torturous legislative hearing, plus a Berger's Cookie after dinner. All of this is not good for Zena, Shetland pony that turns the wheel that powers my digestive system. Oh well.

Pictures from the Beaver Cam (aka My Blackberry)

As mentioned on Friday, I attended a conference at which Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke delivered the key note address. Although I was distracting from large portions of his speech by his security guard, who stood in the corner chomping gum in a way that made his '70s-style mustache fly up and down and mesmerized me, I followed the lead of my fellow conference attendees and tried to photograph Bernanke with my Blackberry. This blurry shot of his chest is the best I got:

If you squint, you can make out the podium, behind which is Bernanke's white shirt and blue tie.) None of my photos of the security guard came out at all, making me worry that I hallucinated his great 'stache.

After the conference, I had a terrible meeting on Capitol Hill. Then I stopped into the Postal Museum, which is run by the Smithsonian. It was awesome. I love mail. My Blackberry worked very well when I wanted to take a picture of what must be the coolest mailbox ever:


At the end of the day, Maria and I went to the National Zoo to see the beaver pond. This big, bushy beaver spread itself out on a rock for all to ogle, turning my Blackberry into a beaver cam:

The zoo also has a video camera pointed inside the beaver dam for live beaver action. I could not stop cracking up.

The rest of the weekend was delightful. This week is likely to be the exact opposite, with too much going on for the third or fourth week in a row. I'll try and focus on the beaver cam to get through it.

On the Hill, or A Pig on a Hog on a Pork Barrel

As I trudged up the gently sloping incline with my 8 ton backpack, I remembered why the Capitol is called the Hill. It's been a long time since I did policy advocacy in DC.

Upon my arrival for a meeting with a Congressperson's staff member, I was informed that a fire drill was scheduled in a few minutes. I took out my little backpack, and left my ginormous backpack in their office so I wouldn't need to schlep it through security again. Then I evacuated with the staff, and had an amazing hour long meeting in the parking lot on C Street.

As we mobilized to re-enter the building, I shifted my bacpack. A white disc caught my eye. Shit! I violated rule #1 of advocacy with elected officials: do not wear offensive political buttons to meetings, even with friendly ones. Attached to my backpack, my button read, "Mommy says Republican is another word for motherfucker."

Ooops. Anyway, I promised Midwestern Tom that I would post pictures from any travels. While this is a quick trip for work, I did snap a shot of a buff cop sitting on his motorcycle on the steps of the Capitol (a pig on a hog on a pork barrel! Ha!):

Easter in the Embroidery Capital of the World

This afternoon, Husband and I joined some lovely friends from my writing program for Easter brunch at another friend's apartment in New Jersey. Everything was delicious, and of course, I ate too much. In particular, I loved the biscuits that one woman made.

"Hey Sara, how'd you get your biscuits to be so sweet?" I asked her, then laughed maniacally in my head because, thanks to my granny, I can't say the word biscuit with a straight face. Granny's euphemism for the vaginal area was butter biscuit. So, for example, when I was a wee lass and went to the bathroom, she'd ask me if I wiped my butter biscuit before I got off the toilet. Oy. (For the record, the brunch biscuits were made with honey butter. Mmmmm...)

We departed from the brunch festivities a bit early to go to Ikea. Our living room has been deprived of a couch since Tuesday, which is the only night residents in our building are allowed to dispose of furniture. For $150, Husband and I picked up a cute little couch that flips out into a bed for overnight guests. We had to fight the crowds of Southeast Asians, Asians, and Hasidic Jews to check out. (I swear I saw my super a few check out lanes over, but that's another story.) Now I know who shops at Ikea on Easter Sunday.

Sofa safely tucked into the hatchback of Fred the Red, our PT Cruiser, Husband and I headed back home from Jersey via the Lincoln Tunnel. As we passed under a bridge, I saw one of my favorite signs: "Welcome to North New Jersey, Embroidery Capital of the World Since 1872." Something to brag about, indeed.

Hope that everyone is having a Happy Resurrection Day!

Pass (It) Over

In the spirit of Passover, which begins tonight at sundown, I want to share my friend Kay's grandfather's story. Many years ago, my friend Kay's grandfather sought liberation from the winters of New Jersey. Fortunately, unlike our forefamilies in Egypt, he did not need permission of the governor of New Jersey before he could leave. This also made it easier to sell his house, as he did not need to smear lamb's blood around the door frame so that the Angel of Death would pass over.

Kay's grandparents packed up their belongings. They loaded their mule (a hired moving truck from a large national company), and headed to the Promised Land (aka Florida). In significantly less than 40 years, they settled into their new home. The mule/moving truck, however, was no where to be located.

Kay's grandpa went into the local office of the moving company. "Where's my stuff?" he asked.

"We need several thousand more dollars before we can let your stuff go," the extortionist answered.

Kay's grandpa went home. He didn't have time to ask God to unleash ten plagues upon the moving company, so he picked up his gun and returned to the office.

"I'm old and have nothing to loose," he said and pointed the weapon at the youthful Pharaoh at the desk. "If that is not the same for you, let my stuff go."

And lo, his belongings were liberated and in his home the next day.

Bubby-isms

On a crowded bus yesterday, I sat in the seat behind my mom. She repeatedly turned around to talk to me, annoying the woman sitting next to her. Once the bus emptied out a bit, we were able to get seats together.

"That woman sitting next me gave me a dirty look every time I turned to talk to you," my mom said.

"Yeah? Well, she can kiss my ass. If it was such a big deal, she could have offered to switch seats with me so we could sit together."

Mom giggled. "You know what Bubbe always says? 'You can kiss my ass on a Sunday morning.' Know what that means?"

"No, what?"

"Well, a lot of very religious Orthodox Jews don't use toilet paper on Saturdays..."

Ha ha ha ha! That Bubbe of mine! What a bad person. Although, I point out, the insult would be even more potent if it was, "Kiss my ass on Saturday at sundown," as that is when the Sabbath technically ends and people can go about their normal routines.

Either way, a few hours later, we came across this bunny cookie in the window of a bakery:

With the dab of chocolate over his mouth, he sort of looks like he took Bubbe's retort to heart.

Welcome to the Family!

Husband is back home from his business jaunt to Europe, and look what the cat dragged in:

(Also, he brought back two Mars bars, of which I already devoured one.) I am so proud of him for liberating the bear from his servitude as a hotel pimp! Theo is a little jealous, but like any older sibling, he will get used to the new addition.

Speaking of new family members, I offer a hearty mazel tov to my friends Rachel and Jenny and welcome their twins to the world! I am very excited for them.

Now I'm just waiting for my mom to arrive. Due to nasty rain, her flight was delayed by over an hour. I'm sure she'll be exhausted when she finally stumbles through my door. We'll just sleep in tomorrow morning. Hopefully, Tycho will behave his furry rabbit ass and not make a racket in his litter box so that she can sleep.

True Age

According to one of those online "true age" quizzes, I am 28. (Or maybe it said 29 - I can't remember, which is a sign of how accurate the quiz is, isn't it?) My "true age" was determined through a series of questions about my height, weight, some moderate exercises, lifestyle (smoking, drinking, drugging), and a few actual health-related questions about asthma and family history with diabetes and hypertension. Since I am the most boring person on the planet, the lifestyle questions clearly brought my age down.

Perhaps a more reliable true age quiz would ask whether anxiety caused me to peel the flesh off my cuticles, if I had mysterious ailments, and at what age I was told to wear reading glasses with my contacts. Because that last question's answer? Would be 33 year old. Yep. The eye doctor told me yesterday that my eyeballs were straining to focus and I should wear reading glasses in the afternoons.

My plan is to get the crotchitiest, most elderly looking pair I can find at the pharmacy, then partner them with some hideous chain. Then it will be obvious that my true age is 77. Gah. At least March 2009 will finally end in about 28 minutes.

Husband's Robed Weekend Companion

On Wednesday, Husband departed for a week long business trip to Europe. He was in Madrid until this afternoon, in London this weekend, and in Milan on Tuesday. It seems that the hotel that he is staying at in London was worried that he would be lonely by himself over the weekend, and arranged for a companion dressed only in a bathrobe to meet him in his room:



Seriously, this was how he found the room when he stepped across the threshold.

Husband was amused. I worried who else this companion may have shared a bed with before he arrived. Was it a free gift for all guests, or just Husband's to bring back after their weekend snuggle? Husband said there was no price, and the mini bar list included Orangina, but not a teddy. This made me feel a bit better. There is nothing sadder than a hotel pimping teddy bears out to lonely business travelers.

There's a Sea Monster in My Sink! Eeeeek!

Husband and I went shopping for new fixtures for our bathroom today, and I had to share this:



(Apologies for the poor quality of the picture.) This is a sea monster sink. On one hand, it is the coolest sink ever. I cannot stop laughing. On the other hand, seriously - it is a faucet shaped like a giant fish with little critter handles. People pay money for this not as a joke? I mean, I would totally love this sink, but only so I could tell guests to use my sea monster sink because it would be so hilarious, and because I love sea monsters, as one of my first blog posts attested. But seriously!

Blockhead? No...

Ah, Husband! How I adore him!



This is the top of the puzzle clock that I bought us as a first anniversary gift. (It's the paper anniversary.) After 7.5 years and one move, it finally needed to be rebuilt. Husband was not so helpful in this task... OK, that is not entirely true. Once he stopped goofing around, we finished it together. I present: the puzzle clock:



Also, the photo has a nice view of my apartment. If we ever move, I will suggest the realtor stand in that corner for a nice overview shot.

(And, on an unrelated topic, may I say how delighted I am that it is Friday? Only one more full week in this wretched month!)

I'm Not that Senile Yet (I Hope)

I sat slack in my chair, staring blankly at the computer screen, when Husband walked into the living room.

"I forgot what I was doing," I told him, not that he asked.

"You were making a doody," he nodded.

"Do you think that its a good idea to encourage me like that?"

"Right. I forgot who I was talking to."

Craftiness

Craft shops are my shopping weakness. It's impossible for me to walk out of an art/craft supply store without at least one thing for which I have almost no use. My apartment is littered with cute rubber stamps, cross-stitch supplies (canvas, thread, needles, patterns), cray-pas, and tubes of acrylic paint. I want to make things from these supplies, but need another two hours a day if I am to do so.

My ultimate craft supply impulse purchase, though, is googly eyes. However, unlike the other materials that create clutter in my cramped quarters, googly eyes are at least useful. One never knows when a sudden need for googly eyes will arise!

A few years ago, I won an enormous dildo in a raffle at a Planned Parenthood fundraiser. When I arrived home, I placed it on the bookcase next to our computer. The next day I was out and about, but Husband used the computer all day. Upon my return, I noticed something odd about my new sake penis. Husband explained that it was making him uncomfortable to be stared at with only one eye, so he reached into my googly eye drawer, extracted two googly eyes, and taped them on the dildo.* It was hilarious. Once again, googly eyes save the day!

*I posted photos of this, but I am craftily blogging from work, so I don't think I can look up the post to link to it.

Reason #27,294 Why I Love New York

This is the first thing I saw when I left my building this morning:



Thanks to the anonymous mini snowman builder, I will smile all day.

Satan Comes In Many Guises

Just as I prepared to hit the sheets last night, I noticed a message in a Facebook thread mentioning that so-and-so was not planning to hang out after class on Wednesday night because her class was canceled. Incidentally, her class is my class (let's sing it together, "This class was made for you and me..."), and I didn't know bupkes* about class being canceled. I spent the next hour or so clenching and unclenching my fists while inhaling and exhaling deeply. Long story short, this is the second class (out of two classes) where the administrators of the program don't have me on the list.

My tuition is $22,000 and change. I take a whopping two classes per week, and attend some literature readings and weekend seminars. For all that money, I expect that people could make some fucking effort to figure out who is in what classes. Since this is obviously not the case, I decided to attempt to transfer to another school in city that shall remain nameless but costs 1/4 of the price. Last week, a woman who blogs about how God dictated her stories to her and she writes for the glory of Jesus received a phone call admitting her to the program that my tax dollars support. I did not. (Fists clenching and unclenching, deep breath in, deep breath out...) No, I'm not bitter at all.

Once again, I had a restless night and on my way to the subway this morning I passed by a group of people tempting me with forbidden apples, if it is possible that the plaza in front of the 72nd St. subway station is Eden. Yes, that's right: they were giving out granola bars. Along with propaganda about the seven deadly sins. (Motto: "They may be deadly... but they sure are fun.") My cravings for granola bars are somewhat less this week than last, but still bad. Fucking religious nuts, screwing with me everywhere, I swear!!!

I took a granola bar. I decided that I would not eat it, but save it in my desk at work just in case I ever got snowed in or something and needed sustenance. (I also have a large bar of Jacques Torres milk chocolate, distributed by the landlord of the building for Valentine's Day, stashed in my drawer. And an insulated container of 2% milk, the kind from Horzion that doesn't require refrigeration. It's almost enough to make me hope I get snowed in so I can chow down, but I digress.) Really, I took it because it was free, and I hate turning away free things. Also, I wanted to waste the crazy church's money. However, I am not so evil that I took two. God didn't give me that story to write.

Sigh.

*Yiddish: shit

Names Changed to Protect the Formerly Young and Stupid

(With name changes, you know this will be a good one.) Facebook notified me that I received a message from Bob Gold. The subject read, "from someone long ago." "What? Who the fuck is that?" I wondered. This was not long after a girl with whom I had a Mean Girls-style friendship (I was the loser mean girl in the relationship, and the guilt has plagued me for years now) sent me a message on Facebook, so I was extra curious to see who else was crawling out of the woodwork.

Here's the message, typos included:

i couldn't help the thought of seeing if you remembered me and to see how your life has been.

i'll take you back in time and see if you can piece it together if the name hasn't struck your memory already ... was 1988/89-ish ...

Nope, still no clue as to who the hell this is. I read on:

Rachel, David, phone dating, bad breakup over the phone, a small mylar baloon broken into a bunch of pieces and sent back via envelope.

Oh my God! I totally know who this dude is. (If he hadn't referenced my friend Rachel and the other guy, though, I have to admit I would still not have the foggiest concept of who this person was.) This was when I was in 7th grade, and Bob and I were chatting on the phone a lot. I was supposed to go to a movie with him, but I backed out the night before. At the time, I freaked out for what seemed like no reason, but wizened 33 year old Suzanne knows that I was totally not ready to go on a date at the age of 12 or 13.

The mylar balloon, though? Zero recollection, although I laugh like a hyena every time I read that. Did I give him a balloon and he sent it to me to avenge his broken heart? I vaguely recollect receiving an envelope with a chopped up balloon in it, but I think that is due to the power of suggestion. It is equally likely that Bob gave me a balloon and, in a fit of pique, I chopped it up and sent it to him. I was totally dramatic like that. Oh, the hilarity of adolescent angst!

Anyway, the rest of the message was the usual, how are you, let's chat, blah blah blah. I messaged him back, but haven't heard anything yet. My lame little storied past is so amusing to recount. Not so much to live through at the time, but worth a good smile these days.

Late Tribute to John Updike

Rabbit at Rest

I'm so fucking literary and shit...

If I Don't Laugh...

This is the disturbing yet hilarious card that Husband gave me for Valentine's Day (click on it to make it bigger, which I do not mean as a come on):



Inside it says, "There will be magic."

The card both impresses me and makes me want to take a shower to wash away the ookiness. Sort of like yesterday. It was just a shitty, crappy day, so I couldn't sleep, so I read something online which further upset me, so I couldn't sleep.

Then I remembered that laughter is the best medicine, which made me want to slap whoever said that, although it is so true. I chuckled over message Husband wrote in the card ("I briefly debated whether to purchase this card or purchase a top hat and recreate the scene with Tycho. For the sake of keeping magical rabbit turds out of our bed, I went for the card.") The near hysteria that gripped me reminded me how lucky I am to have Husband, and the horrid feeling of being trapped and unable to extract myself from multiple situations that I willingly entered dissipated and I went to bed, reassured. (Sorry for the sappy ending.)

What? Who Am I and How Did I Get Here?

My future is grim. Case in point: this morning I arrived at a doctor's appointment with a coat, scarf, hat, mittens, backpack, and bottle of water. Before leaving the exam room, I put on my coat and scarf, then attempted to grab my hat and mittens, but they were nowhere to be found.

"Shit, I hope they are in the waiting room," I muttered to myself. Then I headed over to check out. After paying, I ducked back into the lobby and sure enough, my hat and mittens were on the chair I used. Fine. I put them on and left for work.

As I walked to the subway, I noticed that my throat was dry. "Damn, I wish I had a drink," I thought. And that's when I realized that I left my water bottle in the bathroom at the doctor's office. Sigh.

I am only 33 and senile already. It's amazing that I remember the password to my blogging account. (I guess my brain knows what's really important.) I'm so fucked.

Turkey in the Pants

As per the heeelarious Shonda's request, here is evidence of my fear that I will be stopped at a grocery store for attempting to shoplift a turkey by stuffing it down the front of my pants:

Please keep in mind that I was even wearing a girdle when I snapped this fine self-portrait (yes, I resorted to Assets, a Spanx spin-off undergarment that I bought at Target for $10 hoping for miracles), so it generally looks a bit bulkier. Also, I do not think that I look like I am shoplifting a turkey in my pants when I wearing jeans. There is just something extra unflattering about "work" pants. Ugh.

Incidentally, the title of this post reminds me of a song that my sister and I listened to when we jumped on my bed pretending that we were gymnastics teachers, "Turkey in the Straw." The song was on the awesome Goin' Quackers album, featuring Donald Duck. It also had classics like "I'm in Love with the Big Blue Frog" and "Throw It Out the Window."

For the record (heh heh), we preferred "Disco Mickey Mouse" when we did bad things like jump on the bed. (The title track was excellently paced, as was "Watch Out for Goofy," a song warning women that he would dance on their feet.) I think "Sesame Street Fever" came in third. Damn, you gotta love the early '80s for bringing disco to kids.

Adventure at the Pharmacy

Wednesday night (really, Thursday morning as it was after midnight), I left the 24 hour walk-in clinic, clinging to a prescription for an antibiotic in my gloved hand as the cold wind whipped around me. The doctor at the clinic had guided me to a 24 hour pharmacy that was an avenue west and a block north of the clinic. (Gotta love New York City!) As I walked over, I prayed that the wait would not be too long.

At the pharmacy, it took me a few minutes to get the pharmacist's attention. He told me that he was finishing a prescription for some other people, so it would be about 25 minutes. Said other people were waiting on the only two chairs available, so I plopped myself down on the floor in front of a display of reading glasses.

Not only was I exhausted, but I was also a little bit hungry. I didn't finish the tuna sandwich I had purchased for dinner, so I pulled the remaining half out of my bag and chowed down. It's been taking me an extra long time to eat because I am so stuffed up that I cannot chew and breathe at the same time. As I gasped between bites, it occurred to me that I looked like a deranged homeless person. I was wearing my hat, hood, and scarf, sitting on the floor of a CVS in the middle of the night,snot dripping down my face, coughing, eating a tuna sandwich as if everyone eats tuna sandwiches on the floor of CVS at 12:30 AM.

Fortunately, no one said anything to me about it, and the couple waiting for their prescription moved away from the chairs after a few minutes so he could verbally abuse her without me witnessing it, but that's another story. Man, that was one crazy night.

It's Me or Them

Yesterday I woke up on the verge of tears. Although I had not slept well over the course of the night (repeatedly woke up coughing, to blow nose, or with parched mouth and throat), I still was unconscious enough to dream vividly. In my dream, I had stayed home from work that day and was sick and lonely. (Not so unrealistic.) When Husband arrived home from work, I said something about watching TV together or whatever.

"Oh no," he replied. "I'm going out tonight."

"What? Please stay home with me. I'm sick! And lonely! (I'm paraphrasing here.)

"Not a chance. I have tickets to see the Harlem Globe Trotters! I've been looking forward to it for weeks!"

"No, please don't go." The water works were starting.

"It's the Harlem Globe Trotters! No way I'm missing this. Good luck!" he said as he took off.

Antibiotics lead to weird dreams.

Buy Stock in Kleenex (or Puffs - Whatever)

The small mound of flesh between my upper lip and the bottom of my nose is raw and red. I work near the American Stock Exchange, and I think if the economy weren't so bad, people would assume I'm a cokehead as I walk to and from work. Or do coke addicts not have red streaks coming out of their noses? (I only know one coke fiend, and I always forget that she is a cokehead because she looks so normal and I like her a lot, but I digress...)

If I'm not mistaken for an avid consumer of white powder, the other alternative is a victim of advanced stage syphilis. OK, I don't know anyone with this condition either, but I have read that it can lead to the suffer's nose rotting off. Parts of my nose look like they could slough off my face at any moment. The irritation is so bad that regular lotion or moisturizer does nothing; I smear Vaseline on my face. The shininess does not help the overall appearance.

The good news is that although I look like a coke addled syphilitic person who shoplifted a Butterball turkey by shoving it down the front of my pants,* I believe that the end if in sight. Only a few more nights of the toxic shot of NyQuil, and I'm on my way back to whatever passes for normal for me. At any rate, I've probably used 400,000 Kleenexes throughout this week-plus ailment, so I'm thinking that a decent investment these days is in soft tissue products. At this point, anything not soft is like rubbing sandpaper on my face, and I figure that all the zillions of other people who are sick right now are coughing up (heh heh) to buy the good stuff.

*This has nothing to do with being ill, and everything to do with looking bad in the nice work pants I am forced to wear to work every day. Oh flattering jeans! How I miss thee!

Special Anonymous Guest Post & Photo

We have been having a very bad, awful week at work. My co-worker and I were glumly walking out to lunch when we both saw this chair, which had been pushed under a counter, probably to hide what was on the seat.



We both looked down and saw the chair simultaneously, then looked up at each other and cracked up. It was that kind of junior high school laughing where you just can't stop. We ran down the stairs, howling.

"Oh, we thought we had it bad," I said.

"Yeah, but that is proof that it can always get worse," he said. "I mean, no matter how bad it gets, now I can always say, "Well, at least I didn't shit myself at work today."

Thanks to my anonymous guest blogger and photographer for sharing!

Sickness Leads to Accusations of Shoplifting

So, other than the facts that my cough is hurting my throat and my constant nose blowing has helped remove the skin around my schnozz and mouth, the worst thing about this little bout with a cold/the flu is that I can't go to the gym. While I was at Alex's house last weekend, her Wii Fit assured me that I was a normal weight (BMI = 24.1), but suggested that maybe I want to get it down to 22.

That sounds about right to me. I look fine in jeans (Lucky Brand jeans are amazingly flattering on me), but damn, when I get dressed for work in dress pants, I could be mistaken for a 6 month pregnant woman. It's to the point where I don't want to go to the grocery store while dressed for work lest I be accused of shoplifting, as I seriously appear to have stuffed a Butterball turkey down the front of my pants.

The ailment has only moderately curbed my appetite, although fortunately the explosive digestive experience I had on Wednesday has not recurred. (I really can't understand why anyone would risk that scary diet pill - Alli - that makes you shit yourself if you eat more than 15 grams of fat in one sitting.) Anyway, enough bellyaching. I need a nap. (And, seriously? Where did January go?!?!)

Pneumonia Ice Cream

"How are you?" my dad asked me when I spoke to him on the phone earlier.

"Ugh, I'm sick again," I said, coughing and sputtering.

"Oh, do you have a cold?"

"Probably, but my lungs hurt when I cough, and my boss has bronchitis, so who knows?"

"What?" I pictured my dad anxiously running his hand through his thinning hair. "It hurts when you cough? You could have pneumonia! Go see a doctor right away for a chest x-ray!"

This is the type of response I'd expect from my mom (who, incidentally, also told me to see a doctor when I mentioned that I was sick and my boss had bronchitis), but not my dad. My mom is a hypochondriac. She worried that my sister was exposed to mercury a few months before she became pregnant (it's a boy, by the way!) when a long-lasting light bulb broke at my parents' house about a week before my not pregnant at the time sister came to visit them. Usually my dad is calmer about health issues.

"I don't have pneumonia," I told him. Although on Sunday night when I was freezing and wearing 8 layers of clothes and had two blankets and barely warmed up, I worried that I had pneumonia. (I'm a lot like my mom.)

"Remember when I had pneumonia?" I was maybe five or six at the time. "It hurt when I coughed, and I ignored it, and then I was on bed rest for a month. Go see a doctor."

I do remember when my dad had pneumonia. I remember him eating a bowl of ice cream while sitting in the living room, watching TV. I remember getting "pneumonia" and "spumoni" confused, although they don't really sound alike. Spumoni was my favorite ice cream when I was growing up (I still like it a lot), even though it was not often available at the grocery store. When I thought that my dad had spumoni, I was intrigued. How could I get me some of that? I wondered. However, it turns out that pneumonia is not nearly as good as spumoni.

Is Being a "Dumb Fuck" a Metaphor?

Classes start again on Monday. My goal for the semester is to incorporate metaphors and similes into my writing. I noticed that the writing that we studied in my lit class last semester tended to make liberal use of these literary tools, so I think I should make a strong effort to add more in my stories.

I use metaphors and similes all the time in real life. They just happen to be rather foul. My favorite metaphor was when I described the pieces of toilet paper that resurfaces after flushing the crapper as ghosts haunting their watery graves. I think that is a beautiful image. Also, the idea of romanticizing un-flushed used toilet paper makes me laugh my ass off, like a clown high on nitrous oxide. (OK, that is a scary simile. Clowns are the devils of the circus.) Somehow, though, I suspect that many of the people in my program will find it infantile, so I need to work on developing appropriate metaphors and similes.

Unfortunately, I also love mixed metaphors. That's due to my adoration of hyperbole, another feature of my writing that is less than lauded by literary types. Whatever. If patience is an old lady in a rocking chair waiting for death to relieve her of the excitement of watching paint dry, act like a bull in a china shop. Or something like that.

Unshaved Snatch Underwear

Oh, how I adore Etsy for their homespun products, and Count Mockula for her keen eye for the muff. (Scary that the mannequin has a camel toe, isn't it?)

Actually, the hairiness is a good depiction of my morning. Fortunately, I made it past hump day without melting down. Yay!

O, My Darlin' Clementine

Last week, Suebob posted a photo of a moldy cantaloupe that she found in her fridge. I showed it to Husband, and he asked me if it was named Archibald. (When his mother was growing up, her British father found a moldy - or mouldy? - cantaloupe in their house, and named it Archibald.)

Then last night, Husband sheepishly approached me while I sat at the computer desk, hiding something behind his back.

"Can you take out some trash?" he asked. (He was in his pajamas, whereas I was still dressed in jeans and a t-shirt.)

I had a sinking feeling that I knew what he was holding. When I said sure, he whipped out a bag with a moldy clementine. Seriously, seriously, moldy. Before I chucked it, I had to snap a shot:



As I threw it out, I sang it a funeral dirge. Oh my darlin, oh my darlin, o my darlin Clementine/You were lost and gone forever/Oh my darlin Clementine.

Happy Inauguration Day!!!!!

Ridiculousness

It is approximately seven degrees in New York. I know that this is not nearly as cold as it is in Chicago or Iowa or other Midwestern or northern states, but for NYC, it is much colder than usual. Still, an intrepid friend who lives in Staten Island had a belated New Year's BBQ today. He made lamb and sausage on the grill on his terrace, which we ate inside. It was fun.

On the way to his apartment, Husband and I passed this house:

The picture makes it look like the house is supported by the Hummer, which makes me laugh. In person, however, it was clear that the stupid SUV is so fucking oversized that it is double the height of the car port.

Another ridiculous item I came across this weekend is the American Life League's protest of Krispy Kreme donuts for offering a choice of a free donut on inauguration day. According to the nutters, the words "freedom of choice" indicate that Krispy Kreme supports abortion on demand. Honestly, if a Southern-owned donut chain were that liberal, I'd freaking eat there all the time. Instead, this is just fucking stupid, albeit sort of funny (the comments on the post I linked to are gut busting). The pseudo-abortion link reminds me of king cakes, which are eaten in New Orleans at Mardi Gras. A plastic toy baby is baked into the cake, and whoever finds the baby in his or her piece gets good luck...

The last ridiculous thing that crossed my mind is how surprised I am that animal rights groups have not been protesting the way geese are being treated by the media covering the US Airways crash landing in the Hudson River. If geese are people too, then there were a lot of fatalities when the flock was decimated by the plane's engines. Fortunately, I haven't seen any groups suing on behalf of the geese. Maybe someone should alert the American Life League.

What Would CUSS Readers Do?: Sloganeeringhat

Once again proving that by the time you read something in a mainstream newspaper, it's probably too late to be of use, today's New York Times has an article about people scamming troubled homeowners by charging money to "fix" the loans, then disappearing.* The Times notes this is a growing scam, but it has actually been a huge problem for at least a year now. (One deputy attorney general in California said that dealing with the swindlers has been all she's done, with 300 calls received in the past year.) Perhaps reporting on the issue six months ago may have alerted people to the scams and helped them avoid them, but whatever. The media just reports what's happening; it's not there to help people make informed decisions or anything. Bah.

Anyway, one of the things I've been tasked with at my new job is to come up with a clever marketing slogan to alert people to the presence of mortgage "fixing" scams and let them know that there is free, government-approved housing counseling available. The best I've come up with thus far is:

In trouble with your home loan?
Stop getting fucked up the ass!
FREE housing counseling is available.
Call blah blah blah and stop the bleeding.

Although it is to the point and accurate, this is probably not going to fly for a variety of reasons. If anyone has any other suggestions (legitimate or not), I'm all ears. I promise to give you credit if I use it.

*As a random side rant (or as my brother-in-law would say, rantom), the fact that people can go up to someone who is about to lose his or her home, promise her that they can save it, and then steal whatever cash that the homeowner may have used to actually save the home, blows my mind. How can the goniff sleep at night, knowing that they've made others homeless? Seriously, what the fuck is wrong with people? How did some manage to become such fucking assholes?

Nude Housecleaning

As I got ready for a shower this afternoon, I realized that the bathroom was a disaster area. As Dr. P is staying with us this weekend and was to arrive within a few hours, I figured I should clean up. Unfortunately, I was already undressed.

Undeterred, I vacuumed the chunks of wall and tile from the floor, then mopped, all in the nude. Then I realized that we'd been tracking wall chunks into the hallway outside the bathroom as well, so I vacuumed there, too. As I bent over, I reflected on the premium prices that some people pay to secure the services of a nude housecleaner, and I laughed and laughed. Because really, the whole cleaning thing is sweaty and gross. I can't imagine why anyone would find this appealing to watch. In fact, the whole time I was parading around naked with the vacuum, Husband didn't even look away from the TV while he did his crunches.

Yeah. People are weird.

Happy Birthday Mom!

Sixty-two years ago today (well, it's still today in California and Illinois...), my mom was born in a blizzard. It was a difficult delivery, as she was breech and her nose somehow managed to catch itself on my granny's tailbone, if I recall the story properly. (If I don't, my mom will correct me in the comments.) I am so glad that things worked out.

The funny thing is that Husband and I went to the San Francisco Streetcar Museum this afternoon. Why is this funny? Well, my granny's cousin always tells us how she heard that "Bernice was in the hospital having a hard time," so she rushed over to the hospital in the blizzard on a streetcar. San Francisco operates old streetcars on its F line, with different cars paying homage to cities that also operated streetcars in its past. I looked for a postcard depicting the "Chicago" streetcar known as "The Green Hornet," but sadly there were none. I thought it would make a great birthday card for my mom. (Yes, I am admitting that I otherwise forget to send one, although I did call her.)

Later this evening, Husband and I passed by a storefront with the words Fecal Face Dot Gallery on its awning. We laughed and laughed, and I thought about how my mom would also chortle if she were with us.

Happy birthday, Mom, you nutty fecal face! I love you.

Rescue!

While walking back to our hotel from Ghirardelli Square, I noticed an abandoned pirate on the sidewalk. I was horrified! Who would throw aside a perfectly good pirate like trash! Since his whiskered yellow face and brown musket were covered with sand, dust, and cobwebs from neglect, I procured a tissue (unfortunately, a used one, but I doubt that the pirate cared) from my coat pocket, and scooped the little guy up.



As we continued on, I stopped at a little corner grocery to purchase a libation for myself (Cherry Coke Zero, the most expensive bottle I ever bought at $2.01!!!). At the store, I snagged a piece of wax paper that was intended for use in picking pastries up from the case of baked goods, and further enrobed my new friend. He rode the rest of the way safely in my coat pocket.

Upon our arrival, I plunked my adopted pirate into the bathroom sink for a bath. At that point I noticed that much of the gunk that previously covered him had already transferred itself into a gunky part of the tissue, so he was already in better shape than when I first came across his sad little body. After he floated around in the hot bath for a few minutes, I wiped him down with a (clean) tissue. The rejuvenated pirate seemed very grateful, and I now have a guard for my desk at my new job!

Often times no good deeds go unpunished, but I am pleased that I took a few minutes early in this new year to help a plastic trinket in need.

Out with the Old, In with the New

There's nothing like starting a new year than by breaking things. By things, I specifically mean bathrooms. And by bathrooms, I mean home and hotel facilities, one on each coast.

Yesterday morning, Husband and I awoke to urgent voicemail messages from my cousin, who is staying at our apartment while we gallivant about California. It seems that the pipes in our bathroom are leaking. The super and a maintenance dude came over to poke about, and after ripping up the linen closet (and patching it back up), concluded that the walls and floors of the bathroom need to be torn open to fix the problem. Work is to commence on Friday, Jan. 2 and hopefully will conclude on Monday, Jan. 5, which is my first day of work and I was already a nervous wreck about it before I learned that I won't have a functional bathroom that day.

I rang in the new year today by nearly breaking the toilet in the hotel. The result of my spontaneous self-cleansing strongly resembled an eel. Steph warned me yesterday morning that the toilet was not as powerful as it should be. ("It took me three flushes and a lot of hoping. I almost started looking around for a wire hanger, but then figured that this place was too fancy. A wooden hanger would work," she explained, "but wire hangers can be bent so that you can get as far away from the shit as possible, whereas a wooden hanger, it is what it is.") I thought about my honeymoon trip to London in August 2001 and how I had broken the toilet with a shit brick, and then feared that my eel turd would be even worse. Fortunately, it went down in two flushes and nothing resurfaced. Whew!

Happy new year and shit...

An Expensive Way to End 2008

Bubble bath and champagne, anyone? The menu only starts at $525...

Happy New Year!

Enjoying California: A Pictorial with Rambling Commentary

Despite my unfortunate mislabeling of the previous post as "fun trips that are not fun any more" rather than "fun trips," I am having a great time on my jaunt through the sunny (albeit not overly warm) state of California.

Here Liz and I are outside the Museum of Jurassic Technology:

(I got my ridiculously fashionable coat on sale at Esprit during the snowstorm that prevented me from visiting Alex a few weekends ago. While shopping, '80s music was playing over the sound system and I felt like I was in junior high all over again - the setting and sounds were the same, although to be fair, I didn't shop at Esprit back in the day, as it was out of my price range, but I am majorly digressing here. The point is, the coat is cute and now too tight because I've eaten an enormous quantity of marzipan and other baked goods while on my trip.)

On my birthday (Saturday), we drive up to see Suebob. She showed us around her town and treated us to the yummiest tacos and guacamole ever. Her house is adorable, and I loved meeting Goldie, her sweet golden retriever. (Husband was not tormented by Goldie, so no worries.)

Then Husband and I headed to Santa Barbara, where we stayed at an overpriced hotel by the ocean. I decadently ate lobster tail for dinner. For dessert, Husband and I picked up marzipan petit fours from The Andersen, a Danish bakery, and ate it once the stupid hotel found a room for us with working heat. Luxury hotel my ass...


On Sunday, we started out bright and early and hit the little town of Solvang, which was founded by Danish immigrants who were sick of midwestern winters. The town remains 60% Danish, and is full of cheesy architecture that I loved. We bought more marzipan pastries from Olsen's, which displayed a ginormous gingerbread house:

From there, we drove up the road to a lavender farm that Liz recommended. It was heavenly, which of course means that we departed the sublime and descended into the grotesque. We made a pit stop at the world famous Madonna Inn (featuring a waterfall in the men's restroom as well as loads of pink decorations and ornate insanity around the hotel) on the way to San Luis Obispo, where we had to check out Bubble Gum Alley:


Then it was on to Hearst Castle, which was probably the most obscene place I ever visited. It is very nice that the man was generous to his guests, but damn. It is hard to say an ill word about the gorgeous indoor swimming pool, which had thousands of pieces of Venetian glass tile glowing under the water.

After a long day, what better way to relax than to spend the night in a spacious, heated yurt? (Maybe something with a bathro


Once we unpacked, we sat on the porch and gazed at the gajillions of stars in the sky. It was incredible! In the morning, I took this photo of our lodgings:


If it had a bathroom, it would have been perfect... Oh well. It was still a worthwhile experience. Husband and I hiked two short trails in two different state parks for breathtaking views of nature:



Winding up our sightseeing journey at Winchester Mystery House, designed by Mrs. Winchester (inheritor of the Winchester Rifle Co. fortune) to confuse the spirits of the people killed by Winchester rifles. Featuring doors that open into walls (or sheer drops, as seen below ), stairs that end at ceilings, and mysterious nooks and crannies, it was quite a contrast to Hearst Castle.


Last, but not least, Husband and I landed in Count Mockula's delightful home, where her sweetie cooked us a yummy meal, her adorable baby entertained us, and we savored after dinner hot chocolate before heading off to our (free) hotel, from which I am blogging right now while attempting to keep my eyes open. We'll see Kara and her family again tomorrow (and Suebob, too!), then head to San Francisco for a few days.

Good times!!! (Pictures can be made bigger by clicking on them. And thanks for bearing with this loooooong post.)

Yesterday

My last day as a 32 year old began with a three mile run at the hotel gym. From there, Husband and I headed over to Culver City to meet Liz and tour the Museum of Jurassic Technology. I read about the museum several years ago on Roadside America, and I though that there would be no better way to spend a few hours before turning 33 than finally visiting it.

Oh.Dear.God. The museum was probably the nuttiest, creepiest, and weirdest place I have ever been. I almost felt guilty for asking Liz to join us. I'll sum it up by saying that at one point I was certain that the exhibits were actually created by people who sat around thinking up fake exhibits they could develop from scratch, but I subsequently realized that it was all real. The exhibits ranged from deranged letters sent to scientists at Mt. Wilson Observatory to oil portraits of the dogs who went into space with Russian cosmonauts. There was also a display of disintegrating die, an exhibit on superstitions in a pitch black room, holographic images of various things, a section on items from trailer parks, ethnographic studies of cat's cradles, and a room dedicated to the singer M. Delani. The museum was approximately 2 degrees. This made the free tea and cookies served in a cute Russian-esque room (the tea was even made in a samovar!) extra enticing, which made me worry a little bit about cyanide poisining. Perhaps our stuffed bodies would be part of a future exhibit?

After the museum, we stopped into the Center for Interpretative Land Use, which was totally awesome. All of my urban planning nerd friends would love it. There was a wonderful slide show on the Trans-Alaska pipeline. The Center was also very well heated, which was critical to thawing out our feet.

Husband and I parted ways with Liz, and headed into Hollywood to meet my friend Norma, a former co-worker, and her husband for dinner and a night of comedy. On the way, we made a quick stop at La Brea Tar Pits. I was most impressessed with the vending machines. Not only did they take credit cards, but a 20 ounce bottle of pop was only a dollar. One dollar!!! That's the best deal I've gotten in ages. A 12 ounce can of Diet Coke runs me a buck in NYC, and here I got a 20 oz. bottle! I'm certain that this was the best tasting Coke Zero that ever graced my lips. Bargains are so refreshing.

Anyway, we wandered around Hollywood a bit before dinner at Loteria. Norma had described the restaurant to me as the "newest, freshest, and bestest" Mexican cuisine in the city, and it lived up to its promise. The meal was delicious, the company was fantastic, and the comedy at the Improv was side splitting. It was great seeing Norma and meeting her hubby. They put together an excellent evening.

Today, after breakfast at IHOP (just as exciting to me as Loteria), we are meeting up with the always wonderful Red Stapler for continued good times. I can't wait.

Happy birthday to me!

Nosiness

My nose is frequently cold.* Usually to warm it up, I press my face into Husband's neck. This tends to amuse him, but he worries about me when he's not around, so for Hanukkah he gave me a custom knit nose warmer in Mets team colors:

Very awesome! He's so clever, that Husband of mine.

Hope everyone's holidays were full of warmth!

*As are my fingers and toes. The extremities could use a little more blood circulation, I think.

Merry Xmas

Husband and I are departing today for our fabulous road trip up the coast of California. As I finalized our itinerary on Sunday night, I realized the difference between arrangements Husband made and those that I took care of.

He booked lodging in Santa Monica, Santa Barbara, Sacramento, and San Francisco. Three of the four hotels he reserved rooms in are free, thanks to his extensive travels for work and the points that he racks up while traveling and charging everything on his Starwood awards credit card. The hotel in San Francisco is particularly over the top - the St. Regis! When Steph, who is meeting us in San Francisco and staying with us, heard what hotel we'd be at, she wondered if they'd even let us (me and Steph, that is - Husband will be fine) in their luxurious halls. Then we laughed maniacally.

It was not until I checked out the hotel website last night that I realized that this might not be a joke. Damn, that place is swank! It even has an indoor pool. Steph said she was glad that I gave her time to de-fur herself, which is when it occurred to me that if I am to frolic in its waters, I should probably shave off my overcoat as well.

I found us a place to stay in Big Sur. It involves yurts.

Surreal Night

For the first time in about two years, I made it to Rev. Jen's Anti-Slam.* (Last time I attended an anti-slam, it was the second show hosted at Cake Shop.) It was the special XXX-mas Show, and boy was it ever special! Many of my favorite contestants from the Mr. Lower East Side Pageant were skulking around, and in the audience was the Mangina!

The show started out strong. Victor Varnado, the self-described foremost black albino comedian in the world, told a joke about a crack whore offering to suck his dick for money. "No, thank you," he told her. "No, I will SUCK YOUR DICK OFF!" she bellowed in reply. He said he was unsure if this was a good thing or not. Then he generously ceded the stage to some guy with a guitar who sang funny songs about how fun it is to put things in other things, like his dick in your butt. The guitar guy was OK, but Husband and I wanted more Varnado. We haven't seen him in years and years.

Soon after, Liam McEneany took the stage and made us laugh our asses off with stories about growing up as the fat kid. He claims that he has trouble getting laid, but he is totally adorable and hilarious, so I think this is a lie. (I'd do him if I wasn't happily married and wanted to stay that way, so I assume other unattached ladies would also be interested.)

From there, there was a lot of interpretive song and dance, ranting into the microphone and rambling around the stage, poetry (some of which was good), Christmas song sing-alongs, and general mayhem. As the evening wore on, a group of men at the men at the back of the room burst into various Christmas songs (sometimes accompanied by a trumpet) between nearly every performer. Husband, cousin Rebecca, and I took off around 12:40 AM, after a woman demonstrated how to make paper flowers from tissue paper that is used in gift boxes and gift bags. (Don't forget to top the flowers off with fake blood!)

Ah, good times. Tonight: Husband, Rebecca, and I will commence a six hour marathon of The Wire on DVD so that we finish season one. Good times, indeed.

*I know the link to the story of the anti-slam says it began three years ago, but that was written 10 years ago at this point, which sort of blows my mind. It also says that it is hosted every Monday at Mo Pitkins, but it's been the last Wednesday of the month at Bowery Poetry Club for almost a year now.

(Fictional) Police Dramas

During the snow storm that hit NYC this past weekend and prevented me from getting to Massachusetts to see the Alex Elliot family, Husband, cousin Rebecca (who is staying at our place while on winter break, which is very handy as she will take care of Tycho Bunnae while we are away), and I watched six episodes of season one of The Wire. Husband and I received the DVD set from my parents for Hanukkah. We love, love, love it so far. The plan is to watch the last seven episodes on Xmas Eve while eating corned beef, Chinese cuisine, or some other traditional Xmas Jew-y food.

Two years ago for Hanukkah and/or my birthday (memory fails me), my parents gave me the first two seasons of the mid-80s police show Hunter. This was, along with The Golden Girls, my favorite show back in the day. I'd babysit on Saturday nights, playing with the kids for the minimal time required, then watching the fine TV line up. During Hunter, I would call my friend/unrequited crush Jeremy, and we would watch the show together over the phone. Ah, those were the days!

Around this time last year, I blew many hours watching my Hunter DVDs, but did not get to see them all. Now that I have some time again, I popped in three episodes last night. While both shows have snappy dialogue and semi-rogue male cop leads partnered with impressive female detectives, compared to The Wire, Hunter seems a little ridiculous. Perhaps it is the 20 year time difference? The geographic disparities? The fact that almost every episode of Hunter ends with a car chase, Hunter shooting out the tires of the perp's car, and then the car blowing up? Whatever the reason, it is fun to watch.

Come Light My Menorah

My original intent was to blog about how frustrated I am that Husband and I did not get to go to visit our friends Alex and her family yesterday due to adverse weather conditions. Alex's older son had told me that they were making a cake in honor of my birthday and that he specially picked out green frosting, which Alex apologized for (as green frosting is kind of not delicious) but I found it hilarious. We were all so looking forward to it, but then the snows came and the roads were bad and Husband and I grudgingly decided that we didn't want to risk it. Boo.

Instead, we sat around on Friday night and Saturday watching the first season of The Wire on DVD. Husband and I requested the box set from my parents for Hanukkah, and holy fuck, this show is just as brilliant as all the critics said it was. One episode had a five minute scene where two cops looking into an old murder re-create the scene and just say, "Fuck," or "Motherfucker," but with different tones that express exactly what they are thinking. I felt like I was being handled by geniuses. We are about halfway through the 13 episodes.

Then when I wrote the title for this post, I realized how many aspects of Hanukkah lend themselves to sleazy come-ons and double entendres. Like, "Hey, is that a dreidel in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?" Or, "Wow, that shamus* could light my wick any time!" Or "Why don't you smear some apple sauce on my latke,** big boy." OK, that last one is stupid, but it makes me laugh.

Happy Hanukkah!

*The middle candle in the menorah, which sits higher than the other candles and is lit first and then used to light the other ones.
**Potato pancake

Eruption

There's a mountainous red zit on my forehead, approximately half an inch above my left eyebrow. Since I am in the chin hair plucking phase of my life, I haven't had to deal with real pimples in a few years. (Although there was the unfortunate transition period in which I had both acne and chin hairs. That was evil.) I realized that I forgot how to deal with volcanic zits.

When I first noticed Mt. Krakatoa bursting through the surface of my skin yesterday, I left it alone. I know that is technically what one is supposed to do, but in my zit-covered prime, picking at them seemed far more productive than sitting there, waiting for it to disappear on its own. This morning I remembered that I should poke at it. I grabbed my trusty tweezers and squeezed.

A small glob of pus oozed out. "Oh, yeah. That's how it works," I thought, as memories of zits past haunted me like ghosts visiting Scrooge on Christmas eve. I squeezed harder, not remembering what happens when the molten center of a zit bursts forth. Pus exploded out and hit the mirrored medicine cabinet. Ooops.

Worst.Headshot.Ever!

Seriously, this is the worst photo I've ever taken:

I look like Adrien Brody's long lost twin:

Oof.

But, for anyone who wondered what I look like with lipstick and terrible, terrible lighting, there's the answer.

What's Fucking Cookin' in the Windy City

Despite foreboding reports from CNN that due to weather conditions, yesterday was one of the worst days to travel, my flight not only took off on time, but also landed early. The flight was smooth. I was even upgraded to a nice comfy seat!

Both my parents were at work when I arrived, so I took a cab to my friend Hanah's apartment. The cab driver and I had an interesting discussion about Haiti (where he is from), consumerism and how it leads to dissatisfaction with life in general, and text messaging. When I got out of the cab, he thanked me for the nice chat and said that I could call him directly if I needed a ride back to the airport.

In the evening, I went to dinner with my parents and bubbe at a diner called What's Cooking. I was the youngest person in there by at least 25 years. At the table next to ours, two regulars chatted it up at top volume with the staff about the Blagojevich scandal.

"I know one place the Blagojevichs won't be eating tonight!" the gentleman with the coke bottle lens glasses bellowed.

"Yeah, at Anthony's!" his friend with unwashed hair yelled back.

Although I had no idea who Anthony was, my mom and I could not help but join them and the bus boy in laughing. The sort of reminded me of Statler and Waldorf, the two old men Muppets who heckle people.

The TV news is all Blagojevich, all the time. A businessman showed a reporter a picture of himself and Rod as babies. (At least I think that is what was going on. I was not watching the TV, but heard the anchor announce, "Blagojevich is the baby on the right.") No one else seems to want to be in pictures with him right now, as everyone is trying to distance themselves from his taint.

One thing that really riled me up is the flack that Blago's wife, Patti, is taking for a phone call in which she curses like a sailor. I noticed a story about it in the New York Post, a newspaper best used as litter pan liner, but the Sun-Times headline on the topic read, "Foul-mouthed first lady," as if being a woman and using bad language is a crime. Well then, arrest my fucking ass, shitheads, because I don't see anything wrong with swearing it up. This excerpt from the article is pretty fucking hilarious, though:

Patti Blagojevich -- who publicly used her first lady platform to promote food allergy awareness, treatment of lazy eye and a children's book club -- secretly was recorded directing a deputy governor speaking with her husband "to hold up that f- - - - - - Cubs s- - - . . . . f- - - them," according to the complaint.

Yeah, fuck that shit! How fucking dare she?!?! If you are going to fucking advocate for the fucking treatment of fucking lazy eye, don't even fucking think of letting a little f-bomb drop. Seriously, I fucking hope she gets her fucking mouth washed out with fucking soap! Fuck and shit on that!

The Hubris! The Hubris!

Assuming that I do not get messed up by a blizzard (an actual one, not the political one), I will be in the Chicago area this afternoon for a weekend visit with my family. Initially, Husband was to join me on Friday afternoon, and my sister and her hubby were to arrive on Friday night. However, Husband canceled due to a potential storm at work, and Dana and Ryan nixed their plans out of fear of potential weather conditions. So that leaves little old me.

Thanks to the political tornado that just roared through Chicago, I think it should be an interesting time to be there. Like most denizens of Illinois, I was never a huge fan of Blagojevich, but quite frankly, his Republican opponents for office were pretty much equally corrupt and disgusting. Or at least it seemed so when good ol' Blago was somewhat sane. There is only one explanation I can come up with for why a man who has been under investigation for corruption for three years would try to sell a Senate seat, pressure the Tribune to fire its editorial board, and demand high paying jobs: he's been driven insane by hubris. I sort of picture him in a muumuu in the heart of darkness,* whispering, "The hubris! The hubris!" as Fitzgerald tries to drag him out of his cocoon.**

Anyway, should be an interesting trip. Besides talking about politics,*** I plan to interview both my grandmothers about our family history. I'm sure that this will generate some colorful commentary, which I look forward to sharing.

*Springfield, IL, the state capital - if you've never been there, let me assure you that the best part about it is that the municipal parking garage near the capitol building was extremely cheap the last time I was there, which was spring 1994.
**Man, that would make a good parody movie, wouldn't it? Sort of Tropic Thunder meets All the President's Men.
***When I asked my bubbe what she thought about Blago's corruption, she said it was bad and then began ranting about how corrupt the Bush administration is. Forget falling fruit - sometimes the fruit is still hanging on the tree. I think this has many layers of meaning, but I'm rambling too much already.

I Forgot to Step Away from the Hyperbole

Last night in workshop, I made the following statement:

"Many times this semester, I've felt a lot like Trig Palin at the Republican National Convention. Everyone surrounding me is totally with the program and knows what's going on, and I'm sitting here, blinking, wondering where I am and how I got here."

No one laughed. This is not the first time I made an exaggerated statement that produced no reaction. I forgot that people in my workshop are not so into hyperbole. Or my random political jokes. Oh well.

I found it hilarious, though. I love me some extravagant exaggeration.

Lipstick Jungle

Last week, I entered enemy territory. I traversed the block between Amsterdam and Broadway, then I turned right on the corner of 76th Street, walking less than half a block. I took a deep breath. Then, trying to be brave, I pushed open the glass door. Before I knew it, I was in Sephora.

Some friends at school convinced me to wear lipstick. As I crept down the florescent aisles of Sephora, squinting at the prices in the blinding light, I doubted myself. This shit was expensive. I approached a salesperson with a headset.

"Hi, do you have any lipstick under $15?"

"Sure," she said and smiled. She was probably thinking, cheap bitch. She pointed me to a display case full of Sephora-brand cosmetics, then started to walk away.

"Uh, can someone help me pick out a color? I haven't bought lipstick since 2000." (Which, incidentally, was when I bought two Clinique Chubby Sticks for my wedding. I have plenty left of both and still wear them once in a while.)

She gave me a funny look, and called for reinforcements on the headset. Another black-clad headset wearer approached. She squinted at my face the way I did earlier at their prices, then handed me a brown lipstick on a cotton swab. I wish I could say that I applied this sample with grace, but somehow it wound up all over my teeth. I'm still not sure how that happened. Then I tried two lighter colors.

I walked out $14.01 lighter in the wallet and heavier in the sparkly pinkish lipstick that smells like grape Bubblicious department. I'm surprised at how different I look wearing just a little lipstick. It makes me nervous. If I cave on lipstick, will I suddenly find myself spread on the waxer's table? It's a slippery slope, I tell you. Slippery.

Warm Fuzzies

It's a bit chilly here in New York City, so I've been wearing my hat with bear ears every day. As I walked down to the subway platform yesterday morning, I noticed a man carrying his preschool age daughter behind me. The girl pointed at me and said, "Daddy, that girl is a teddy bear!" I could not help smiling the rest of the day.

Barbie Sex

It's interesting, although not surprising, that all the comments I received thus far in response to my confession about Barbie confirmed that a lot of girls had their Barbies and Kens engage in sexual activities. We live in a culture saturated by images of sex and sexuality. If Barbie wasn't supposed to be knocking boots, then why would she have fuck-me heels, mini skirts, and giant boobs? (Of course, it's more complicated than that, but that's the message we get.) I'm particularly impressed by Bryna's Barbie house uses - pancake house by day, whore house at night. Hilarious.

All of this reminds of me of a short story I ready by AM Homes when I was in high school. I was in my early stages of rabid feminism, and on a tear about Barbie and how bad she was for girls because of her unrealistic body and consumerist bent. A friend gave me an anthology of stories that we related to Barbie, and one of them was A Real Doll by Homes. Basically, this teenage guy has sex with his sister's Barbie and Ken dolls. (Separately, not as a threesome. To paraphrase George Michael, sex is better when it's one human on one doll.) It is a demented tale of sexual obsession with elements of unrelated torture and ideas of feminine sexuality and body image.

I was completely disturbed and utterly fascinated by Homes's take on how girls use their Barbies, and realized how normal I was in comparison. Now that I know that other people played Barbie whore house, I'm a little disappointed in myself. Despite my love of the Barbie Dream Store and all of the consumer-oriented Barbie products that I wanted, I guess I never had the capitalist instincts in me to think about how Barbie could profit by exploiting penisless Ken's lust. Nor did I have the technology to make a Barbie porno as these teen girls were clever enough to put together, complete with commercial:

Barbie Memories

Instead of going to bed when I got home from post-class hanging out (which I would do if I had better judgment), I farted around online for a while. "Why not check out the status of Off the Beaten (Subway) Track on amazon.com?" I thought to myself. "Sleep is overrated, anyway."

I was distracted from my fact finding mission when I opened the Amazon homepage and was greeted by this:

What's Your Favorite Barbie Memory?
Over the past 50 years, Barbie has filled homes with memories and inspired millions of children to dream--to see themselves as astronauts, rock stars, doctors, fashion designers, professional athletes, and even female Presidents. Shop the Barbie Store for great deals just in time for the holidays.

Gah! I swear that must be James Bond Villainess Barbie! It is so evilly insipid and scary, I can easily imagine it luring James Bond Ken into bed ("Hello, Mr. Bond," it says with a Russian accent as it removes its top. "Would you like to heat up this new cold war?") and then trying to bludgeon him with a frozen Chicken Kiev.

That said, I loved Barbies until I was nine or ten years old, which was several years beyond my peers' interest in playing dolls. In second grade, I received the Barbie Dream House and the Dream Store as gifts for Hanukkah, and I went to town setting up the store on the first floor of the house. I liked combing Barbies' hair, dressing her in glamorous dresses and stiletto shoes that inevitable fell off her feet and got lost in my bedroom carpet until I found one by stepping on it barefoot and driving a mini hole in my sole, and, in the later years, assisting Ken in scoring. It is almost sad how much interest my penis-less Ken had in humping my ultra smooth Barbies.

Somehow I don't think Amazon wants me to share my memories of the sound of hard plastic hitting hard plastic as Ken and Barbie went at it.

Flashback: January 30, 2007

From the CUSS archives. I swear I was way funnier in the past.

When I arrived home this afternoon from my first meeting as a magazine intern (!), I rushed to the kitchen for a snack. An apple with cheese is on my approved low-carb, anti-diabetes diet, and I grabbed an apple up greedily and smeared low fat spreadable cheese on it. Really, it was not the apple but the cheese that excited me so. I realized at that moment that if someone offered me shit with cheese on it, I might actually consider eating it, depending on the type of cheese. That is how much I love cheese. (Or a sign of how disturbed I am.)

Reflecting on shit-covered cheese reminded me of my last shower at my parents’ house. The water in Chicago is ridiculously hard, although it is not well water. (It’s fresh from Lake Michigan, although until modern plumbing solved some serious pollution issues, the water pumped from the lake was actually full of shit and disgusting.) Thus I always need conditioner for my hair when I am at my folks’, whereas I never use it in New York. I noticed that they had a bottle of Herbal Essences conditioner, so I dumped some on my head without really smelling it first. Herbal Essences is supposed to be so good that commercials portray sexy women having orgasmic experiences in the shower, hence I figured it would smell good.

I don’t know what was wrong with their Herbal Essences, but it had the essence of an animal with a flower-based diet that shit on my head. I was not pleased, although perhaps if it had cheese in it, I may have nibbled at it.

Offensive Things to Say in Yiddish

Several years ago, my parents gave me a book called Drek!: The REAL Yiddish Your Bubbe Never Taught You by Yetta Emmes. (Of course, my bubbe did teach me some of what was in the book, like kurvah, which means "whore." She pretty much bitterly refers to any woman who is not yet widowed as a kurvah, but I digress.) With apologies to the adorable Millie, whose online Yiddish lessons I so enjoyed yesterday, here are some choice phrases in the book that I enjoyed learning this afternoon include:

• Gey tren zich - go fuck yourself


• Ich cock ahf im - I shit on him!


• kish mich in tukhes - kiss my ass


• Bareh nit - don't fuck with me


• Drek oif a shpendel - shit on a stick


• Groisser potz - big prick

I wonder how to say these things in Ladino, which is a mix of Spanish and Hebrew, the way Yiddish is a mix of German and Hebrew...

For a Good Laugh, Watch Millie

I'm working on a story about growing up as the grandchild of Holocaust survivors, and as part of the work, I want to include a lot of Yiddish to convey what my grandfather was like. He loved telling jokes in Yiddish, so I looked around online to see what I could find (and falsely attribute to him, but whatever - that's why it's a memoir and not a biography; lower standards of accuracy).

My good search yielded this hilarious woman, Millie, who has an blog in which she dispenses little Yiddish lessons. She is completely adorable and her joke (which I sadly am not able to embed - never mind; I found it on YouTube, so see below) is good for quite a laugh. Definitely check it out.

It's more how she tells the joke than the joke itself, but the joke strikes me as a very good example of one of the cleaner ones my grandpa used to tell. Millie reminds me of some strange cross between my mom's mom (Granny) and my dad's mom (Bubbe). I just want to hug her!

New Title

Starting sometime in June, I will officially be known as Aunt Suzanne to my sister's baby! I am so, so, so, so excited. I am also really sad that my sister lives so far away.

My sister told my parents on Tuesday night. My mom had asked her to print some pictures from my grandmother's birthday party last summer, so she stuck pictures from her sonogram in with the others. As my mom looked through the batch, she came to the sonogram shot.

"What's this?"

"That's your unborn grandchild," my sister replied.

"What? I don't have an unbor.... Oh!" my mom exclaimed. "Wait! How did this happen? I, mean, I know how this happened, but how did it happen?"

Last nght, my dad told me that he has not stopped smiling since he found out. "I go to bed with a grin on my face, and when I wake up, I am smiling." I know how he feels.

Furry Beaver

I went to the gym yesterday morning. One of the TVs in the room had the Today show on. It was right in my line of vision. The teletype was on and I half-watched without sound while running on a treadmill. A woman brought some animals onto the stage, and Kathie Lee and some giantess reacted to each one as if I were a serial killer on the loose. I rolled my eyes.

Then, it happened. The animal lady's assistant carried an enormous brown beaver out. It was adorable, although understandably terrified of the women poking at it with a stick of celery and kept trying to escape. "Damn, that beaver is large and furry!" I said to myself and cracked up. "I want to touch that soft beaver!"

Unfortunately, I almost fell off the machine at that point, so I missed one of the women's comments, looking up just in time to see Kathie Lee wrinkling her little button nose and the teletype reading, "No, this is just the way beavers smell."

Trust me, my furry beaver was no better after a six mile run. Heh heh.

Today in Review

Between being offered a job and straining my right calf muscle while killing a roach, I forgot to blog today. Lame, I know, but there was a lot of excitement and squealing in my apartment, so I forgive myself.

First, the job. I was offered the position that I interviewed for back in October. Any confusion is understandable, as my blog post regarding that first interview covered the hot chocolate dilemma that the potential job posed. (Quick review: the shop on the ground floor of the building in which the office is located sells hot chocolate made from Leonidas chocolates melted in hot milk. This is a potential dangerous addiction, both in terms of the effect of my wallet and my waistline, which is sadly the reverse of what I would like to happen because my wallet will be thinner and my waistline thicker.) I am very excited to work again, although very nervous that working full time will not leave enough time for school. But it's a cool job, and worth the risk.

Onto the injury. I saw a six legged beast on its back, legs kicking in the air, next to a crack between the wall and the kitchen sink. Of course, I screamed. Then I attempted to squash it, but not too hard, as I did not want its guts smooshing out onto the sole of my slipper. In attempting to strike the proper balance, I managed to strain my calf muscle. What can I say? This is possibly the most pathetic way to injure a muscle known to humankind. It could be worse. At least the evil six legged critter is dead.

The Heat is On

In New York City, landlords either blast the heat so that the old people in the building don't complain and the other tenants sweat their balls off, or they are slumlords who provide no heat at all and tenants are forced to use ovens and space heaters to keep warm. I am fortunate enough to live in a building that provides heat, albeit way too much heat. Generally, I keep the radiators turned off and even an icicle like me is toasty.

This morning I had to open the valve on the radiators. Even Tycho seems to be cold. (Serves him right for shedding like a maniac in November, although I can't entirely blame him for not knowing it is the cold season since the apartment is usually hot.) As I write this, it's four degrees warmer in the Chicago area than in New York (34 degrees - above freezing! - versus 30.) Freezing temperatures were also reported in Georgia. (Stay warm, Eddie! And by the way, your son's Beetle is my dream car.)

Speaking of heat, it seems that the stupid Democrats in Congress are re-warming up to that assfuck Lieberman. They should be freezing that douche nozzle back to Connecticut. I guess they think they need him because in Minnesota, usually one of the coldest places in the nation, a hand recount of the 2.9 million ballots cast is underway. Convicted criminal Ted Stevens lost his bid for re-election in Alaska (as I said to a friend yesterday, I love when Americans do the right thing by small margins), so that's a plus even though I'm not sure I want the Dems to have a super majority.

Also in hot news, the winner of the Mr. Lower East Side Pageant was (drum roll, please) Tokyo Circus! Not who I wanted, but he's certainly deserving of the title. The man did splits on a stage covered with beer and who know what other fluids wearing only a g-string pouch-y thing. Major kudos. I am glad that the audience has higher standards than I do, as I tend to vote for the cutest guy who is willing to show his balls. I'm a sucker for attractive male nudity. (Yes, I'm talking about the tour guide guy again, lecherous hag that I am.)

And that's my report on the temperature.

Let Me Love You Down

While I used the bathroom at Whole Foods this afternoon, a love ballad played over the PA system. I think the last time I payed attention to a hip hop ballad was when Boys II Men were not Jewish (or at least not publicly) and singing "End of the Road." Yeah, those were the days.

Anyway, while peeing at Whole Foods, I swear that the chorus of the song piped into the bathroom was, "Let me love you down," although I may have misunderstood the words. (I'm really bad with lyrics, although maybe not as bad as my friend Sara, who thought the song "Ohio" by Neil Young was a love song. Not that I should talk, as I didn't know what the song was called, who sang it, or what it was about, either. I didn't think it was a love song, though. But I digress...) In one verse of what I know refer to as My Whole Foods Bathroom Song, the singer crooned something about not being too young for the lady in question, so I'm guessing that "let me love you down" means that by taking on a younger male lover, the woman in question will be loved down, if that makes sense. If anyone knows this song, I'm curious to know what it is about.

What struck me as funniest about the whole thing was that the song seemed very out of place at Whole Foods. And that it played in the bathroom only, as the rest of the store didn't have music.

The Yuppies are Here!

OK, so the Yuppies invaded my neighborhood about ten years ago, but the recent boom in luxury condo construction caused the luxurification of a gentrified community. The latest project, which began over a year ago when developers tore down my gym, a pool hall, a chicken joint, and a parking garage, then dug a pit several stories deep, then threw up a structure over the last few months, is coming to a close. To remove the special large construction crane from the site, an extra large crane was trucked in on Friday night. Two lanes of traffic were closed on Amsterdam Avenue to accommodate the crane and its grounding and a small section of W. 76th Street was also closed to traffic.

This is what it looked like as the special extra large crane was taken apart tonight:



I think the whole contraption is about one block long.

All of this reminded me of the drinking song of the Lower East Side artist/performance artist community, which was sung with gusto on Thursday night at the Mr. Lower East Side Pageant. I'm not sure who wrote it or what the title is, but it is hilarious.The chorus is:

So lift up your kilts and show 'em your balls,
Drink all their liquor and piss on their walls,
Make love to their women and shit on their beds,
The Yuppies are here, and we're better off dead!

Ah, good times. I'd say that I'll be glad when the construction is over, but then I'll have to deal with all the rich asshole idiots who move in. Bah.

From Mr. Lower East Side to the Queens County Farm

For the first time since my inaugural experience in 2005, I made it to the Mr. Lower East Side Pageant. My experience at the Mr. Lower Side Pageant was one of my first blog posts in October 2005. I had the greatest time then, and the greatest time in 2008.

This is a pageant hosted by the Lower East Side's most infamous performance artist, Rev. Jen.. (She's the proprietress of the Troll Museum - it's in her apartment - which is probably the highlight of my book, Off the Beaten (Subway) Track.) I confessed to my friend Sara that I am a little bit of jealous of Rev. Jen because she leads this interesting life, not that it is one that is right for boring me, but still something that I am envious of. (Sara said she thought the same thing.) Anyway, the pageant features talent, swimsuit, and evening wear/interview components, usually of which are conducted over the audiences shouting, "Show us your balls! Balls! Balls!" On a semi-frequent basis, the contestant complies, and raucousness ensues. Usually the and cock flasher is not someone's whose cock and/or balls I really want to see (like the furry guy in his mid-60s, whose talent is standing on stage completely naked and staring at the audience*), but I was pleased that a cutie with pierced nipples eagerly pulled himself out at the first request.

OK, now not only am I digressing, but I sound like an old pervert. (Yeah, I am a pervert, but whatever.) I was forced to leave the pageant a bit early to be sure that I was home when my friend Mara and her two year old daughter arrived at my apartment, so I'm not sure who won. My friend Vicky stayed behind to represent, and I can't wait to hear about what I missed. Another friend took video, incidentally, so I will try to get some footage from him and post it. (I swear I only drooled a little when I wrote that.) I so cannot wait for next year.

In stark contrast to the Mr. Lower East Side Pageant, Husband and I are attending a colonial dinner at the Queens County Farm Museum tonight. Dinner is served in a farmhouse from the late 1600s, on dinnerware from the 1700s. The food is cooked on an open hearth using recipes from the 1700s. When I made the reservation in May, I snagged the last two spots. I'm pretty psyched for it.

And that is not only what I like about living in New York, but what I like about my life: I can do all these different activities that satisfy my varied interests with a range of friends. That's about all anyone can ask for, isn't it?

My Super Sweet Socialist Revolution

I battled the laundry room today. It was me, three maids, and eight driers that refused to dry anything. We took turns. We shared tips on getting the driers to work. We commiserated. I dreamed of a washer dryer in my own apartment.

Hours later I was folding laundry in my bedroom, watching a My Super Sweet 16 marathon called the Blingiest Bling. Going back a step, throughout the election, I kept reading op-ed pieces about how rich people shouldn't have to pay high taxes because they earn their money through hard work, and asking them to pay their proportional share of the benefits they reap from society is an outrage. So as I watched 15 year old girls whining about how they "earned" a $350,000 party and a car. Then their parents reinforce their misguided beliefs by saying that their daughters "deserved" such riches.

As my anger mounted, I realized that anyone who watched this show and wasn't enraged by the ridiculous inequities in society must be brain dead. Then it hit me: MTV must be crafting the boilerplate for a socialist revolution. How awesome is that?

Digging Deep

"What does this mean to you? Dig deeper!

Numerous people in my workshop wrote this comment on my story about developing breasts and being tormented by their ginormous size and then undergoing breast reduction surgery (if they bothered to give me back my paper at all, which one person did not, but that is another story). It vexes me because in many cases I don't say what the situation means because it means (or meant) nothing.

For example, I talk about how breasts have not worked out so well for the women on my maternal side. My granny is a short women who walks around stooped over, maybe partially from the two watermelons stuck to her chest. On the other hand, my mom is a woman of average height with a very small frame who had two small boobs until she lost one to cancer when I was 4 years old. The people in my class wanted to know what I thought about her scarred chest when I was growing up, and the honest answer is that I didn't. It was just a fact of life that I accepted. My mom had cancer. They had to cut off one of her boobs. The end.*

The point is that this made me realize two things. First, I am not a deep person. I really do often accept things for their surface explanation. This is not entirely true, as I also analyze certain things that happen until I've beaten the dead horse to a bloody mixed metaphor, but still - I'm shallow. The second thing is that I am lazy. I'm probably not as shallow as I claim (see dead horse metaphor), but digging deep means extra work and maybe even painful revelations, and I'm not going there. Sometimes I just want to tell a funny story. Why look for the underlying pathos just to make the story more literary? It's all very distressing to think about.

*Now you know the truth, so if I ever do write a best-selling book about puberty and there are paragraphs describing how I didn't want to get boobs because I was scared of cancer and blah blah blah, you can all go to the tabloids and say that I am a liar just like James Frey. And then I will have to lie and say that I had recovered memories in the process of writing the book and blah blah blah and it will all be very scandalous. If you do sell me out, I hope that the tabloids pay you good money. Then you can take me out for afternoon tea and we can laugh about it.

The Sun Will Come Out Tomorrow

It doesn't feel possible, but tomorrow is finally election day! I am so excited and nervous. With a modicum of luck, the 2008 election season will end tomorrow, and with even more luck, the next president of the United States will be Barack Obama. My fingers are crossed.

At the same time, once the election is over, what will I spend too much time obsessing over? I'm going to need something with which to fill my free time. It's a good thing that I had a job interview last week...

So let's sing it:
Tomorrow, tomorrow
I love you, tomorrow
You're only a day away!

Fröhliche Halloween, Mein Lieblings! (Or, Would You let Your Kids Take Candy From This Woman?L

Last year for Halloween, I wore my wedding dress and went as a bride. Clever, huh? Yeah. The truth is that I wanted to wear my dirndl, but I may have consumed a bit too much candy since I purchased the frock on eBay in 2001; I looked like an overstuffed bratwurst. Halloween can be scary or gross enough without that.

This year, I decided to suck it up, admit that I'll never be that small again, and have the dress altered. I took it to the tailor. When I came out of the fitting room, I thought his eyes might pop out of his head.

"You are going to pay money to fix this?" he asked, showing the type of Eastern European sensitivity that my bubbe usually does rather than his normal tact that makes him money.

Knowing that it would cost me more to ultimately get a whole new dirndl, which would then likely need to altered anyway, I nodded. He shook his head for a moment, mystified, than said, "OK. It's your money."

I picked up on Tuesday and it fits much better. Plenty of room for Halloween treats before I burst through the seams. It shall be perfect for the two Halloween events that I am looking forward to attending this afternoon.

Happy Halloween!

PS - If you want to read about a trick that the health insurance industry plays on women, check out my post on BlogHer about how money pay more than men for the exact same crappy coverage.

Theo Thursday: Last Call with a New Friend

Theo is a plush animal companion to Suzanne. He wishes he could vote on Tuesday, and is hoping that this is the last protest he needs to launch on behalf of his polar bear brothers. Theo also is grateful to Flo for sending him a protest buddy! If Obama is not in office in January, he knows that his new friend will be critical in helping him bring attention to the plight of the polar bears.

GO OBAMA-BIDEN!

Does Anybody Really KNow What Time It Is?

Does anybody really care? As I was walking down the street one day, a man came up to me and asked me what of day it was... Wait. That's a song. Sorry.

Last night, as I prepared for several hours of restful (ha, if only) slumber, my alarm clock, which receives signals from outer space (via satellite) to keep the most accurate time possible, read Su 11:15. Right before Husband snuffed the light, I noticed that it said Tu 3:14 AM. Hmmmm... time warp or satellite malfunction? I pressed the reboot button.

While the clock decided if I missed a day or if it was telling me the wrong time, I looked at my watch. It's a blue Flik Flak with little pictures of a witch with pink hair and black cat flying on a broom stick on the band. Not only that, but the hands glow in the dark. (Every time I look at the glowing hands, I cannot help but grin.) Unfortunately, it seemed to indicate that it was after 1:00 AM, which I was pretty sure it was not. Then again, I'm not good at reading watches without numbers, and the digits on the watch do not glow.

Now that it is today, Monday, at 8:35 AM according to my computer (but 8:37 as per Flik Flak), I am relieved. I am heading to an interview for a potentially exciting job in 40 minutes. If the cow howls at the moon on the third Thursday and it is 62 degrees and a leap year, everything will work out great, and I shall be in school, writing a second book about New York, blogging for BlogHer, and gainfully employed with a flex schedule. Probably it will be helpful if my clock gives me an extra hour each day.

Cum (on a Cookie) Again

Mar sent this cartoon to me almost two years ago (!), and I think it is as hilarious today as it was on November 3, 2006.

Theo Thursday: Polar Bears for Obama

Theo thanks Suzanne's husband for finding this awesome sign online and printing it for him in color!!! Theo is also moved by Palin's latest actions against his fellow mammal, the beluga whale.

Reliving the Good Old Days

Being old and senile, I could not remember when I went to Israel for my friend Hanah's wedding. I swore I blogged about it while I was there, but that would mean that I did not go to her wedding in August 2005, as I didn't start CUSS until October 2005. The best way to find out was to check the archives, and lo and behold, there was a trip to Ocean City, NJ, and a trip to visit my sister in Iowa, but nothing on Israel. (Hence the wedding was August 2005, not 2006.) Still, I'm glad I checked because some of my old posts cracked my ass up! I think I was funnier when I was miserable at work and hated my life, before I had a book and went back to school to learn to be literary and shit. For example, here is my three post re-cap (conveniently combined into one, for an extra long treat) of the Iowa State Fair:

On Saturday, my sister, my brother-in-law (BiL), and I set out for the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines, which is about an hour and a half drive from their house. As we left a bit late, we were too hungry to wait to get to the Fair for lunch, so we stopped at a roadside Subway attached to a gas station. Kum & Go is also known to locals as “Ejaculate & Evaculate.” Ha ha ha. I love it.

After ingesting a low-fat sandwich, Diet Coke, and Baked Lays for lunch, I met my healthy obligations for the day and was ready for some serious Fair eating. Pork chop on a stick? Count me in! Taking BiL’s advice, I put a little bit of Cookie’s BBQ sauce on the chop, and an equal amount on my shirt. YUM! It was tasty on the chop. (Not sure about my shirt, though.)

After the chop, we headed over to the Agricultural Building. Sister and BiL assured me that there were many samples to be had. We tried various jellies and honeys, which were delicious. I bought a Dark Sweet Cherry jam, which Sister must ship to me because I could not bring it onboard the plane thanks to the terrorists. The Ag Building also housed the butter sculptures. Does anyone else find the butter cow slightly disturbing? I think it is the veiny udders and prominent ribs. I don’t hang out around many cows, so maybe I just don’t know what they truly look like, but this one is like some weird starving cow on the Ganges or an anorexic bovine. I just never picture cows with their ribs sticking out or bulging veins when I think about them. I like Superman and his butter bulge much better than the cow. (Sacrilege, I know!) Insert your own “melt in your mouth” joke here. I’m not sure who Mr. State Fair is, but he rounds off the troika of butter sculptures nicely. For some reason, I think he has something to do with the Riley of “The Life of Riley,” but like the anorexic cow, I could be making that up. On a final note regarding the butter sculptures, I was amused to see a book about Norma “Duffy” Lyon, the woman who has sculpted the butter statues at the Fair since 1960, was available to purchase.

The butter sculptures were not the only food art on display. Oh no siree! [Here's] the chocurkey. I actually think that this looks a little like a turd molded into a turkey shape placed on a spray painted gold cardboard disk. Gobble gobble!

These are just cute.

No state or county fair is complete without ginormous vegetables and animals. Iowa did not disappoint when it came to the veggies.

The rabbits, however, were not so impressive (although they were damn cute!!!). I mean, sure slightly under 18 lbs. sounds big for a rabbit, but last year at the North Carolina State Fair, I saw a 25 lb. Flemish giant. Tycho, my New Zealand white, is 13 lbs. of sleek fur and muscle. I think Tycho can totally take down that lame ass “Big Betty.”

The final highlights from the Iowa State Fair was spotted in the general store and in the Various Industries Building. As illustrated by this photo, the death penalty is not only barbaric for humans, but also for dolls. Is this not freaky? If I were a five year old girl, I think seeing a doll hang from the rafters of the general store in a noose would give me nightmares. I’m surprised that it didn’t give me nightmares now. On the other hand, every home (or apartment, even if it is a 200 square foot studio like my first one was) needs an “Infrared Health Cabin.”Hmmmm… is this not also known as a sauna? I like how they claim it can “balance” blood pressure (what the hell does that mean?) and lower your cholesterol. Is sweating your balls off really a way to lower cholesterol? If so, Husband, Brothers-in-Law (both of them, Sister’s Husband and Husband’s Brother), and various other men I know must have some of the lowest cholesterol known to man. At least it achieves something other than generating tons of laundry as they sweat through everything they own and change four times a day! Now if only sweatiness would reduce noxious gas emissions, they’d be set…

State fairs are supposed to be all about fun. People go to them to see the latest in tractors, ginormous vegetables, impressive animals, the projects of overachieving 4-H kids, and most importantly, to eat things that are fried or on a stick, or even better, both fried and on a stick. We do not go to them to be brainwashed. Or at least I don’t.

Imagine my horror when I passed by this scary booth: Worse, it was innocuously wedged between a display of whirlpools (for some reason, there were many such displays – hot tubs seem to be the coolest thing in Iowa after tractors and combines) and vacuum cleaners in the Varied Industries Building!!! What does crazy zealot brainwashing have to do with industry? Unless, of course, the state of Iowa is suggesting that the business of denying scientific evidence like evolution has grown into an industry. (And they would be correct in that suggestion.) I was completely offended. If I want to be offended, I watch Fox News. I don’t need to see this shit at a fucking state fair! I want pig races and other entertainment. Bah.

Just as I was calming down about the religious nutjobs, I saw something even worse: You can imagine the scene I wanted to cause. First, I wanted to point out that if you are printing ginormous, factually incorrect propaganda, get your fucking punctuation correct. The asterisk that footnotes whatever bullshit study you invented does not go before the 94%, it goes after it. Stupid fucks can’t get anything right, can they? I was tempted to tell them that there was a booth selling fried aborted fetuses on sticks, and that the teensy skulls have a nice crunch to ‘em. Then again, you never know how these life-loving loons might react. I could easily get shot and killed. I have found that anti-choice folks don’t have great senses of humor. Saving souls is fucking hard, serious work, you know? Maybe they should be outside the general store, protesting the hanging of the doll.

Speaking of the death of thousands of innocent people, I found this attraction at the carnival section of the fair to be in rather poor taste, albeit hilarious: I don’t think it is clear, but the kids climb up the middle section of the angled, sinking, inflated Titanic in a section marked “first-class only” and then slide down the deck. Who the hell thought of this? I admit it is sort of genius, although the class issue annoys me. (All the steerage folks of course were locked underground and drown like rats.)

Also on the offensive yet funny side: Sure, you can get a nice fountain, but why not go for broke and put your very own statue of a Vietnam vet on your lawn? (That is what the sign identifies this extremely white soldier as.) He's fending off the gooks for you and making the world safe for the George W. Bushes of the world to fuck up. What scares me are the people who actually do think that this is a great lawn decoration. They are usually those militant types I try to avoid, not to stereotype or anything.

Thus concludes my overview of my time at the Iowa State Fair. It’s been fun for me, and I hope you feel the same.

Happy Blogiversary, CUSS!

As we walked home from dinner on Friday night, I told Husband that Sunday is the 3rd anniversary of CUSS. "Did you think it would be a fad when I started blogging?" I asked.

"Yes," he replied. "I mean, how many blogs make it past a few months, or even weeks, before people move on?"

Yet, here we are. Blogging, as cliche as it may sound, changed my life. When I drafted my first blog post, I was a burned out do-gooder on the verge of snapping. Even though I only wrote a few paragraphs every day, I realized how much I enjoyed writing my little stories and rants. I "met" awesome people, some of whom even softened my hard core stance against unshaved snatch. A year later, I pursued a life that incorporated writing.

Although, some of what I wrote on Oct. 19, 2005 makes me cringe, I think in celebration of three years of blogging and personal growth, it is worth republishing. Happy Blogiversary, CUSS!

Why the world needs pubic hair

Far be it from humble unstylish little me to suggest that the New York Times Style Section is lagging on their trend reports, but in a Sept. 1 article titled "Skin Deep: The Revised Birthday Suit," they breathlessly reported that significant numbers of women are opting for totally bald crotches, or if not totally bald, then certainly having large tracts of hair ripped out so they can look "sexy." Please. Cosmo has been reporting for years that men prefer women with little or no pubic hair. Brazilian waxes went mainstream along time ago. Which, quite frankly, scares me. What on earth would make a woman spread her legs wide in front of a cosmetician, allow her to smear hot wax into her vagina, and then have all her hair ripped out? This sounds like something the US government might institute as a torture tactic in Abu Gharib. (And they could easily justify it by noting it can't possibly be torture if gazillions of American women voluntarily have this done all the time.)

No, it is scary and wrong to me. For goodness' sake, pubic hair exists for a reason. We lost most of our body hair during evolution. We lost our tails. We grew taller. So what's left seems to have a purpose. And we need our pubic hair! Think of pubic hair as vagina eyelashes - they stop bad things from getting inside during sex and causing infections. Pubic hair is our friend.

I'm not sure how we so quickly arrived at this hairless situation, but it's arguable that it is the popularity of g-strings, thongs, and other revealing bikini bottoms and underwear that led to the widespread (ha ha) acceptance and even expectation of shaved beavers. Fair enough, but I'd say that if your cooch hairs are hanging out of your bikini bottom, the solution is not to have them torn out of your vag and butt, but to get bigger bottoms. Think of pubic hairs as an organic warning system of sorts. It's Mother Nature preventing you from humiliation by telling you to put on some clothes because you look obscene.

Let's face it: female genitals got the nicknames pussy and beaver because they are furry. And who wants a hairless cat? No one. Having a hairless cat doesn't even help if you are allergic to cats since the problem is with the dander, not fur. Feline pussies with fur are nice to stroke. Hairless cats are freaky. The same goes for human pussies and beavers, my friends.

Is the Mile High Club Even Possible? - An Investigative Report

I spent some time re-reading my old posts on BlogHer, back when I was the contributing editor for travel, and I thought this post from May 2006 was hilarious:

I spent the past week visiting Florence and Rome with two friends (which explains my absence from BlogHer). We had a great time, but as I endured the 9 hour return flight from Rome, I began wondering: Who are all those freaks writing letters to Penthouse Forum boasting of hot encounters with other passengers on airplanes? Unless these letter writers are some sort of contortionists without senses of smell or fear, my experience with flying leads me to doubt whether any regular traveler really belongs to the mile high club.
Click Here

Anyone who flies economy class knows that the seats are ridiculously close together, so it would be very hard to get it on with someone and not involve the people around you. (That would then be a mile high club threesome or orgy, which I suppose some people would not mind). You could try and get away with your partner and slip into the plane bathroom for some action, but the bathrooms on commercial aircraft are barely big enough for one person, even in business class. I am not very large, and when I am in the bathroom I find that there is barely enough room for me alone. Even if they squeezed in, people would find that there's not very much room to maneuver around for boot-knocking to happen. I suppose two standard size adults could do it if one sat down on the toilet and the other person on his lap. Somehow letters to Penthouse Forum about chance encounters on airplanes never seem to mention sitting on the porcelain throne as part of the action.

At any rate, even if you can fit into an airplane bathroom with someone else, I noticed that they tend to reek. Not exactly like a sewer, but a different type of gross fecund smell; a bit milder. I try to breathe as little as I can while I use the facilities of an airplane and get out as quickly as possible before I pass out. This may then be perfect for someone who engages in autoerotic asphyxiation (i.e. - denies himself oxygen to heighten his orgasm), but does masturbating in the bathroom of a plane allow you to count yourself as a member of the mile high club? I think not.

A final problem with sex in airplane bathrooms, whether alone or with another person, is the other passengers. While some people could not care less what other people think when they see two adults going into a lavatory together, I noticed that lines for the toilets can get pretty long when someone takes his sweet time to do his business. The people waiting start to get very cranky. (Or maybe it's just me - I've come damn close to trying to kick the door in and find out what the hell was taking so long in there.) The flight attendants become annoyed by the hordes of people blocking the aisles as they wait to relieve themselves. Violence could easily break out if it was known that people were in there having sex. Even if the trysters are not discouraged by the thought of an angry mob, there's the risk of injury during turbulence. It just sounds dangerous.

Unless the prospects of physical cramping, stench, and potential violence turn you on, I just don't see how anyone could find these good conditions which lead to great sex. Am I misunderstanding the situation?

What's even funnier is that one guy actually left a comment about getting it on in an airplane bathroom. All I can think is, ew...

Worth 1,000 Words*

(Photo credit: Reuters)

*Some actual words: This photo appeared in The Age, a newspaper in Australia, with the following caption, "Slip of the tongue: John McCain reacts after almost leaving the stage the wrong way following his debate with Barack Obama. Photo: Reuters." (The full story is McCain goes for jugular, but misses.) I first saw the photo on the front page of google news, and thought it was linked to a story in The Christian Science Monitor. It is also on the Reuters website, with a slightly longer caption, "Republican presidential nominee Senator John McCain reacts to almost heading the wrong way off the stage after shaking hands with Democratic presidential nominee Senator Barack Obama at the conclusion of the final presidential debate at Hofstra University in Hempstead, October 15, 2008." Whew!

Theo Thursday: Stop Global Warming, Save the Poalr Bears

Theo is a Plush Animal Companion for Suzanne. His goal is to raise awareness of the plight of his cousins, the polar bears, whose habit is melting thanks to global warming. When he heard that Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin not only supports violating the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in order to drill for oil, but also denies that human behavior impacts global warming, he became enraged. Fortunately, unlike John McCain, he has a good poker face and can hide his temper for the greater good.

Theo thanks his plush canine friend for rallying the support of sled dogs for his cause.

In My Medicine Cabinet

Yesterday I took a good look at the contents of our medicine cabinet. I found:

• Pepto-Bismal chewables (expired 2/07, although I swear I bought them in 4/07 for a trip to India...)


• Sudafed Sinus Headache (2 boxes, both expired 8/06)


• CVS cold & cough liquid gelcaps (expired 9/06)


• Sudafed Sinus Nighttime (expired 11/06)


• Chloraseptic (expired 9/07


• Maalox Anti-Gas (expired 11/02)


• Zantac 75 (expired 12/03)


• Immodium AD (expired 2/08 - not bad given the other expirations)


• NyQuil (2 bottles, both open, neither expired, although on Sunday I threw out a 3rd bottle that was also half used that expired in 2007)


• Vicks Formula 44 (not expired!)


• Sudafed Cold & Allergy (2 boxes, both open, neither expired)

I cannot believe that nearly every single box of OTC meds that we had in our medicine cabinet expired. This is only slightly less horrifying than the boxes of tea that I chucked on Monday. The Wild Berry Zinger expired in June 1997; I'd had it since college. The Cinnamon Apple expired in December 1998. The Iced Tea expired in December 1999.

I sort of wish I kept the Wild Berry Zinger as a relic. Ah, nostalgia.

Is Sarah Palin a C Word? A Scholarly Consideration of the Issue

On one of the many sites on which I've been devouring political discussions lately, a self-identified PUMA* was irritated that no one decried an Obama supporter who wore a t-shirt that read "Sarah Palin is a cunt" to a recent rally. To which my first thought was, "Well, she is a cunt, so why would I get my knickers in a bunch?" Then I felt a little bad, since I would probably be furious if someone wore a shirt like that with Hillary Clinton's name. Except that HRC is not really a cunt, so that's why I would be so irate. (Bill Clinton, however, is another story.)

Perhaps, I wondered, was I being unfair because I loathe Sarah Palin's evil social policies? Only an impartial and wise source could settle the matter for me. I whipped out my trusty slang dictionary, Slang and Euphemism: A Dictionary of Oaths, Curses, Insults, Ethnic Slurs, Sexual Slang and Metaphor, Drug Talk, College Lingo, and Related Matters (2nd Revised Edition) by Richard A. Spears. ("College lingo?" Seriously?) It read:

cunt (see also c*nt, c**t, c***,****,----) 1. the female genitals, specifically the vagina. [said to be from Latin CUNNUS (q.v.)] 2. women considered sexually. 3. copulation [in numerous spellings since the 1300s] The word was banned from print in much of the British Empire until the middle of this century, and it is the most elaborately avoided word in the English language. There are numerous dimunitives: CUNNICLE, CUNTKIN, CUNTLET, CUNNY. Avoidances are: INEFFABLE, MONOSYLLABLE, NAME-IT-NOT, NAMELESS. Disguises are: GRUMBLE AND GRUNT, SHARP AND BLUNT, SIR BERKLEY HUNT, TENUC, UNTCAY. See MONOSYLLABLE for additional synonyms. 4. a rotten fellow; a low, slimy man. [colloquial, 1800s-pres.] 5. to intromit the penis. [attested in a limerick, late 1800s] See also DECUNT.

Whew! That didn't entirely clear the matter up for me, but I believe that she meets definitions 1 (she is certainly interested enough in what comes out of other women's vaginas, anyway), 3 and 5 (she is totally going to screw us if she gets into the VP's office). Hence, Sarah Palin is, in fact, a cunt, and the t-shirt is accurate. Perhaps, however, anti-Palinites might want to wear shirts reading, "Sarah Palin is a monosyllable" to confuse her supporters and avoid controversy. (Plus, "monosyllable" is a great double-entendre in this case.)

Wasn't this fun? Not only did I learn interesting facts about my grandmother's favorite word (I love that she hates the word "fuck," but will cheerfully spew out a word that is otherwise "the most elaborately avoided word in the English language"), but also that I run against popular sentiment in my embrace of the word cunt.


*A group of the Clinton supporters who are possibly the sorest losers in political history.

Roaches

Perhaps the one thing that is more despicable than than exploiting the fear of breast cancer to sell women products that may actually cause the disease is a roach. Roaches are repulsive. They exacerbate asthma and other conditions. Worse, they are everywhere in New York City. I nearly puked when I killed one this morning. Just thinking about it makes me itchy.

My friend J. hates roaches to the point of irrationality. I asked her if she had seen Wall-E yet, and she told me that it was so offensive that she had to leave ten minutes into the film. I was surprised, as I heard that Wall-E has a good message that I thought a progressive like J. would dig.

"What is so awful about it?"

J. threw her arms around as she ranted. "It's repulsive! It should be rated X! I can't believe they allow children to see such filth!"

"Um, are you talking about the cartoon?"

"Yes, of course! I asked to get my money back, it was so sick!"

Now I was really confused. "What is so bad about it?"

"The sidekick is a roach!!!!!" she screamed.

Ah, that explains it.

Unrelated Thoughts

Beans are full of protein. They can also cause gas when consumed, thus the nickname "the musical food." However, none of the nutritious or gaseous benefits of beans are derived when bodies decide not to digest them. I thought about this when I discovered that I shat out an whole soy bean at 2:45 AM. The bean was consumed on Friday night, not long after the host at Ruby Tuesday may or may not have mistaken me for a 10 year old boy.

While I was at the BlogHer Boston conference yesterday with Alex and Sally HP, I suspect Theo sneaked out and attended an anti-Palin rally. He looks extra secretive today, and no matter how many times I ask him what he did this weekend while Husband and I were gone, he refuses to answer. Maybe I should sign him up for Twitter, which I finally joined yesterday (@suzannereisman) so I can follow him when I am away from home.

Cough, hack. Colds suck. Fortunately, Husband stocked up on the miracle cold cure that is sold in Britain while he was there for work this week.

Hey Little Girl!

Last night, Alex, her hubby BG, her two sons, and I went heading to Ruby Tuesday's for a fine dining experience. Upon entering the restaurant, BG told the host that we needed a table for five. BG held their younger son (age 2) in his arms, and I held the hand of their older son (age 5). The host looked at all of us.

"Do you need three children's menus?" he inquired. We stood silently for a moment, staring at him. Then BG and Alex started laughing, and the host turned bright red. "Of course you don't! Come right the way."

As I followed him to our booth, I wondered if he thought I was the third child or if it was Alex. Lately I've been looking my age more than ever, so if it was me, that would be pretty hilarious. He probably thought I was the oldest brother. Strangely, before we went to the restaurant, Alex told me when BG flipped through pictures from their older son's (OS) September birthday party, when he asked her which friend of OS's was in this one. Alex took one look at it and burst out laughing. "Um, that's Suzanne!" (Evidence to be posted later.)

Maybe school is aging me down. Not only am I breaking out again for the first time in years, but another comment the little wench in my workshop left for me was that my writing is juvenile. Maybe I'm all Benjamin Button or something.

Theo Thursday: Who is a Terrorist?

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Theodore Roosevelt Reisman is a plush animal companion who wants to live with his human friend and her husband in freedom. He became an activist when he heard that his polar bear cousin's lives were threatened by the so-called "pro-life" governor of Alaska and Republican Vice Presidential candidate, Sarah Palin. Theo believes that, although the Constitution does not seem to allow 20 year old stuffed animals to run for elected office, he is more qualified to be Vice President than Sarah Palin.

Theo Thursday: A Philosophical Question

Theodore Roosevelt Reisman has worked as the companion bear of Suzanne for approximately 20 years. His foray into political commentary was triggered by concern for his polar bear cousins, who are losing their arctic habitat at an alarming rate, which Alaska governor and vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin denies. Theo hopes that he will not need to make a career as a protest companion bear, but is prepared to do so if necessary. This fall, he is rooting for his baseball brethren, the Chicago Cubs.

The Future is Dangerously Tempting

Now that I have seen the Future (ATMs that scan deposits and require no additional documentation), I giddily anticipate the next time I need to put money in the bank. Let's see: I expect checks from my consulting job and from my writing gigs, then I'll bill my consulting job again in a few weeks. In December, I'll receive checks for my birthday and Hanukkah.

This is great, but I want to put more into the machine. While I showered, I wondered what would happen if I put random pieces of paper in the ATM scanner. Probably the bank would get mad at me and forbid me from using it in the future, so that would be bad. I know! I can write myself checks! How awesome would that be to see my checks to me on the ATM screen!?!? Totally awesome!

Yeah. That's the dangerous lure of the Future....

Speaking of money/finance and the future (or lack thereof), as I read this morning's column in the NY Times by Thomas L. Friedman on the credit crunch, Husband's voice floating into my mind. Years ago, he was an analyst at Bear Stearns. Whenever I told people that I worked in public service, he insisted that he did, too. "I keep markets liquid," he said with a straight face. Mostly (99.9%) he was kidding, but today I see that he did have a very slight point. When money is not freed up, it is a challenge for businesses to properly capitalize themselves. I think they should just write themselves some checks to put into the new ATMs.

The Future is Here!

All that nonsense I spouted yesterday about the end of the world? Forget it - I've seen the future, and it is here! Ironically, the future met me at a bank at a time when banks are falling to shit left and right. On my way to Long Island for Rosh Hashana dinner, I stopped at an ATM center by Penn Station. Finding only envelopes, but not deposit slips, I stormed out muttering and walked across the plaza to the actual bank.

There were zillions of deposit envelopes by the ATMs in the bank, but still no deposit slips. However, unlike at the ATM center, there was a large sign on the wall and handouts in multiple languages (except, inconveniently for me, English) informing me that deposit slips and envelopes were no longer required in order to make ATM deposits. The large sign encouraged me to just follow the instructions at the ATM. Weary and skeptical, I approached the machine.

I slid my card into the slot. (That sounds ridiculously sexual, doesn't it? Sorry about that.) After telling the ATM that I wanted to make a deposit, it asked me to insert my check face up into a larger slot. "OK," I said and took a breath. The machine greedily inhaled my check like an asthmatic sucks down her inhaler during a bad asthma attack. Two seconds later, a scanned image of the check appeared on the monitor. A line of words appeared under the picture. "Is the amount of this check $400?" I had not even realized that I never entered the check amount. I could even print a receipt with a picture of the check on it.

Maybe I am easy to impress, but damn, what a miracle this was! I wished I had more checks to deposit. (Not only because the ATM was cool, but because I wish I had more money to put into my account.) The future met me at Chase Bank,* and I approve.

*When I pulled up Chase's website to see if there is any information about how Chase is introducing their customers to the future, I discovered that they are welcoming "WaMu customers to the #1 U.S. Bank in Deposits!" That brought me back to reality. Go Cubs!

The Great Schlep and Usage of the Expression "Douche Nozzle"

I love Sarah Silverman for many reasons. Not only does she employ my favorite insult (douche nozzle) in this video, but she encourages Jews to help their grandparents understand why they should vote for Barack Obama in her extra special offensively hilarious manner.

Theo Thursday: We are the World of Plush Animal Companions

Now that McCain claims to not be campaigning because of the economic crisis (although he was partly responsible for the failure of S&L banks that required a bailout in the 1980s, so he should stay the fuck away from Washington), Theo is extra revved up. He knows that this is just the McCain's campaign latest shenanigan - pretending that he knows anything about economics, how ridiculous! - so he gathered all the plush animal companions living in our apartment for a group protest against this latest farcical travesty of a mockery of a sham. (Apologies for the blurriness of the shot. Our digital camera is dying.)

Click on photo for larger view. The sign says, "We can't bear 4 more years of failed economic policies! Say no to McCain-"Palin aka Bush!" - Plush Animal Companions for Obama<

Please join Theo's group, Plush Animal Companions for Obama (PACO) on Facebook. I swear no one will think you are a plushie.

More Plush Political Commentary

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Big Beaver and Little Beaver live in Suzanne's living room. Giant Stuffed Penis was made for Husband by Suzanne in December 1995, when Husband's roommate bought his girlfriend a $200 stuffed chick from FAO Schwartz for Christmas. Suzanne told Husband never to waste money on her like that, and Husband replied, "What if it was a giant stuffed penis?" Suzanne thought that would be awesome. Husband did not think such items were sold in stores, so Suzanne decided to make him one. When she sent it to Husband at his parents' house over winter break, his dad saw it and asked, "Why did your girlfriend send you a giant limp penis?" From then on, he requested that Husband "get that thing out of my house."