So the last couple nights have proved that I am a sucker for anyone new. I am like the puppy your parents got to replace you, who gleefully adores all people who walk into the door, and nothing will change that excitement until you a) go away, and he promptly forgets you or b) you kick the puppy in the face. A few times.

Luckily Milwaukee Sarah has not kicked me in the face yet. See the out-of-towners are back, and I was immediately wagging my tail “Sarah Sarah Sarah, lets go do this, lets do this!” I don’t know why I don’t get my regular friends to do stuff like this. Probably cause it’s easier to justify spending money on stuff when it’s really “only because she’s just in town for a week”. So, on Monday, we went to Lava Lounge with Mike for Martini happy hour, then to the lake for sunset (Mike REALLY loves Lake Erie. I guess they have no large bodies of water in Connecticut, other than, you know, the Atlantic). Thursday, I tried to get people to go to Hooples to see crazy awesome guitarist Glenn Schwartz, but they all had a test on Friday, so instead we stayed at the chain Sports Bar/Adult arcade and I got extremely drunk. Drunk enough that at some point I was yelling how much I love Lord of the Flies, and no, I was not suggesting that the social atmosphere of the Sports Bar was conducive to finding the requisite Piggy and beating him to death, but let’s just say I had a candidate in mind.

Since we didn’t make it thursday, Sarah and I went to his Beachland show last night. I was very very hungover. I had spent most of the morning being unable to smell coffee without getting a tight feeling in my throat. The rest of the group wanted to go Downtown, because I guess there are lots of people who still like the Warehouse District, even people who are from places with much less lame Warehouse Districts. I don’t get that. I mean, I totally get drinking and dancing and hitting on people. But that place doesn’t even have the decency to display some depth of debauchery. Nobody is really doing anything that bad. They’re all just pretending to be bad, and being unnaturally proud of themselves for it. I always thought the glamour of going downtown was supposed to be “look at me hanging out with extremely attractive people, spending tons of money on really cool things I can only buy here, and not giving a shit about any of it”. Not “look at me hanging out with my mediocre looking friends, spending tons of money on drinks that are half the price anywhere else in a five mile radius, and caring a lot about what you think of me right now.” Most of the time I like Cleveland, until I go there, then I'm reminded of how much Cleveland sucks. But I guess for visitors it's the opposite reaction? Which is why I will never work in HR.

Anyway
So Sarah and I were not down for that, obviously. We were both pretty tired from the other night still, so on our way to the Beachland, I started a quest for the coffee my body finally started to crave at 8pm, which turned into an hour long tour of the burnt out Millionaire’s row by University Circle, various streets where I used to buy weed, and lots of closed coffee shops. Finally we ended up at the Phoenix on Coventry, where Sarah was very confused about how someone could make a café mocha without espresso shots. In Milwaukee, the espresso flows like the beer and the blood. She doesn't understand our wussy coffee ways. And there was a great thunderstorm with lots of lightning over the lake, so we hung out at the coast for a little bit, talking about communists with prada bags and 200 dollar jeans. Then finally, two hours later, made it to the show.

It was a pretty small crowd, but free. And by the way, when I said crazy awesome, I meant crazy and awesome. Because the guy is psycho, which is lots of fun if you can take it with a grain of salt. But his craziness was a little toned down last night, there was only one tirade against how a black becoming president would be the end of the country, and then a lot of stuff about how women should stay at home, and the fires in the toxic skies, and New York bearing the mark of the beast, pretty standard. Only one person walked out, and he was one of those weird youngsters you’re pretty sure has good intentions, but very little perspective, and while he might have better morals than you, he doesn’t understand that you can selfishly take advantage of someone’s talent while not espousing their schizophrenia.. Then some hipster tried to fake agree with Glenn, and Glenn was all like “bullshit, listen to yourself” and THAT was hilarious. See, that shit is disrespectful. Just shut up. The point is he’s a really amazing guitarist. But Sarah wasn’t down for 20 minute instrumentals, not enough salt to break up the sugar, so we left after an hour.

I probably should have gone straight home then. But instead we decided to go tool around our work campus since it was midnight, it’s a 24 hour access building, and Sarah still hadn’t seen the art collection, which is like 2/3rds of the reason I work for this company. So we walked around, and it was all empty and echoey and very abandoned spaceship-like.

THEN I went home. Where I still couldn’t go to sleep, so I watched a bunch of crap on Youtube, desperately trying to find a particular Bollywood dance sequence I had seen once. Don't ever do that to yourself. Too much Bollywood will make you yearn for your cat to eat your eyeballs. I think I finally forced myself to sleep at 3am? And woke up, as mentioned before, at 6? And now I’m here, where I obviously have enough time to write all this crap, so I think I should have slept at least another hour.

Tonight’s dancing in Akron, if you wanna come…

Ohmygod the purgatory of waking up at six every Saturday for the REST OF THE YEAR
It's out there.

Per Conversation last night:

This guy was telling us about how he was going to tell his girlfriend that he loved her for the first time by phone on her birthday, as his birthday present. And all the girls around me went "awww", but I argued my point, which is that "I love you" is a lot more powerful after something mundane, like sex. And the girls were up in arms saying "then it's cheap! How do you know he means it?" Well how do you know he means it when he says it by phone? How do you know he means it even if he accompanies it with roses and candy? You never know, unless you just know. And even then, we all make mistakes, so there's the proving by action every day. Saying I love you to someone is basically putting a label to a state you live in, one of constantly thinking of them, wanting to be around them, caring about what happens to them. So I just think its more powerful when you are saying it in the closest proximity to happiness in that state.

Of course last night I was completely smashed, and that did not come out like that at all, so the girls won. Like they always always always do.

I really do have a substantial post in me, it's just marinating for now.
Though I did notice that when I was not working (ie in training) I wrote a lot more, and now that I'm working its back to youtube videos.
But also I've been working on a story, so the juices must flow (congeal? flash freeze? Pool like stale gelatin?) in that direction.

But here's something I saw last night on Mtv that is simply hysterical....mostly to me, because of the smirk on his face the entire time, especially when he's saying "make a serious decision"


Once again, the youtube comments are great.

"This video is about taboo issues kool"

"What's up with the gay guys? (the black dude and the white dude)"

"don't understand the old man with the oxygen mask. How is that a taboo?"

"I'm sure it also has to do with doctor assisted suicide a.k.a. euthanasia."

"actually...yes this video was made as a political statement (obviously) but the song was originally written about the music business and how a lot of musicians care more about making money and being famous than making good music. They make a similar point in their song piss and vinegar which is about shitty bands like panic at the disco"

YES Panic At The Disco IS A SHITTY BAND.



The entire video is like a bastard mix of Oasis and every bad song on q104 ever
(the "soft" rock station here)

But more importantly, they just seem so disingenuous. I actually think My Chemical Romance is more sincere than these fucks. Also I'm just so sick of that particular aethestic, which I don't even know how to describe besides throwing out the random nouns that compose it "country, marching band, creepy mustaches, bad age makeup, oldtimey toys, really expensive scarves".

Carrie is having a show at the Beachland on my birthday (July 10th). I already bitched her out for scheduling it that day, but of course I'm still going, and you are too.

George Carlin is Dead

And it's too bad, cause now he won't be able to make a joke about how Willie Nelson outlived him.

On Death


The Sanctity of Life


The 10 Commandments (my favorite one)


Owned

Happy First Day of Summer!

In celebration, today my arms decided to suddenly be really tan. For no reason. It's kinda scary. I think the sun has been sneaking into my room at night and vomiting on me.

But no fear, my polish albino legs are pristinely white.

Things that happen during the summer....

1. My cat spends most of her time buried under blankets.
2. I develop an aversion to pretty things
3. I spend each weekend telling myself I'll clean the house next weekend.
4. My birthday.
5. Several other people's birthdays which tend to be viewed as more important than mine, which is OBVIOUSLY not the case.
6. I ruin every cute pair of shoes I have.
7. My favorite flavor in the universe becomes green tea. Except in tea form.

Severed feet in running shoes keep washing up on the shores of Canada
and now someone is making fake ones

And they are all right feet, and the scientisty dudes running the investigation say they are floating to the surface after separating from the bodies, because the sneakers have air in the soles. Only the right ones, yo?

So my question is this...has anyone here read Jennifer Government?

My point is...what kind of sneakers are they? I want those! I want the ones that will float to the surface and make identifying my scattered remains that much easier.

You need something to entertain you while you procrastinate going to bed?
Go to YouTube.
Do a search for Watership Down videos.

Really.

Here's just a few of the songs used for soundtracks...

Uptown Girl (tribute to Primrose, her favorite character. What?)

Highway To Hell (tribute to Woundwort. duh.)

Hey Hey We're the Monkees (clips of the rabbits talking a lot)

Kiss The Girl (Yes, from the Little Mermaid)

When September Ends (Greenday)

A LOT of heavy metal, mostly in tributes to Campion. There are a LOT of tributes to Campion.

And THIS GEM

My stress'o'meter is Yellow

Yellow is a good color. It's always happy to see you. I'm feeling particularly yellow these days, and not in that "I have a lethal combination of scurvy and syphilis" sorta way.

Everything seems to fall apart, but none of the debris falls towards me. It's hovering in orbit around me, held in place by mysterious forces. And I float along, unaffected, sublime in my kraken consciousness. It seems like I stopped feeling stress in any meaningful manner at some point last year. Or maybe I never really felt it, but I pretended to, for the sake of my disguise? I can't remember what stress feels like. I know panic, and fear, and loneliness, but.... I've added it to my list of feelings I'm never really sure I had in the first place. So far the list reads:

1. Grief over Death
2. Fear of Death
3. Undiluted Happiness
4. Actual non-melodramatic Stress (non-drug related)
5. Serious guilt

I suspect I am a sociopath, a mild harmless one. Sociopath sounds more frightening when you are a mammal, less so when you are krake (Scandinavian:an unhealthy animal, or something twisted.) I'm not dangerous, only my whirlpool.

Tim Russert is possessing my inner ear

This weekend was golf and more golf. Golf is a weird word. It looks weird. It sounds weird when anybody tries to say it, especially in a Scottish accent. But the US Open! It sucked me in, as aforesaid, on Thursday, and fuckin A, 4 days later I'm still watching the demon thing. Now quick, when I say demon thing, do I refer to the tournament OR....Tigger?



"The wonderful thing about tiggers
Is tiggers are wonderful things!
Their tops are made out of rubber;
Their bottoms are made out of springs!
They're bouncy, trouncy, flouncy, pouncy,
Fun! Fun! Fun! Fun! Fun!
But the most wonderful thing about tiggers is
They will eat your face off"

That guy is Mr. Terminator Android Secret Killing Machine, his expressions are so...mysterious? He's like a secret agent! He sat there in the middle of a hole, watching Rocco do his "silly dance", eating an apple! A green one! But really it was a miniature crossbow! It shoots paralyzing cement into the kneecaps of his opponents.
It was designed by his faithful caddy Stevie, in their secret lair underneath Hole 4 at St. Andrews.

I do adore Golf Genius, but I'm so scared of him. I'm scared of his cold steely demeanor, occasionally broken by off-putting smiles. Do you know who he reminds me of?



He was a crippled, limping thing this weekend, spun around on painkillers, and still he ate his opponent's heart for breakfast. By one stroke. Which tells you of the solid dwarf-spun gold his adversary was made of...



Do you know Rocco was going to be the oldest player to win the Open ever? And he was ranked 158th, but because he LOST to Tigger, his rank goes up by 111 rankings? Sounds like sidekick material to me.

Anyway, it was an awesome last round yesterday, but the awesomeness of watching the playoff round today, and the sudden death hole! It was the Valhalla of golf fans, and I could only wonder at the deep delight that some of the crazy fuckers who'd been waiting since 6 am in those damn bleachers were feeling.

I guess I chose the most perfect weekend to start watching this sport. I am a little disappointed though that when I google "Sudden Death Hole", I get a bunch of golf shots. It seems like the results for that should be more entertaining. Like this...

Do Landscapes predict your personality?

Last night I met up with the estimable Tara, and we wandered around the Tremont Art Walk in the thunderstorms, getting called "Lil Mama" and getting completely drenched, almost simultaneously. I wasn't too impressed with artistic output. Asterisk had some minimalist display in the upper room that was completely lost on us, and downstairs they had the room of penises. But in between were some pretty cool hanging lamps the size of punching bags. Doubting Thomas had, absolutely, the best show of the night with some cat named Jeff Pasek. Oh, if only I had like 500 extra dollars to spend on art, but unfortunately I'm not an addict, I'll just live vicariously through my friends. He had four or five landscapes that were just beautiful. Tara and I had a long discussion about what our fantasy picks of the litter said about us. Some guy Sean who works there chimed in with a cheap vodka shot and confirmation that indeed, the one I wanted for my bedroom was actually the majority winner. Wouldn't life be better if you woke up to a wall of beautiful art every morning? I'm inspired to clear off the bedroom walls completely and start collaging.

After we were too wet to really "walk it off" anymore, we drowned kittens went to Prosperity and got combative over some champagne and hummus, since Tara seems to think if only people knew about how awful animal husbandry was and how easy eating vegetables was, they would stop this madness in its tracks. To which I responded, feta soaked pita in hand, that people do know, they choose to not acknowledge, and they don't care about animal rights because animals are not people, and people are not essentially decent. See look, I'm not essentially decent. I have a pound of soppresseta in my fridge. Pigs died so that I could eat them on crackers while watching reruns of Star Trek Voyager. But, she says in that sweet obstinate smile, all the grain we would save from not eating beef would feed the world! No, I say in my considerable less sweet way, because no one would grow that wheat anymore since they couldn't make as much as a profit off it! Or they would, and it would be so expensive as to make it that poor people still wouldn't be able to afford it. No, I say, you have to have a government force people to all give up meat, and then already have the infrastructure in place to feed everyone off seaweed and yeast. And then cows would probably go extinct anyways, cause we wouldn't need them anymore. But you'll never accomplish this person by person, never ever ever Ms. Optimist. Leading to the question of the night, is extinction better than torture? Should we just kill everyone off? Of course, that's not the issue, we know that. But when talking with your newly turned vegan friend, you try like hell to not really argue the questions that have import, but only touch on them slightly, and smile, and be slightly ashamed.

I'm obnoxiously cynical, and yet Tara apologizes to me for being too vegan preachy? Whatever, she's the soul of everything right with the world, and I'm the girl who likes to take pictures of the trainwreck.

Now the next door neighbors are having a wedding in their backyard, and the DJ is playing a lot of Kenny G right now, but I suspect that will get funked up later. Or rather, we hope it will. You forget in quiet places like this how much sound a neighborhood can hold. It makes you want to start banging large metal canisters up and down the streets. At least, it makes me want to. Launch rockets between the houses. Oh, but for the 4th of July, but for sweet release of juvenile destructive tendencies, would this not all be a hollowed out wreck of burnt wooden frames and gunning motorcycle screams? Our controlled psychology through legal holiday?

It's kinda gross,and it kinda makes my abdomen hurt

Proving once again we are all related to fish, take a look at a human ovary spitting out caviar.

But I mean, its kinda cool, I guess. I think I could have gone through the rest of my life not knowing what it looked like. It just makes my nipples feel really sore, and my hip region. I'm such a baby sometimes.

Today was an eventful day for no reason whatsoever. I got out of my work assessment so quick, I took a three hour lunch and headed down to the lake, where I watched birds and dogs, old people with small children (hopefully their grandchildren). I pondered the idea that the problem with modern relationships is the lack of natural feeling, since we're all so obsessed with money and all, which leads us to be obsessed with our jobs, which naturally leads us to drink to much and numb ourselves to the excess of natural feeling available. Like swimming, and looking at the lake, and hearing the lake, and sunsets, and running too hard and being exhausted, or fucking too hard and being exhausted. I think I'm starting to feel what's been referred to as the "modern disconnect".

I also learned today that I love golf. I was at this sports bar today for two hours waiting for the outlanders to come (they stopped at the hotel, bastardes), and I got really really drunk and watched the 108th US Open. According to Uncle Tony, this means I've moved up to the "next level", loving golf. Cause honestly, I was perfectly content drinking and earnestly watching golf. It's fucking hypnotic. For two hours I watched men walking around greens, and it was FASCINATING. I wonder if the "level" after this includes ripping out my eyes and watching Wolf Blitzer eat them. Modern Disconnect indeed.


(edit: it's tomorrow morning, and I swear, blogs should have breathalyzers. The stuff I just erased was just like tripe, only people like to make soup out of tripe, and this stuff wouldn't even make a good sandwich.)

It's Hard to Be a Monster in the Summertime

I don't know what it is about 100% humidity and glaring torturous sun, but it makes the Vanquishers antsy. The sun burnt bottom-feeders come from all over, dragging their mules and bottles of whiskey from god knows what evil corner of Nebraska, with the dream to hunt us down, stuff us full of lead, then cram our mouths with styrofoam, and hang our mutilated corpses on a VFW wall. It's hard enough being a monster with this heat. Contrary to popular opinion, monsters prefer temperate climates, with fresh running water and newly mown grass. Summer is awful if you're covered in cartilage plates, and I won't even begin to talk about the armpit sores. The last thing you need is some Spaniard saying Catholic dogma over your head while he's butchering your kneecaps with a stiletto.

The best way to avoid Vanquishers is to blend in with the general population, but with the unfortunate publication of the Ex Boyfriend's Guide To Monsters, and the revelation that Anthony Bourdain feeds on the blood of injured Mexicans, it's becoming more difficult to evade the motherfuckers.

My advice? If you meet someone you suspect might be a Vanquisher, agree with them about everything. Yes, even border control. Vanquishers like to be around items that compliment their naturally obscene egos, and they are more inclined to want to shoot something that isn't serving that purpose. The best thing you can do is make a Vanquisher laugh at another Vanquisher's expense, then they'll waste all their time venting to you about how that Vanquisher really doesn't know his rod from his reel, and the only reason they even got this job was their mustard factory in Beloit went belly up and their wife played WoW with the manager's cousin. All Vanquisher wives are Warcraft FREAKS.

The only thing we ask is that you not throw another Monster under the bus, just to save your own scaly ass. Real Monsters don't do that kind of evil knievel sort of shit. Stay true to our Monster Values! Integrity! Excellence! Golden Rule! Objectives! Profit!

You nonMonsters might be wondering what the hell "Objectives" is doing there, seeing as it's not really a standard, or even a adjective. That's on a need to know basis, so let it go y'all.

Cave Du Vin is a Portal to the Netherworlds, and in the Netherworld I am extremely content.

I forgot how great some wine and cheese in a dark cellar can make you feel about yourself, especially while discussing the economic geography of Milwaukee. It can make you forget that you look awful in everything you wear, and that you need to stop staring at your exasperating completely untouchable crush during work, and that you were ever mad at anything in the entire world ever, including the man who loves you most in the world.

Possibly I am the universe's cheapest date.

For instance, let's talk about Iron Man.

I saw it last night. It was AWESOME. It was everything I hoped Transformers would be. Giant metal man crashing against other Giant metal man. Robert Downey Jr. was absolutely perfect playing himself. I was able to completely get into it despite the obviousness. Hurrah for them! I found both substance and sustenance, especially in the glib little fight scene where Jeff Daniels is venting his anger and resentment against the little reformed playboy he helped create. If only corporate warfare could involve steel golems, everyone would be much better off, including the crazy CEOs.

In collaboration with the movie for my Tuesday night mindfuck, I read the part in Lady Chatterly's Lover where Connie expresses her absolute terror at the insanity of society (beginning of Chpt 10?). They should replace Jane Eyre in sophomore reading classes with this book. It's the most modern novel I've read in the last ten years, and I've read it ten times at least in the last two. Where she looks in the mirror at 27 and notices her body withering for lack of sex? Absolutely where I'm at right now folks. Dead on.

Tomorrow night we'll be back to Top Chef commentary, but for now, let's ask this...Is the reason that feminism keeps not winning despite the rise of every other social movement because it's so gigantic of a task? Or because women are so much more sexual than men that we can't stop begging for it, with our clothes, our money, our thoughts? We think we're empowered by having freedom to have more, but in fact we enslave ourselves by wanting to be attractive to everyone? That we gave rise to this movement of spending all our money on shoes and hair and makeup, of being the successful glam girl, deluding ourselves that this was real freedom, but in fact we just want to be loved even more than before, and now we've raised our own standard so high we can't get beyond it? Be powerful and sexy ladies! But god that's hard. That's a full time job. That leaves no room for other considerations. Stop wanting to be fucked so much girls, and we'll someday figure out how to not hate the women who really care about more important things. Like the presidency.

But I know, life is essentially boring if you don't constantly strive to make it otherwise, and constantly striving is hard. But sleeping with people is easy. I'm just saying, if that's what you've got, then keep it easy. Don't make it your full time job.

My full time job these days is magic fairy princess. Only I'm stuck in the body of a bored awkward 20-something. So I don't get benefits.

Also, I fully intend to use the term 20-something while I still can. I like the ambiguousness of 20-something. It can mean any age between 20 and 30...or it can mean how many screwdrivers it takes to convince you I'm enchanting. How many polar bears are left in the world. How many children one woman in Mississippi can produce. How many votes Obama will lose by. How much I spend each day to get to work. How many hours of Project Runway reruns one girl can take in a row. How many days before the world ends because Oprah started to feel neglected and pressed the big red button she has locked up in her secret Reno, NV studio.

Sundays at the Zoo With...

Yesterday, took some of the outtowners (outlanders) to the Cleveland Zoo + Rainforest...



Isn't that a pretty picture? Yeah, except yesterday was over 90 all day, so it was a bit more like this...



The animals were all lounging in their caves, or swimming, or being dead.



You think that's a lollipop, but its in fact his dead brother he's been keeping in the polar bear enclosure, just for a day like this.

I think we were almost dead too, by the end there. We walked most of it, and after Saturday night, I felt like I was finished before we even got started. However, they were real fucking troopers, and we spent about 4 hours there.

The thing about being at the zoo too long is that it makes me all contemplative. I get mad looking at the elephant enclosure (no grass! do you think they CHOOSE to live in a dust cloud! They are smarter than five of you!), and I feel weirdly slave-owner like when watching the monkeys. Really, the fish, birds, and giraffes are my only truly guilt free part of that experience. Cause let's face it, giraffes are probably really dumb.

Then we went to Prosperity for dinner, and it got all thunderstormy. It was nice, being all red and chilly, with beer and food and whatever we wanted on the jukebox, while it ranted and raved dark outside, but broke before we left, with that wonderful green charcoal filter the Lake Erie skies have me addicted to.

Then I slept



for not quite as long as I wanted, considering I'm on my last homestretch of waking up at the ungodly anthill hour of 6am.

And when I got home, Sean had done all my dishes!

So it's been a very long hot, exhausting weekend, and I would really really like someone to take me on a surprise 6 month vacation to Patagonia. I'm looking at you, Mr. Lakshmi Mittal. Wasn't that part of the LTV steel mill package, you would take random white girls and send them to desolate but incredibly interesting places?



By the way, I'm not really the type of girl. to dream about weddings, but if I ever do get married, I'm wearing an Indian dress. Which Mr. Mittal can buy for me too.



In fact, I think I should get something just like that to wear to job interviews. "Yes, I am proficient in Excel, Powerpoint, and Word. I work very well in a mixed dynamic, but especially with goal-oriented creative individuals who can multitask your ass into oblivion. Also I am a goddamn magic fairy princess. No, for realsies."

First, the track. Took some girls there yesterday to watch a race or two. We placed our bets for Belmont, and then took off for the hotel bar, where the only other patrons were a wedding party that gave us curious looks, our t-shirts and betting slips strewn across the table not making necessarily the best first impression. BIG BROWN LOST, and really El Paso Redhead and I were heartbroken, crushed, demolished, deflated, it sucked like a three dollar whore in Mexico he ends up LAST? Can't bear to watch the news to find out why, but maybe now never again a Triple Crown Winner?

Drank at the bar, then went out and fuddled around Chagrin Blvd looking for alcohol, the liquor store goes through several linguistic variations, and people tell me to go Walgreens, but fuck, Walgreens doesn't have alcohol! But it does when it's not in Cleveland? Meaning outside city limits, meaning I guess when they are less worried they will get robbed?

Drank the rest of the night once again, suck the pink out, replace my blood with dirty dishwater. I am feeling particularly dishwater right now, but possibly that comes from sleeping with my clothes, guaranteed to make you look worse than you feel. The rest of the evening shall remain shrouded, cause quite frankly I shouldn't have ever told any of them of the existence of this blog, and then I could write whatever I wanted about that whole cast of characters. All Type A they tell me, they insist I am too, guess I'm just too old school on the personality types, or maybe I never got along well with the letter A, and its true I don't like names like Allen or Alicia, or proper nouns like Angstrom or adjectives like avuncular, which surprisingly would have felt very at home last night being applied liberally. In the last sentence I wrote, I used A 17 times. I have to learn to accept ALL the letters of the alphabet, not just the round ones. But round little girls like round little things. That's a meaningless little sentence. Not enough A's.

Okay, so now I'm off tangent. This has been a weird week. No Sean around, no more Hillary, no Big Brown, the things on which the spring was built are withering in this heat. I need cooler climates, or to shed the protective layers of undercoat around me. I need to brush the loose furry stuff out of my brain, get it sleek and smooth and wet again.

Unfortunately, that's probably not happening this weekend, so we'll just have to wait till next weekend. Again. Next weekend, I'm drinking tea.

Last night, went and hung out with the darling out-of-towners in the darling Down of Town. Definitely drank too much. Walked with my head mostly looking up, since skyscrapers exist solely for that reason, to make great views for drunk girls stumbling back to their cars in silent parking garages, heels in hand. Driving home was like skating thru black ice water, totally empty, still, smooth. None of the anxiety that other drivers bring to the mix. Maybe if I do that enough times, it will cure me of the rush hour blues. Between getting there and leaving, there was a minor blur of dancing and bullriding and the young amateur wrestling version of the lounge singer from Lost In Translation. Everybody looked familiar, even though I knew none of them. The terms pretty and ugly entered no ones vernacular last night, Cleveland providing the reality plane thats miles away from qualifying for either. Everyone's Equally Ether.

Now of course it's Thunderstorm gathering on a Saturday afternoon time, and my head is a blowup doll being fucked thru the nose. There is a planned trip to the track (Big Brown! We yell at random times last night), but my damned ankle seems disconnected from the lower leg, it's floating around in painful fleshy freespace down there. I'm surprised to see I'm not covered in bruises, but no, pale discolored white all around. Sucked out all the pink from me, he did. Of course M. isn't making it any better by showing me this first thing in the morning. Seriously dude, this is the kind of thing best saved for Wednesdays. I'll never forgive you.



Like, seriously, what?

The big question on my mind these days is, if we have microbe computers, string theory, and the ability to manufacture life, why the hell do I still have to drive to work? Not the working part mind you, the "not having a public transportation system" part. I bet it would do a hell of a lot more for the environment if the city think tanks stopped worrying about GreenSpace, and started wrapping their neurons around magnetic trains.

I'm a bit sore about it, is all.

Top Chef Live Blog

It's the last two episodes of Top Chef, and since I'm not doing anything else tonight, let's Live Blog!

Everyone was surprised last week when Lisa, angry can't-cook-shrimp Lisa, made it into the Top Three. It was the peanut butter mashed potatoes that put her through. And I think everyone is betting money that she goes home tonight. It's almost not worth watching the episode tonight. I personally can't believe she made it this far. But regardless, this is going to be a contest between Stephanie and Richard. Richard is probably more talented, but Stephanie is consistent and sincere. I don't know why sincerity is so important to these judges, since I don't recall sincerity having any sort of taste. She's definitely won way more challenges than Richard, but his dishes have always been so much more interesting. Oh and I forgot Antonia is in this too. I forget about her a lot. Just thank god I don't have to see Spike's stupid hats anymore. Douche.



10:00pm Everyone's going to Puerto Rico. It's not a state, but hey, Bravo loves ya. This is the best part of the show because everyone went home for six months and got to get their shit together, as well as get haircuts, which was pretty crucial for some of them. So the dishes usually get a lot more complex and awesome here. Stephanie went to Thailand. Antonia opened a restaurant. Richard's faux hawk got even weirder. Wow, even Richard said that no one expected Lisa to be here. Lisa cut her hair and gained a bunch of weight, so I bet she moved in with her girlfriend.

10:03 Puerto Rican cuisine huh? Padma is wearing a parachute as a shirt. Let's make fritters out of plantains! I love plantains. Raw, they're like working with damp cardboard. How much you wanna bet someone fucks up and uses raw plantains?

10:06 Quick fire. Stephanie makes a pork and shrimp fritter, and does it well. Antonio does crispy oysters with no plantains. Oops. Lisa makes duck, with mango papaya salsa, and chorizo fritters. Hard to tell by their faces how that went over. Richard makes pork meatballs with plantain sauce. He made a raw plantain salsa? Oh Richard, not you.That sounds nasty. Antonia loses and oh, surprise, Stephanie wins. I think the editing is starting to hint that she's the one, but you never know. The Bravo editors are the best in the world at fucking with you, better even than E!

10:11pm Padma shows off her skills at whirling her skirts around, while old wrinkled guys shuffle their feet in some approximation of a street party. Lisa is wearing a t-shirt that says “Kosher”. God do I need to put my air conditioner in here. I miss Andrew.



10:15pm So the challenge today is a garden party where they have to make two dishes using a whole pig. And Andrew's back! They bring back four guys to be sous chefs. Stephanie assigns them all and she picks Dale. Lisa gets Andrew (bitch). Richard gets Spike (poor guy), and Antonia get Nikki (crack whore face). It's butchering time! Someone should bury it and cook it in a pit.

10:19pm Richard thinks its a bad idea to do Puerto Rican food in Puerto Rico. Is he right? Antonia is so screwed. The pigs have no eyes. What if someone wanted to make eye pudding?

10:22 Andrew is so awesome. Pigeon Wars!

10:23 Lisa is “a gray cloud in the kitchen”. I'd say she's an Indigo Girls Thunderstorm.

10:24 Dale left the pork belly out over night! Wow, that sucks. Hopefully Steph's good enough to make up for it. I think she'll be fine, since Dale is easily one of the best cooks on the whole show, and also they've already slated her to win.

10:26 Nikki fucked up the rice, and she's blaming Antonia for it. She's like evil incarnate.

10:33 I can't believe Stephanie made a blini again. She almost got sent home for the last one, like 7 shows ago. What was she thinking?

There's a First Lady of Puerto Rico?

10:35 Well the pancakes seemed to go well. I think she's safe. They look like charred bits of play-doh, but whatever.
Richard talks to much. Everything is an homage. Each dish is part of a “painting”. He's one of those people who seems kinda cool but just is so LAME sometimes. He's like, 35 lame.
Lisa and Antonia get nothing except Antonia's peas seem dry.

I just realized the new Toyota Corolla commercials feature a royal crest with the inscription “Corolla the Tenth”. But it's a commercial for the 2009?

10:43 Judgment! Lisa and Antonia are totally on the chopping block here. They're not even bothering to hide it like they normally do. Lisa makes a face like she swallowed some sour cum.



That, by the way, is what comes up when I search for "sour cum" images with my filter on.

They call in Richard and Steph as the favorites, love all around, blah blah blah.
Yay Richard wins the challenge! He gets a car! He's all like “what? What?” He wins a Corolla. Gee whiz.

Antonia and Lisa go in. Lisa needs to learn to not fold her arms constantly. But at least she's learned to smile. Maybe she saw some earlier episodes where she was glaring like an oversexed ogre.

Antonia's peas fucked it all up. If Lisa makes it to the top three, I will fucking throw my cellphone against the TV. There is no such thing as al dente peas. I bet it's Nikki's fault.

10:55 Decision?


NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!




Someone needs to buy me a new cellphone.

Lisa is all like “I know you guys think the wrong person went home, but a congratulations would be nice.” and Richard is all like “Yay, congratulations, you won a bronze medal, what do you want?”

Somebody said "lists are good for you"...if they didn't, well I'm saying it now.
So here is a list of everything in my fridge. I'm recording this moment so that years from now I can look back and say "eww, what kind of heathen was I?" or "Oh my god, I'm exactly the same as I was at 28."

- week old 1/2 gallon of milk
- two half full bottles of green olives with pimentos (I'm afraid one went bad, so I bought another. Do olives go bad?)
- three half empty bottles of wine, two cheap reds and one decent white
- a pound of red potatoes
- three sticks of butter
- one thing of garlic that has sprouted
- mustard
- a 1/4 of shaved turkey (probably gone bad)
- one very stale quarter of a loaf of Italian bread
- 1 1/2 pounds of kielbasa
- a bag of parsley
- three jars of hemp oil
- an empty 2 liter of Coke
- relish
- maple syrup
- mayonnaise
- parmesan cheese
- a jar of pesto
- a container of chocolate frosting
- mango viniagrette
- organic beef stock

Freezer?

- a whole duckling
- three pounds of frozen mixed berries
- a quarter of a bottle of Paramount vodka

Cupboards?

- Cheerios
- flour
- brown sugar
- assorted spices
- sea salt
- cornstarch
- 2 jugs of vinegar
- olive oil
- red wine vinegar
- cupcake foils
- three different kinds of Lipton sides which are really all variations of macaroni and cheese (did you know it's not called Lipton anymore? It's Knorr. Fucked.)
- a half a bottle of Cafe Patron (coffee flavored tequila, highly recommended)
- bag of sugar
- plastic silverware
- assorted air fresheners.


So what does this say about me as a person? I don't buy real meals, but I cook a lot for other people. Buying lunchmeat is a waste of time. I put too much stock in condiments. I won't cook a whole duck just for myself. I waited four months before someone bought me silverware for my apartment. I take short cuts when it comes to odor control. I would obviously not survive very long if I was snowed in or confined by mercenary rebels laying siege to my house. However, the vodka would come in handy for any medical emergencies should that occur.

Mostly what it says is I live here. This is probably the first time my fridge has said that. Usually my fridge says stuff like "I don't know how to throw out takeout food" and "I believe I can survive successfully on only ice cream".

There's not much else going on. Someday I will post the very cool pictures from my trip to Plum Brook Station. In training right now, there's a guy who looks exactly like an ex-boyfriend from a long time ago, only skinnier and more groomed. He has the EXACT same voice though, which is really throwing me off in class. It's like every time he talks, I get flashbacks.