THIS POOR DOG. That's Malcolm, nappin' in his basket. I just got back from an early morning bike ride with him--the first we have taken in a long time (due to the heat and my inability to get out of bed early enough to exercise before it gets too hot). We went on a new route today, and we passed a trailer park. Stupid me, I start paying attention to looking in at the trailer park from this alleyway we are riding through. I fail to notice the gigantic speedbumps in the alley. I hit one, hard, and Malcolm flies up and lands back down on the pillow in the basket on my bike. He was friggin' airborne for about 2 seconds! Horrible. Don't worry, he's totally cool about it. When it was over, he adjusted himself, and resumed his regal stance in the basket, letting the wind toss his hair like a tiny, canine Fabio or something. Anyway, I just wanted to post that I almost killed my dog because I was too busy looking into a trailer park. (And really... speedbumps in an alley? Why?)

I know things are bad when I find myself actually having dreams about reading blogs. This happened last night. I dreamt that my friend Kristen’s sister started a blog and I even remember the name of the blog: Sarasquaw.blogspot.com. There was something with the color turquoise on her blog. It’s already the middle of the afternoon, so the hours removed from my dream have made me forget if it was the fact that her blog had a turquoise background, or if she was writing about the color itself. Either way, I think it’s safe to assume that blogs have taken over a decent-sized parcel in the well-worn wasteland that was once my thriving, healthy brain.

This Friday, me and Trish are taking off to blow this town. And when I say “blow” I mean to say, “leave for several hours.” Not pleasure this town in any way. Just so we are all on the same page here. We haven’t taken a sisters-only trip in quite awhile, and we’ve yet to take one since we both have our digital cameras. We’re going to Bisbee, AZ, which means we need to drive through the city of Tombstone to get there.

Here’s something terribly sad to ponder: The fact that I no longer think of that fantastic Kurt Russell/ Val Kilmer movie first anymore; but rather, I think of that stupid frozen pizza. Why that is, I really can’t say, because I am relatively certain I have never even eaten a Tombstone Pizza. I’m just sick of seeing them in the store. The repetition of seeing them all the time has wrecked havoc with my word-association skills. That pizza does not look good at all. It really seems like it is made out of cardboard, some old flaky cheese, and possibly hair.

I do love “Tombstone,” by the way. Definitely my favorite western movie of recent times. And, my favorite Val Kilmer performance ever. (Took me a few years and some growin’ up, but I finally placed Doc Holliday above Mad Mardigan. Yeah, I know, I know…)

I recall liking “Shane” and appreciating “Dances With Wolves”, however. “Shane”’s got a fantastic Jack Palance scene, where he coldly kills a guy while smiling and then kicks him out into the mud in front of the store; and then you’ve got all them Totanka everywhere in the other film. That’s all that one is to me, really—a giant ‘stache on Costner; terrible, HORRIBLE hair on Stands With a Fist; some sort of homoerotic thing going on between Costner’s character and Wind In His Hair; and a bunch of buffalo.

But the all-time greatest western for me will always be BLAZING SADDLES. Come on. Too many classic moments, and the best Gene Wilder performance on film, in my book. And Cleavon Little was so underappreciated! “Where the white women at?” They just don’t make movies like that one anymore, and for that we are all the sicker, as a society.

Trish poses with the Dead Baby Brownie Cake. We threw a surprise birthday party for Kane this Saturday, and we decided to go with a pirate theme. This was because last weekend, Trish and I were at the party supply store and we found party hats that look like sharks eating your head (I didn't get any decent pictures of these hats, so I hope Trish did!), a pirate figurine for the cake and then a mess of tiny naked babies. I guess you're supposed to use the babies for a baby shower or something, but when we looked at the babies, we both had visions of little babies scattered all over a birthday cake. Why? Hey, I don't think it's the sort of thing you explain, really. Last night, Trish and Jen decorated up a tray of iced brownies with the babies, and using red icing, Trish made it look like the pirate figurine had slaughtered all the babies on the cake. I wish I wasn't so buzzed because I should have taken a picture of the whole thing before we ate it. It looked very cool. I recommend walking around the party supply store sometime, with an open mind and a willingness to buy naked babies. Finally, the party was a massive success, with Kane being very surprised and the ladies (four of us, total) doing a kickline to "Damn it Feels Good to be a Gangsta." I love parties these days. And Corona Light is really not that bad. Mmm.

This is Greg's dog, Hailie, and my Katie. They're best friends and were rescued from the same group (RESCUE). Even better? They enjoy mounting one another, even though they are both spayed females. My Dad tells me this is just a dominance/ figuring out the social order thing, but I know lesbian dog action when I see it. Either way, they are so smiley and happy all the time, you can't not love these two bitches when they get together. Ahhh. Bitches.

I know I am tired, because I just read the following story's headline really fast, and I thought it said: Joan Rivers instead of Jordan River. http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20050624/sc_nm/environment_river_dc

Here's a section of the article, re-edited so that it pertains to Ms. PlasticWolfFace Rivers:

"Joan Rivers will disappear if nothing is done soon. More than half of her is raw sewage and runoff water from the entertainment culture. What keeps the woman flowing today is sewage," Munqeth Mehyar, chairman of Friends of the Earth Middle East (FOEME), an Israeli-Joan Rivers-Palestinian group, told Reuters.

Maybe this is only funny to me; but just in case it's not, I hope you liked it.

Trish opened up her online store for jewelry and other stuff! If you want to check it out go to: http://www.littlesilverstars.com/shop. I already have some of her stuff and it’s definitely cool. I get the best stuff anyway, because I am her big sister, and if she doesn’t give me the best stuff I will basically bother her about it a lot, and make her feel a tremendously heavy pile of guilt pressing down on her person.

I was mopping my floors last night and I have to say the perfectionist in me started to get a little riled up. The problem was that I was seeing dull swirls on the floor once it dried. This hasn’t really happened in the past, and I mop about once a week with hot water and soap. Anyway, I am wondering if there is any method or product I can use to make Pergo wood flooring shiny. Can you wax Pergo? I honestly don’t know if it would work or not, and I know I would totally hate to put all that effort out for nothing. Or for naught. I love that word: naught.

Also, I am pretty close to trying out my tap shoes on the Pergo. I know, I know: don’t tap dance on your floors because that is a sure way to ruin said floors, and thereby reducing the resale value later on. Yeah, I know. But, if the floors are all dull and, let’s face it, stained in some places by glue that the previous owner spilled in the kitchen, for instance, what harm can me and my tappin’ shoes really inflict? I wonder about that sometimes. Because I really don’t hate tap dancing. I kind of enjoy it, you know. It’s silly and tappy, and makes me smile a bit. I would definitely like to get some quality tap-time in on my nights home alone. It should be one of the inherent joys of owning your own place that is 75% covered in hard surface flooring. At least, I think so.

As I was sitting here thinking about tap dancing, I realized something. This could be profound; could be not so profound, but here it is: I love to tap dance myself, but I really don’t care much about watching it. It’s just not that exciting to watch. It’s all in the feet and these tiny little, barely perceptible things you do with the feet… you can’t see it all. “Wow, you are stepping and smacking those taps on your shoes very fast there, sir. Yup. Um. Yeah. Sooo…What else you got?”

And if you are deaf, you can’t even hear the taps. I’m not saying I am a Deaf (although my hearing is definitely suffering from some minor loss I attribute to loud concerts and Walkmans always at top volume as a kid), but if I were “a Deaf” I would be bored even more than “a Hearing Person” by the tap dancing thing.

Tap dancing is really only lots of flittin’ around, swinging your arms and steppin’ and all that. Not a lot of acrobatics there. Unless you have a show with one of those fancy-ass tap dancers who can do little backflips and stuff like that. Then I guess, you might wake up and watch that and say, “oooh, a backflip.” But after the backflip, you might consider sneaking out of the dance space for a smoke, or a BJ.

Today is my blog's second birthday, so in honor of this momentous occasion, I present a little list I threw together rather quickly:

Things I am not impressed with:
Huge plasma TVs
Lights mounted underneath your bitchin' Iroc
Web Cams
Pedicures or manicures
Creamed corn
Massive displays of military might
Genocide
Circus people, esp. the ringmaster. Whatever, you freak.
People who say "UNIX" a lot
Eunuchs
Castration, in general
Dental cleanings
The new "Personal Sized Watermelons" you see in the produce aisle
Bench pressing more than 400 of anything (unless it's bowls of Mac-N-Cheese, since that would be sort of neat)
Magic: The Gathering
Mandy Moore
Loan payment booklets
Looseleaf paper
Scented candles purchased in Walgreens
My ability to bruise easily.

I wonder if there is a reason why I hardly ever write about recent or current events in my posts. I do this in my journals, too. Which, by the way, are also falling off in frequency. I've always been one of those people who uses journals to figure out stuff and make decisions, etc. In the past few months or so, I haven't been writing very much down at all. I am not sure if that means anything or not. Most likely, I am thinking it means there is less drama and less confusion in my life now, because I do feel pretty damn nice and calm about 98% of my life. Anyway. Just thinking aloud here. Or, thinking in typed words here.

I saw "High Tension" the other day. Don't bother. It's one thing to have a cool slasher film thing going on, but another to throw in a plot twist that makes no sense and is full on inconsistencies. Blah.

This movie, however, looks like it will be right up my proverbial alley: Night Watch.

And even though Kane already posted this trailer, I had to do it too because of HOW EXCITED this one makes me. I mean, it was written by Neil Gaiman and has art direction by Dave McKean (who did the covers for the Sandman comics and Mr. Punch) and it reminds me of Labyrinth and NeverEnding Story and all the other fantasy things I swear I will never, ever outgrow: MIRRORMASK.

I want someone to make a movie where these two dogs are stealing a car. They are all gansta-ed out, too, with lots of, I believe the word is "bling." Yeah. Two hours of these two dogs, working hard to steal a car. It would take two hours because of the lack of thumbs, fingers and knowledge of how to steal a car. They would get distracted by cats, loud noises and random cold cuts thrown at them by a crazy old guy. I think this could be a winner. People love dogs, and they love crime. I need a power that be at a movie studio to call me up so we can develop the everloving shit out of this one.

This is the photographic evidence of the most valuable stuffed animal I have ever owned. Pictured above is Peanut, the Beanie Baby. There was only a very small number of Beanie Baby elephants that were made with the dark blue fabric-- after one batch, they were switched over to light blue.

One year for my birthday, Trish bought a little dark blue elephant toy to put on top of one of my birhday gifts. I thought it was a cute little elephant, and I kept it on my bookshelf for a couple of years. I really didn't think much of it.

A few years later, I was at the boardwalk down at the Shore somewhere with my boyfriend Mike. We went in some store, and they had a huge display of Beanie Babies. This was my first time ever seeing what the elusive "Beanie Baby" thing was really all about-- up until then, I didn't know they were little stuffed animals; I thought they were baby dolls with bean-bag bodies for some reason. But anyway, we were looking at them and I thought the little heart tag looked very familiar and I remembered my little elephant at home. I wandered around and saw that the display-owner had placed a sign up that listed the Top 5 Most Valuable Beanie Babies. It listed some like a dog with only one spot on its eye or something; a monkey with a different colored tail than the mass-produced one; and then a dark blue elephant.

I called the guy over and asked about that, my heart pounding. When I told him I had a dark blue elephant BB at home, he said I must be kidding. After all, there was only about 6 known in existence. When he told me how much it was worth I almost threw up: $1,000. I ran out to payphone and excitedly called my Mom to tell her the news. For the next couple of months I debated about what to do. Should I hang onto it and hope it grew in collectible value, or do I try to sell it while the trend was still going on? And if so, who do I sell it to?

The guy at the boardwalk told me it was worth $1,000 but said he'd only be able to give me $750 for it. I ended up going to a flea market and meeting up with a husband and wife who were interested; two days later they called me and offered me the full $1K. It basically then became a very covert operation-- I met them at the flea market as it was closing one night, with Mike. I had brought Peanut in a big Ziploc baggie. We stood in a hallway and I showed them Peanut, and at a simultaneous moment, they handed me $1,000 cash and I handed them Peanut. They quickly closed him into a lucite box. I was able to get full-price because the tag was still on. (And to think that I had never cut it off simply because I thought the heart-tag was cute.)

But here's the thing: I kind of miss Peanut. He was really a cute little toy. I didn't really want to sell it, but if I didn't I think I would have always thought about how I missed my chance. That $1,000 actually helped fund my portion of the move to Arizona later that year. Still, how funny is it that someone paid $1,000 for a tiny stuffed animal my sister had purchased at a gift shop in New Hope, PA, on a whim? By the way, I bought her a Beanie Baby out of appreciation, and took her to dinner. Later, the remainder of the money bought my first car in Arizona (at a seedy car auction, which is another story for another day).

One more detail about this story that I really love: before I knew I was harboring a super-rare Beanie Baby, I used to spend a lot of time hurling it across my room into the eager jaws of my dog Sam, who would slobber it up and carry it to his bed and sleep on it. I kept that detail out of the financial dealings at the time.

But yes! If you ever see a dark blue Peanut, chances are it was probably mine at one time, and it lived in the paneled basement bedroom in Middletown, NJ with a dorky girl obsessed with comic books and her dog. I miss you Peanut, and if you are reading this, I hope you are well!

"Why did they change the recipe for Nacho Cheese Doritos? I don't get it. They were so delicious already. Why mess with a classic? I also don't get how I am not the president of my country anymore. Weird. Oh well.
"What else, what else... oh yes. I wonder if I can fit an entire red cabbage up my anus. Hmm. Could be a tight fit, but I have the time to stretch out. So that's good. Hmmm, hmmm, hmmm. So much on my mind these days! Oy!"

EL CAMINO!!

(No, it's not mine. I don't even know who owns this thing. But heck! It's an EL CAMINO!)

Today is so boring I want to just run around and scream like a three year old getting tired of how long it is taking her mother to shop for curtains. I want to throw a tantrum or a hissy-fit; I want to make a lot of noise and exert a lot of energy and then collapse in a heap and sleep for an hour or so.

I am simply unenthused by the things I need to do during my workweek. It’s dull, uninteresting and incredibly sedentary. As a result of doing this routine for a full year now, I am now heavier, more lethargic, my thoughts are more easily distracted and “drifty” and my desire to actually move around and exercise and stuff has dwindled. My favorite activity has become naps.

I have recently been taking a long look at why this is. I know I am not clinically depressed; I have a lot of awesome things in my life that make me very giddy and happy. I laugh probably about 25 times a day, even when I am alone. No, I have concluded it’s caused by boredom and working a job that I think is well below my ability and the fact that I am not challenged in the slightest by what I do. I’ve talked about it a little bit with bosses and stuff, so I am not worried about someone at work reading this, because if they called it out I would simply say, “Yeah, but you knew this already because I told you.”

This morning, Trish sent me an e-mail forward that listed a bunch of New Jersey facts (Cape May is the oldest beach resort in the country; Highlands has the highest elevation on the eastern seaboard) and that list of things that everyone has seen that is supposed to denote your knowing if “you are from New Jersey” if you are familiar with any of these things. A lot of the things listed were stupid or not really true anymore (having lived in another state rife with shopping malls—a state which, at the same time, is the hottest state with very few outdoor activities, which makes going to the mall one of the few activities one CAN do here--, I hardly think that NJ is as crowded with shopping malls and people who only think about shopping as I once did), but others made me very homesick for a bunch of places and things in NJ.

One of the main topics Trish and I spent the morning e-mailing each other about was Great Adventure. The e-mail list rightly noted that real NJ’ers don’t call it “Six Flags Great Adventure”, you just say Great Adventure. I spent a huge portion of my formative years at Great Adventure. I remember when they had the Bobsled ride next to the parking lot, and then they tore it down to make room for the Great American Scream Machine. I never got to go into the Haunted House that they tore down in the early 80s after a girl died inside of it during a fire (I was too young at the time). Trish and I always had a blast going on Roarin’ Rapids over and over again with our grandfather. He used to yell a lot on the ride, saying things like: “Oh, here we go, here we go! Oh boy! Here we go!”

If you’ve been there, remember those awesome days where it would rain and a lot of people would clear out of the park, but if you stayed you could pretty much walk onto any ride you wanted? That’s how me, Trish and Pop-Pop ended up taking 5 consecutive rides on Roarin’ Rapids one day. And on some “off” day, me and Tracy rode the Scream Machine probably 100 times in a row. This morning, Trish and I went ahead and reminisced about it as much as we wanted to. We recalled the huge paper flowers they sold inside the entrance; the dolphin show; the giant TeePee gift shop that was located just outside the Log Flume ride; how much we loved getting ice cream at the Yum Yum Palace; how they would sell the glow necklaces after dark (I used to suck on mine during the car ride home—it’s inconclusive if this caused any chemical damage to my young body) and finally, how much we liked the old logo with the rainbow. Trish said she could recreate it and then we could make homemade knockoff T-shirts that looked all early-80s.

I also really miss diners. It was always a good go-to option after hanging out with your friends some night. A diner was always going to be open, and you could sit there with your drinks and French fries for as long as you wanted to and not get harassed (well, I didn’t because me and my friends weren’t the rowdy types). We used to see people we know coming in the door and we’d call them over the table for awhile. Then someone else would show up and you’d do it all over again. I liked that so much. I also miss diner chocolate milk. Especially chocolate milk served in one of those smoke-colored glasses. Chocolate syrup would be sort of clumped onto the bottom sides of the glass, so you’d need to stir it around with your spoon. I used to get buttered toast and chocolate milk late at night, or a salad. Mmm. Salad with French dressing. You can’t really get French dressing anymore, and definitely not here in Arizona. I don’t get it. I think it’s got to be the least popular flavor or something. But at least when I go back to NJ, in most cases I can just order French on my salad and not worry about them saying they only have Ranch and Blue Cheese like they do out here. Or that snot-colored, mucous-textured cheap Italian dressing. No thanks, I will just eat my salad plain.

It wasn’t a diner, but I totally loved the salad with the homemade Italian dressing at the Inkwell down in Long Branch. If you’re reading this and you remember the Inkwell when it used to be good, that is, write me about it.

It’s really getting hard to be here. I have whined about this before on this blog, but I really want some weather again, and places that are comfortable—both in their positive elements and the piss-me-off-till-I-cry elements. It’s very dry and there’s not a lot of personality here. I am so bored! Can someone rescue me and airlift me outta this state? I don’t care if I go to Jersey or not anymore, as long as it’s a place near the ocean and there are trees and older buildings and people who are unpretentious. I’ve been thinking about the band between Massachusetts and South Carolina a lot recently. I think I want to be somewhere in there.

Thanks for listening to my rant! By the way, I meant to share my enthusiasm over the first episode of "30 Days" with Morgan Spurlock. Simply awesome. OK, I am done now.

I find the following website both amusing and infuriating at the same time:
http://www.sprayonmud.com./index.html
Plus, if you click on that link, you'll see that the photo of the "sprayed on mud" looks nothing like authentic mud splashes. Someone's gone goofy with the brown paint in Photoshop.

I think I would prefer that someone markets "Spray On Doody." There's a big market for that, I'd bet. Probably in Germany, especially. Shiesse!

I need to give everyone an update. It was recently brought to my attention that I have yet to give my review of Batman Begins. So, in order to please the people (AKA: Mike), here are my thoughts on the coolest Batman movie ever to be made:

It rocked. I loved it.

More specifically, it was just what I was hoping it would be. Christian Bale was definitely the best Batman/ Bruce Wayne yet. I really liked his Bruce Wayne. I think that’s more important, anyway. I mean, everyone knows that this is the movie that explains how he became The Bat Man. But it really needed an actor who could commit to this transformation, internally and physically, to make it work out and live up to the hype. Luckily, not only does Christian Bale’s commitment to the role show in his goddamn gorgeous body (yeah, I said it, he’s hot as hell in this movie) and the very cool ‘training sequences’, but he manages to make Bruce Wayne a real person through little nuanced moments that show him deep in thought, or conversing with Alfred, all that. I personally loved the scene where Alfred is telling him he needs to go out and have a social life and not just be the Batman. I think it was so amazing to see two very talented actors talking together on screen in a way that actually made me believe they have known each other for over 20 years.

Michael Caine is a fantastic Alfred! I think between him and Morgan Freeman in “Unleashed”, this has been a great year for actors who want to play father figures/ friends.

The look of the movie was just about perfect. Dark and foreboding in the right places, and lavish in others. I did have a minor, minor issue with the rainy alleyways in the “bad part” of Gotham. Why, in the movies, is the poor side of town always shown with laundry hanging between buildings? And why can’t the poor people manage to pull their laundry inside when the rain starts falling? I don’t know.

Other than that…

Cillian Murphy as the Scarecrow was awesome, too. I thought he looked hot in his glasses, so it was hard to not pay attention to him when he was on screen, but I think his hotness came from the strange inner intensity he had as the character of Dr. Crane. When he was Scarecrow it was a very fun dichotomy to follow; although, my complaint here is that you just don’t know crap about Scarecrow—why he wanted to control people through their fears, who is he and who wronged him, etc. I know it’s just a 2 hour movie, and we don’t have time to know the backstory of everyone, but still… it was a tad bit underdeveloped.

Then you’ve got Liam Neeson. Not much to say really, about his character, except I liked what he did with the role. He stayed calm and resolute, instead of insane and over-the-top like he *could have*. I like that take on a villain. I don’t have much to say, because really I was more taken by other things about the movie, and I need to see it again to pay special attention to what he did in there. I know I missed stuff.

My other problem with the movie is the casting of Katie Holmes. OK, overall she did alright as the childhood-friend/ victim part of her role; but as an assistant District Attorney? Hell no! Who thought that she could pull off the authority or the knowledge that would obviously be required of someone who would move through those ranks to that position at such a young age? Crap, not her. She’s “sweet” but not particularly “smart” looking. I would have gone with someone who could pull off maturity better, like Zooey Deschanel or something.

So yes, I whole-heartedly endorse this movie. I am so psyched that the team on this movie have agreed to do more sequels in the future. I am definitely ready to see what Nolan, Bale and the rest do with characters like the Joker and Catwoman, etc… because I can tell it would finally do the story justice. Go see it so it makes lots of money and we get more movies! More excellent Batman movies = happy times!

I keep forgetting to put the Fuckin' A up here. Trish made this for me just for my birthday. I am crazy-nuts about it. Or...maybe I am just nuts crazy. I love the nuts. Haven't you seen me, running around down Main Street USA, with no pants and huge granny panties, screaming about wanting nuts in my mouth?? Sure you have! Well, on that note... thank you, Trish, for giving me a Fuckin' A! He is so adorable I want to scream (...and have some nuts. But that goes w/o saying, I think). Trish needs to go work for a toy design company or some shit.

I have a couple of hours of free time at the moment, before I go to see "Batman Begins." I would really like to spend some time over at the pool here in my complex; mostly to tan my legs but also to try and swim off some calories from this morning's Lucky Charms binge.

But there's an old guy there already.

You know the type. Shirtless, flabby, balding, skin like orange leather. Just sitting there, slouched in a pool chair. Staring at anything and everything. If I went over to the pool now, he'd stare at me, he'd probably clear his throat a few gross old-man times... and then he'd probably try to talk to me. I don't do talk. Not at the pool. I want privacy and I want quiet. I demand it. I am anti-social and I have a self-conscious streak about the size of my upper-arms and stomach that requires me to stay 'hidden from view'. I don't want the interaction, verbal or otherwise. So I can't go to the pool at the moment. Sucks.

I don't know where he lives in this complex, or who he is, either. Does a truck make its rounds through the city, dropping off these guys at various community pools throughout the day, just to weird people out? Where do they come from? Why are they ALWAYS there?

Entertainment Weekly is probably my favorite magazine, by default. I say by default because I have had a subscription to it since the early 90s. I’ve been reading it since the very first issue, which came out when I worked at the pharmacy. I could keep any unsold magazines, provided I tore the cover off so we could send it back for credit, or something. But anyway, I read it mostly from cover to cover (except for any reality show or reviews of “chick lit” articles because those just bore the crap out of me). It takes me longer than a week to finish reading an issue, depending on what kind of time I have available. At any given time, my living quarters are strewn with issues of EW; some half-read with “bookmarks” inside them; some already several weeks old and still not read. They arrive every week, making it hard to catch up. I just don’t sit still long enough to finish reading anything. Both Trish and Tom have commented on my ever-present EW’s littering up the place. I have noticed that if Kane comes by, he will undoubtedly sit down at the table and start reading through these magazines, even if there’s a group of people there or a pseudo-party going on. Lucky for him, he never makes me lose my “spot.” I figure it’s good to have reading materials featuring what I lovingly refer to as "Fat American Entertainment" topics lying around for my visiting guests.

Anyway, my point is this: So many times, I think of canceling my subscription because of how long it takes me to read these stupid things. I let my “Real Simple” subscription run out recently, because I noticed that the novelty of organizing my life to extremes that involved “condiment organization” and “the best way to iron your pants” was no longer appealing to me, and whole issues would sit, unread, on my nightstand for weeks—getting to the point where I was actually dusting the cover off and replacing the TV remote and box of tissues back on top of it again. I also figured I would be better served spending my short-term reading time (usually while I am eating) actually reading something like a novel. So, the consideration of canceling EW became a real possibility.

Then, the June 10th issue arrived. Nothing special; in fact, it had ugly puckered-face Renee Zellweger and bloated Russell Crowe on the cover. Yawn. Same old EW, pushing the latest stupid movie for the masses or latest stupid music group, whatever, blah blah blah. But as I read it yesterday as I ate my lunch, I turned to see a headline that caught my attention in a way that I almost dropped my fork and called everyone I knew to tell them to go out and buy this issue, so they could read this article: “The Worst Movie Ever Made.” The article was about “Manos: The Hands of Fate.”

The thing about “Manos” is, this was the featured “experiment” movie on the very first Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode I’d ever seen. I remember it was late one night back in about 1995, and I was getting home from an Improv Jam show. I turned on Comedy Central, and this amazing "thing" was on. Up until then, I’d never seen MST3K, and even thought it was some sort of Science/ Masterpiece Theater show or something. Seriously, I was an idiot.

“Manos” was the perfect movie to introduce me to MST3K, which has since become one of my most beloved diversions. I was sitting there in my basement-bedroom, laughing out loud at the “Haunting Torgo Theme” and the way-too-long driving scene in the beginning of the movie. It was awesome, and if it wasn’t 3am I would have called up Kristen or someone to turn on the TV and watch it with me. The next day I did share the news of what I had seen, much like a disciple spreading the good news of the Resurrection. Except I was sharing the “good news” that I had finally figured out what MST3K was, and that there was actually a movie out there that featured a character with an affliction of “horribly large knees.”

I highly recommend checking out this article in EW, if you liked Manos even a teeny little bit. And if you don’t know what it is, all the more reason to read it. It’s a good story of how a very bad movie can get made using local community theater actors, and then go on to become a geek-cult classic. (Here’s an up-until-a-national-magazine-recently-shared-it-Little-Known-Fact: the only people to be paid in this movie was the little girl, whose voice was dubbed over by an older woman later on in the editing process; and the Doberman dog, who was given 50 pounds of dog food. Crap, I’d work for 50 pounds of dog food. Dog food’s ‘spensive!) Only problem with the online story: you need to be a magazine subscriber to read it. Damn! But try to track down this article.

If you can’t do either, here’s a good place to learn more about Torgo, the caretaker of “The Master”’s estate: http://www.torgo.org/torgo/
What’s really cool about this site is there is even a (very poor-sounding) file here of the “Haunting Torgo Theme.” If you’ve spent even as little as an hour in my presence, you have probably heard me humming this nonsensically at some point.

Manos: The Hands of Fate. Translated from the Latin, it means literally: “Hands: The Hands of Fate.” Don’t wait to watch this one, else the Master will not be pleased.

This one time at work, I got out of having to help move heavy boxes out of a storage room by using The Tetanus Shot Lie. All I had to do was:

1) Take an extra-long lunch (which I used by shopping, listening to CDs and eating a sub)
2) Stick a small band-aid on my upper arm just before entering office again
3) Go into office, loudly talk about how "sore my arm is" and tell them all I got a tetanus shot on my lunch hour.
4) When the time came to help move heavy things, I said: "I got the tetanus shot because I started a new volunteer job at an animal shelter; and they recommend you have one of these shots."
5) "Sorry, I don't think I can lift anything today."
6) I then got to sit at my desk and read blogs. While the guys did the heavy lifting.
7) Which, I might add, is the way it SHOULD be. Since when am I some kind of human pack-mule? Christ, I am a lady, damn it! Don't make me fuckin' lift shit!

Not only did I lie about the shot, I lied about doing volunteer work, too.

I think this was one of my most majestic moments, ever.

If I had the choice, I would rather buy from an independently owned and operated store than a chain store anyday. Particularly when it comes to music. In NJ, there were a lot more independent music shops (or "record stores" as I still call them), and I remember sometimes driving about 40 minutes just to get to this one small shop down in Ocean, the name of which I can't recall anymore. But it had a musty smell in there, the floor had cracks in the linoleum, and you always felt like you needed to wash your hands after flipping through the CDs in the bins... but it was the best place to buy music. I could find anything there-- really, anything.

I've found that in Arizona, it's a little different. There are Zia Records stores, but they suck. The clerks are of that ultra hip and unwashed variety, and always act a lot put-off if you happen to ask them a question. They demand your ID for credit transactions in a blunt, unfriendly manner. I never feel more like "I work in an office" than when I go into Zia's... those clerks, with their fashionably filthy T-shirts, run-of-the-mill lip and septum piercings, and the guys with the longish, floppy-spiked hair always give me this knowing look--even if I am in my PM/Weekend clothing-- like I don't have an edge anywhere in my body. I hate that and it makes me not want to go there, but they are pretty much one of the only independent stores, so I go there to sell used CDs and hopefully buy something I can't find at stupid Best Buy or something.

However, on Saturday I remembered another place I could go to buy records from Mom and Pop: Stinkweeds in Tempe. A few years ago, I had a friend Sara who was always good for what I would have to deem "indie fun." We would go to Stinkweeds and look for CDs by this local band, Briefcase, who we had seen play out in little art galleries downtown and even at some kind of fundraiser at the park in July. While we were there, we would spend much too much time at the listening stations, finding new bands and spending a lot of money on things we'd maybe only play once in awhile-- like when we are blowing bubbles, or when we are cleaning out vacuum cleaners looking for "funky lint" to make little people out of (Sara was my kid-fun-creativity-boosting friend; she now lives in New Mexico where she's at grad school for poetry, and I miss her). But it was always a good time just standing in the relatively dark and small Stinkweeds, exploring new stuff and feeling decent about purchasing things that maybe only had a limited shelflife: the point was, we were supporting the little guy.

Trish and I went into Stinkweeds on Saturday after we tried spanikopita for the first time at the Pita Jungle. Trish ordered a CD they didn't happen to have in stock, but the dudes behind the counter were nice, unassuming and calm. Of course, they had the slight hipness thing going on, but it wasn't over the top, which I appreciated. I plan to get back there much more often to make my music purchases (which, let's face it, are way more numerous and frequent than they should be) even if it means it's a little out of my way. I have to do this.

This is unrelated, but as we were walking through the parking lot at Pita Jungle/ Stinkweeds (the same strip mall also houses a Planned Parenthood and a Bartending Academy, so you could make a whole weekend out of being there, really), Trish told me the story of this kid she used to hang out with who had gotten arrested in that parking lot for riding his bicycle while intoxicated. All the kid wanted was a taco at the little taco stand in the parking lot; he was drunk so he rode his bike there instead of driving. Still, he got a ticket and was arrested for operating a vehicle while drunk. I think this story is pretty funny. I guess the ticket was more for his own safety, rather than the public's really... how much damage can a guy on a bike do? Is he going to reckless "ride" into you and knock you over, or make you jump back a little? I don't know. Well, that's all fine and good I guess...at least the cops are keeping busy.

"Brando, the King and I, and the Catcher in the Rye..." Thanks, Billy Joel, for the song that is playing in the background right now and making me type so quickly I am almost nauseous. Davy Crockett, Peter Pan, Elvis Presley, Disneyland...!

Ohhhh, I ate too much. Tonight we were at the O-G for Trish's birthday (that's 'street lingo for Olive Garden-- huh, I'm surprised you didn't know that). I ate too much. Especially considering that it was pretty much the first thing I'd eaten all day because I ended up sleeping so uncharacteristically late. I hate that, when I sleep away an entire weekend day. But last night all it was, was a blur of bowling (They called me "Lisa the Lame" on the bowling screen; just a little uncalled for, don't you think? OK, so I did come in last out of 7 people with my score of 59, but still... with a name like that I was destined to fail), some warm beer in a solo cup that tasted better as I kept drinking it; throwing peanut shells on the floor at some other place, and talking about Donnie Darko; watching Kane's movies at Trish's and starting to get that ultra-tired giddiness big time. When I get like that, everything is goddamn hilarious.

Take that commercial for some sort of cleaning fluid or something. The one with the woman wiping down her entire kitchen's surfaces with a piece of raw chicken. When I see that with normal-vision, I just sort of ignore it like all the other commercials. But last night it was one of the grossest/ funniest things I'd ever seen. Greg, who has now seen all sides of me, including Tired Lisa Who Babbles, laughed with me and we started talking about if the woman used raw chicken to wash her baby off. During the diaper change, she's use a wing to clean out the baby's undercracks. It became one of those times where you and your luagh-buddy are over in the corner, absolutely hysterical at something the rest of the group has no clue about. We went home at some point thereafter. Good thing, because I guess I really needed some sleep. I hadn't been getting any sleep for several nights in a row for different reasons, so I took half an Ambien sleeping pill to make sure I got my required 8 hours, uninterrupted.

The phone rang at 12:30pm; it was Greg, calling to say he had some free time and wanted to come over and help me with some things around the house. The thing is, I hardly ever sleep in past 7:30, even on the weekends, because of that freaking internal clock thing that happens to us workin' class folk-- and the dogs alert me of the risen sun by no later than 7, as well. I slept about 10 hours or so, straight. Even through the harassment of the dogs, who I am sure must have tried for at least a minute or so to rouse me. A new record for me. Guess that Ambien works better than any of us, including the guys down at the lab, ever expected.

After all that sleep (I'm usually lucky to get 6 hours let alone 10), I must have had a dream or two but I can't remember any of them. I do know that a few nights ago, I dreamed that I was hanging out with a troop of monkeys. Yes, a troop, and they were monkeys. Maybe chimps. Yes... chimps! Anyway. I was with this one group (troop) and there was another troop (group) on a hill just above us, behind a chain link fence. All the chimps in this dream wore clothing. I decided one day to sneak away and check out the other chimps who lived up on the hill. I got there, knowing it was verboten to be mixin' with these other chimps, and guess what? Those chimps who lived up on the hill, behind the fence, were SO nice to me! We just sort of hung out... and one day led to two days... and so on and so on... and I realized "oh no, my home troop of chimps are probably wondering where I went! I better go back!" But then I thought: why do I have to go back? I like it here too. Sure, my regular chimps are kind of nice, but these new chimps are nice too, and they work for right now just fine. So as the dream ended, I was living me a new life with some new chimps. And the best part was I could just look through the fence and see the old chimps down below any time I wanted to (although I think I didn't let them see me, for some reason-- I guess part of me was still scared they wouldn't like me hanging with the new chimps). I'd love to analyze this dream and figure out what it all stands for sometime, but I am thinking instead of taking a bubble bath and reading until I go to sleep for the evening.

I was watching "Made" a little while ago at Trish's house, and it was the one with the kid named Dov who gets made into a wrestler. It made me wonder: If I had an opportunity to get "made" into something, what would it be?

Before I allow myself to answer, I have to preemptively warn myself not to just be sarcastic for the sake of comedy. So, after much actual thought, I guess that if I had the opportunity to have someone help me become something I am not, and benefit from the personal training by an expert in a field, I would say: I want to be Made into a very disciplined dancer, probably tap. I'm serious. I love that shit, tap. (Another one I'd like? A stuntwoman/ swordswoman! Yeah. That would be nice, and fun.)

This story jarred me from my tired complacency this morning, and made me very glad that I was nowhere near the vicinty of the I-10 and Marana last night (among a million other places I could have been):

Crash spills blood, urine on I-10 near Marana
Associated Press
Jun. 10, 2005 07:45 AM

MARANA - A crash on eastbound Interstate 10 near Marana Thursday night turned into a biohazard situation after blood, urine and other lab materials spilled across the roadway.

The crash happened about 6:35 p.m. near the Trico-Marana Road exit.

No serious injuries were reported, but containers of blood, urine, semen and other medical lab materials were scattered across the interstate.

The Arizona Department of Public Safety and Northwest Fire District firefighters handled the crash scene near the Pinal-Pima County line.

They mentioned "other lab materials" being scattered across the interstate, too. So imagine being the guy riding behind the crash, and having to deal with those little fecal-sample cards stuck to your windshield. All you'd be able to say is, "Oh, ohhh! Man!" as the windshield wiper fluid made a brown mess of your line of vision. Not to mention the fact that dried semen definitely ruins your alloy rims.

Gross!

It's just a few days away from my little baby sister's birthday. The crazy kid's gonna be 26. I just went out and bought some presents, as well as a set of knives for me! Turns out I had no carving knives if I decided to cook anything like chicken, for instance. It was fun picking out the knives I really wanted the most. And now, I have to comment on what is my new favorite CD: The new White Stripes CD, of course. I just seem to like each album by them more than the one before it. I've had it on repeat all night now. I logged on here hoping to give my list of my favorite five songs, but it keeps changing. So here's some of the best tracks anyway: "My Doorbell"; "Blue Orchid"; "Little Ghost"; "As Ugly As I Seem"; and I guess if I could only say one more, I'd say "The Nurse" is in the top five.
I remember when the White Stripes came out, and I did NOT want to like them. Not sure why. They looked too "intentionally kooky" for my liking; and I thought they looked strange, too, like they were trying too hard. But over the past few years, I must admit that they really have grown on me. And Meg is my hair idol at the moment. I want her hair so badly. I couldn't find a decent picture of Meg and her cool hair, so I decided to instead include another awesome chick, Milla. Here, of course, with Derek Zoolander. (Plus, this picture has the requisite White Stripes color scheme going on, so I figured this one fit well.)
If I had to answer the question: "who is the hottest actress?" I would say it's Milla, hands-down. I know Angelina is all statuesque, perfect and getting all the attention nowadays, but for my dollar, Milla is the one to be watching. Plus, I get a little freaked out that me and Angelina Jolie are the same age. I feel like a doofus with a huge double chin and sloppy hair who can't even manage to cook Rice-A-Roni without a freak-out (I had a craving for it the other night, made some but then it stuck to the pan and I started cursing out the Rice-A-Roni residue). Angelina? Not so much with that kind of thing. Somehow though... I could see Milla getting upset if her new shiny pot was covered in crusty rice. She just seems a little more prone to weirdness and cooking Rice-a-Roni. Why is that? Hmm. Anyway, my point was... White Stripes? Great album. ALTHOUGH, the new Eels CD, "Blinking Lights and Other Revelations" is also the shit, too. Music is so good right now. Damn. I love this.

Hey, it's me again. I am sorry I had to call all the lazy bloggers out in my previous post; it was just something that we, collectively, all know had to happen at some point. I've had those points in time, too, when I was not in the blogging mood and you know what? That's... OK. So, in closing on this thought, not blogging is no big deal-- it's just not fun for everyone else either, is all.

I was talking on the phone tonight and reminiscing about all the chemicals I was exposed to as a kid. We all were, really. Think about how different the world was in the 1970s as opposed to now. I bet some of our mothers smoked while they were pregnant, or drank. Not like today, where it's all "prenatal care" this and "thinking about the baby" that. And then, there was a lot more lead-based paint around the house... I am sure at some point some paint chips found themselves ingested. Our toys were not safe either, I'm convinced of it. For instance-- Speak N' Spell HAD to be emitting some crazy radiation. After all, you don't really see it on the market anymore, DO YOU.

I sniffed a lot of markers as a kid. We all did, though. Remember they even made special markers that were formulated to smell like specific chemical scents? Oh yeah, strawberry and grape-scented markers! We used to pass them around and sniff the hell out of them in school. Some marketing genius came up with that one, and led a whole generation of kids to inhalant abuse. Scratch N' Sniff? Same deal. Remember, it's one thing to have the "baby powder" scented sticker-- although the dangers of talc are not fully understood to this date-- but it's quite another to manufacture the scent of "OLD BOOT." (Remember that one?? I can still smell it.)

We ate dangerous stuff too. Like the silver sprinkles; those tiny silver balls that your mom would sprinkle on Christmas cookies and cupcakes. They looked like fillings, and tasted crunchy-delicious. But when was the last time you saw those in the grocery store? Try the early 90s. They're gone. Recently when Greg made the Death Cake, he had to actually call around Phoenix to find those silver balls to put on the cake. Lucky for me, I was able to ingest some silver balls just in time for my birthday after he located the one store that actually sold them. They have real silver traces in them; which apparently can be dangerous in high doses.

Who among us has not downed an entire bottle of Flintstones vitamins while watching Saturday morning cartoons?

Or handfuls of deliciously-orange-flavored Children's Bayer?

For me personally, the chemical that probably fucked me up the most was chlorine. Not just because I liked to swim in pools a lot; but I tended to hang out near the actual chlorine a little more than I should have.

We had an above-ground pool at one point, and to chlorinate it we had to float a chlorine dispenser on the surface of the pool. I recall that the one we had sort of resembled the spaceships from "Batteries Not Included." So I played with it. Me and my friends would run around the edges of the pool really fast and make a "whirlpool" effect happen; and then I would float along with the chlorine dispenser in front of me, like it was controls for a ship or a "float" that would carry me to "safety." So in essence, I was swimming happily in a steady downstream of dispersing chlorine.

Later on, we had an inground pool that required us to place several chlorine tablets into a little hatch in the ground near the edge of the pool. We kept the chlorine in a giant white tub next to the shed, and every morning in the summer one of my chores was to go out and turn the filter on, test the water and add the chlorine. I would wander out there before breakfast, and grab about 4 of these gigantic chlorine tablets with my bare hands and carry them to the pool, drop them in and then quickly dump my hands in the water of the pool to "rinse them off." Then, I would go in the house and pour myself a bowl of Lucky Charms (loaded with artifical colors and preservatives) and chow down, probably without washing my hands properly. I think I was vaguely retarded in those days. I'd sure as hell wash my hands today after handling chlorine tablets. I'm practically OCD today, compared to how I was then.

Lately, the chemical to be scared of in high doses is ozone. It's pretty crappy in Phoenix. I think it is what is making me sick all the time. I can't really exercise outside anytime after morning rush hour. Too much shit in the air. It's kind of bad. But what if I become one of those chemically-sensitive people, like Mike on Northern Exposure who had to scan the news everyday for an oil spill off of Costa Rica that could affect the windpatterns? It could happen. I hope not, because that would seriously cut down on my breakfast cereal and Pez consumption.

Chemicals suck. But Jesus rules!

I hate to be a jerk, but has anyone else noticed that blogs are starting to suck, the more the weather warms up? No one is blogging these days, and when they do, they blog about how much they don't want to blog.
Not everyone's a blogging loser... you know who you are; you steadfast few who are braving the current lull in blog activity. Thanks for giving me crap to read. I will try my best to stay right there with you, and not let this Perfect Storm of Sluggishness take me down to the deep like it has the others.
Please, I beg all of you-- fight the good fight, and come on back and stop sucking with the blogging already. We all need you.

This picture of the goings-on for my birthday on Friday would be a perfect snapshot of the way my mind was working after I'd had a few drinks while on prescription medicine-- if not for the unnerving, all-knowing stare of my sister, gazing back at me like some all-knowing "thing". I seem to have trouble taking good photos. By the way, I am not sure what is going on there in the middle of the picture with Brianna's head. Is that a lollipop or a flower or something in front of her face? I don't remember a lollipop or a flower being there. Oh, hell! The point is: it was a very glorious birthday. And the fake tattoos finally came off. Trish talked me out of the one I was going to paste across my throat. That kid is wise, I'm tellin' you.

A conversation between me and myself:

ME: "Hey, you want to go check out that movie; that one about the sisters and the traveling pants?"

MYSELF: "Yeah, isn't that the one about the young whores or something, always takin' their pants off and stuff?"

Well, look. In my defense for this stupid post, please understand that I am forced to be at my job today even though I don't have a thing to do-- nothing! And it's my birfday and all. This is so lame. In fact, today is very funny for some reason. I am in a giddy mood with no outlet except this here blog.

Me and Trish made up a bitchin' Prometheus joke at lunch today. It's not everyday you can make up a bitchin' Prometheus joke. "Hey, come on... I am extremely uncomfortable getting my liver torn out, come on now!" If you're not Trish this doesn't make much sense, because it's totally in the delivery.

Someone get me a tall "cool one", stat. I am hungry for drunk! I'd suck down a tub of Parkay if I thought it would get me high.

I have been wasting my whole day at work on the internet, and through all these links relating to the Tom Cruise/ Brooke Shields battle, I found myself on a site called www.fightforkids.org.

The central idea of this site is for the Scientologists to make their point about the dangers of psychiatric drugs. There’s a lot of really cool propaganda here. Anyway, through a link on the site where “parents tell their stories,” I found these two fantastic true stories. I’m sure you’ll agree with me that these unequivocally prove that drugs are BAD, and allergy testing—yes, allergy testing—is the thing that could save us all:

ALLERGIES & SCHOOL FAILURE:

 At 15, Betsy was depressed and suicidal each year in the late summer when ragweed pollen was in the air in northern Michigan.* During her first visit to Dr. Doris Rapp's clinic she appeared normal until she was tested for an allergy to ragweed. Then she crawled into the office bathtub and refused to come out.** She screamed, was untouchable, and complained of so much abdominal pain that she pulled her knees to her chest and held her stomach. After she was given a neutralizing allergy treatment***, she felt entirely normal within a few minutes. Betsy was a persistent school failure until her allergies were recognized and treated, and her academic work and demeanor in school improved dramatically.

SUGAR JUNKIE
 Karl was a darling 3-year-old youngster with a charming personality—until he ate sugar. His mother noticed that when Karl ate party food or candy, his total personality quickly and dramatically changed. He was videotaped as he gleefully devoured eight cubes of sugar****. Just as the mother had predicted, within less than an hour he switched from Dr. Jekyll to a Mr. Hyde. At first he stopped playing quietly and began to whine. Then he became more irritable, stomped his feet, wiggled in his chair, tossed his toys over his head, and threw pieces of a puzzle at his mother*****. When he was given the correct allergy treatment, within a few minutes he was transformed back into his adorable self******. His mother was in tears. She realized she was not a bad mother and he was not a bad kid.*******

OK, here’s my breakdown. First, let’s study the curious case of Screaming Betsy:

*: It’s interesting that every year in the late summer, Betsy (if that even is her real name!) got depressed when ragweed pollen was in the air in northern Michigan. First of all, they didn’t include the fact that Betsy lived in Kentucky. Secondly, the fact that she would consider suicide over the appearance of ragweed is definitely cause for a psychiatric evaluation by a licensed and accredited physician.

** : What does her allergy have to do with losing her mind and crawling into a bathtub? My friend Karen had allergies when she was growing up, and I don’t remember ever showing up at her house to go for a bike ride and having to plead with her through the bathroom door to get out of the bathtub first. Everything these people tell us about Betsy seems to have very little to do with ragweed and a whole lot to do with chronic X use, or something.

***: Sorry? “Neutralizing allergy treatment”? And whatever this mysterious treatment was, it managed to get a schizophrenic out of the bathtub and calm her agonizing abdominal pains? My guess is the real story was that her mother had enough of this bullshit and gave her a neutralizing slap across the face treatment.

And now on to Karl, the darling 3-year old “youngster” (god I hate that phrase—what are we back in the Roarin’ Twenties now or something?) with an appetite for sugar—and DESTRUCTION!

****: I love the fact that they videotaped him while he “gleefully devoured 8 cubes of sugar”. What fun! I remember the time my parents videotaped me eating an entire frozen London Broil that was thawing by the sink. No. Wait. That was our Doberman. But still, any parent who willingly feeds their kid nothing but sugar cubes, and then films it, obviously has problems figuring out this ‘parenting’ business anyway. Karl’s mom probably also takes Karl to Nordstrom’s, and leaves him in the menswear section while she goes off to the cosmetic counter. When the saleslady calls over the speaker that a child has been found wandering around the menswear section, eating packets of sugar, his pants soaked with urine and crying for his mom, she would walk right up to little tear-streaked Karl and say gently in his face, “What are you doing? I TOLD you I was going to be in the cosmetics section!” (This is a true story—my friend Julie worked in Nordstrom’s and witnessed it.)

*****: I am no scholar, and admit I haven’t read “The Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” but I am relatively certain that part of the evil of what Mr. Hyde did had to do with real death, mayhem and insanity. I’m sure Mr. Hyde wasn’t a homicidal nuisance and threat to public safety because of his incessant foot stomping and puzzle-piece throwing. If you’re gonna use a literary reference, you wily little Scientologists, first use a fucking more original one; and second, use it correctly. I want to punch you now.

******: Yet another unnamed “allergy treatment” restores the child to his former “adorable self.” In my experience, if you have to spell it out like that and SAY the kid is “adorable,” that usually means he isn’t adorable at all but is a freakish display of bad genes and even worse parenting. Maybe it’s just me, but I bet that a lot of these crazy no-drugs-for-my-kids parents have “adorable” children. One more thing—since when is loading up on sugar an allergy? I don’t recall ever hearing that. Maybe he had diabetes. Ever think of that, Karl’s Mom? Probably not.

*******: Classic—they all end this little story crying and realizing they are not sinners. No reason to blame yourself, Mom! I know you Moms love to blame yourselves, but in this case it became clear that no one was the “bad” guy here. I beg to differ. “Allergy treatments” do not a forgiven parent make.

And now, it's time for me to sit my ass down and get all contemplative about turning 30. It's sort of an obligatory thing to do when you have a blog, right? If I didn't do it, something would be massively weird about me.

I don't have as much to say on the subject as I once thought I would. I knew I should have written out that cool speech-on-a-napkin that one time when I was 28. But, to quote Dirty Work-- "hind sight is 20/20, my friend." But as I was saying: turning 30 is apparently not the horrendous thing I had figured it would be.

I think it's because so much happened over the last decade. I can honestly say that my 20s weren't as cool or happenin' as they could have been. I had a lot of crummy things going on, and bad luck and different illnesses both in my own life and in the lives of those around me. My writing fell away into oblivion, as I wasted time being numb, bored and distracted by things that I now realize were very silly to waste so much energy on. I know for a long time I had this goal of losing a certain number of pounds so I would be at some 'target weight' for my 30th birthday; I know I had a goal at one point of having traveled to Alaska by 30-- and another one of having my recipe for something called Aunt Lisa's Unmentionable Omelette published in Good Housekeeping. And even though I made the last one up because I can't recall any more of my old goals, the thing is at this moment-- the night before my birthday-- I don't think I could feel more at peace and happy about where I am in my life. It turns out those hollow goals didn't mean anything at all. This is just a very nice surprise for me.

You could say I plan to make up for 'lost' time by just having a lot of fun, being confident and silly and even a bit glittery as I head into the 30s. Maybe that's it. Or, maybe I just don't mind the past so much anymore, and I am just ready now to be who I am. I wasn't, before. I was distracted. A friend just told me today on an e-mail that she has totally enjoyed her 30s so far, and feels a lot better about her life in general than she ever did in her 20s. That's really all it is for me, too, and despite the presence of a Death Cake, I am not feeling my mortality creeping up on me. My uterus isn't pinching me in a desperate baby-wanting fit. My left ring finger is not twitching in the direction of the nearest husband-material person. A big part always expected these things to be important as I neared and reached 30. I'm so chill-happy to report that it's not the case. I say this more for my own benefit than anything else. I am glad I came this far and emerged this well.

Well, this has been a greeting-card like post. I might as well just go ahead and add a bit more about my sappy side. It can't hurt, and besides, Trish and I came up with a funny description tonight and as usual, I can't not type about it.

What movie makes me cry more than any other movie? It's not Titanic, and it's not the Notebook or even Maid in Manhattan. It's Homeward Bound. It's basically my Kryptonite. I will break down and dissolve into nothing if I watch the last 15 minutes of that movie, no matter how many times I see it. Those damn dogs, and even that silly little cat, all excited to get home again and see their kids... the old dog named Shadow who is voiced by Don Ameche... "Here I am, I'm back, I missed you so much" as he runs up to his kid-- oh man! It kills me. I used to be embarrassed of this little quirk, but I recently decided to come out.

The best way to describe what this movie does to girls like me (and Trish, who has never even watched out of fear of how much she might cry)? "It's like a kick in the cunt."

On that note, I must retire and watch the episode of Northern Exposure where Maggie turns 30. She goes off alone to contemplate things, and ends up hallucinating a barbecue attended by her ex-boyfriends and other people. I don't see this happening to me, but I am also still only 29 at the moment. My wish for all of you as I end this? Try not to get kicked in the cunt. That goes double for you ladies.

This is the Death Cake! I was extremely surprised and flattered to get such an artistic and awesome early-birthday cake last night from a very special person. This is a one-of-a-kind, hand-painted Death cake. With 30 candles, too. Not only was it the most special cake I have ever been given, it was delicious, too. I'm telling you-- I am being "wooed" in a way I have never been "wooed" before. What does one do to handle all this wooing? Especially when said wooing catches you completely by surprise? I'm not sure. I'll have to check in later and let you know if I figure it out. But for the moment-- I am smiling-happy and amazed that someone would go to these sort of lengths to make me smile. That is, just...awesome.

Regarding this Deep Throat/ Mark Felt business:

I couldn't give a shit less.

--Thank you.

PS: With a name like "Felt", and a nickname like "Deep Throat", it's certainly been a frisky morning in my mind.

The first thing I noticed was the American Cheese.

It was lying in the gravel, next to some bushes near the end of the building my condo is in. It was dark, so I couldn't make out what that papery-looking stuff was, but the dogs were drawn to it like dogs to American Cheese. So I figured, "That must be American Cheese." I pulled them away, because I ain't no dummy and I don't let my dogs just go around eating random American Cheese we find on the ground.

This morning, the American Cheese was still there. In the morning light, I was able to make a positive ID on the American part of the cheese identity. It appeared to be about 4 slices, thrown haphazardly into the gravel near the road. "Who would dispose of American Cheese in such a manner?" I pondered. "Perhaps the person who owned this cheese was forced to abandon the cheese in a hurry; it might have something to do with a pack of roaming wolves. I know I would drop my cheese and run if a pack of wolves were following me." Again, I pulled the dogs away as they protested with furious pulling on their leashes. We kept walking.

As we neared another condo building along this same road, Katie suddenly bolted up into the gravel next to yet another bush. Before I could comprehend what was happening, she hurriedly gobbled down some sort of pinkish-looking object. I ran over to see salami lying there in the gravel. Yes, salami. Not lone salami. A few slices of it.

Someone, or a group of someones, is recklessly abandoning lunchmeats around my otherwise calm and meatless condominium community. Who could be behind this act of carelessness? Is there some sort of message to be garnered from this experience? Do the cheese and salami symbolize something bigger than me, bigger than all of us? Are we all just limp pieces of abandoned lunchmeat, awaiting spoilage or consumption by greedy dogs?

Or, is it just wolves again?

Well, I know this much: if there wasn't an existing wolf-problem that made this person leave the lunchmeats behind, there sure as hell is going to BE a wolf problem, after this. Great. Just great. That's all I need. Wolves out in the parking lot and peering hungrily into my windows, trying to terrorize us into tossing our lunchmeats out into the night. I will need to refrain from wearing my oven-roasted-turkey-scented cologne, and carefully plan my runs into the house from the car from now on, so as not to be mauled beyond human recognition. Damn wolves. Always ruining everything.

(Although in this case, it's really the lunchmeat that is ruining everything. And I wager it's gonna stink, a lot, by the time I get home today from work. And no dogs of mine are going to consume rotting, stinking lunchmeats; wolves or not. Hey, I hold a BA in something-or-other; I know my way around a dog and rotten lunchmeat.)