Sometimes I go outside, but generally only on my way to other covered buildings

So the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo is awesome. For a zoo. What I mean by that is that the zoo is free on Mondays to people who live in the county, to reward them for living in Cuyahoga County and having asthma since birth. Also apparently Hinckley Township, though I have to say I think that's bullshit. If you're going to let those guys from Hinckley in, you might as well just start letting everyone in. Have some standards Zoo.

The Boy and I went this Monday, attempting to get some sunshine and also to make up for the disaster that was seeing Brooklyns Finest on Sunday afternoon, a terrible movie that should ruin the careers of everyone involved except Don Cheadle. Assuming Richard Gere and Wesley Snipe had careers left. On an unrelated note, so I always try to refer to the guys I date by nicknames on here right? Except when I hate them. Then I use last names. The Boy has mentioned he would like an upgrade to his nickname. His suggestion was Captain Awesomeness. I'm hesitant. It's a little long, frankly. I like The Sentinel, but then it sounds like I'm dating a crazy alien robot guardian, which I'm not opposed to but, melodramatic much? I'll think about it. People are so demanding.

This is a monkey who wants to eat that small boy's skull. He's thinking "I could feed my family off your body for a week." The boy is thinking "That monkey will be my friend!" Listen kid, monkeys are not your friends. If you ever come across a monkey in the wild, you should run, because there are probably 20 more of them in the trees and they will use you for dodgeball practice and then brunch. Your only hope is to offer them a trade, where you lure your other small defenseless friends into their trap in exchange for your own life. Growing up is hard in monkey country.

When you were little, the zoo was awesome cause you could go there entirely guilt free. Now as an adult you go, and it's a constant battle of conscience and justification, glee and guilt. Especially in the primate house. All the large animals are either pacing like broken records or lying around comatose. The glass is scratched up and dirty. We went to the wolf enclosure, which is this nice really large yard, and there was one wolf pacing furiously up and down against the window, while the other wolves looked on sympathetically and went about their wolfie business of digging in the snow. He was the broken wolf. The Boy said he needed his reset button pushed.

Its not so bad with the small animals, maybe cause you look in their eyes and know they're just thinking about how to hide in this tree better. Of course, this particular day I think we came around feeding time, because the red panda was clawing at the enclosure door exactly like my cat claws at the cabinet. So all the pacing was possibly accentuated by that. I know all the reasons zoos are great for protecting species and educating people and bringing unimaginable joy to little kids who are just thrilled they can see a monkey in person. I'm a fan of the zoo. I'm just saying, some of the magic is gone when you're older and able to project.

I feel like wallabies are the white tailed deer of Australia. Really cute, really destructive pests. I am still terrified of them though. Like, they will kick my face in terrified. This little guy is in the Australian Walkabout Experience, or whatever they call that place. It's a whole little corner meant to look like Australia, only Australia circa 1929 without the whores and drinking. Also, inexplicably there is a giant plaster tree with a ship's mast growing out of it, squat in the middle of the park. It looks like they acquired it when the sets for Hook were being sold off. Assuming I am a little kid, am I supposed to believe that ship was washed up in the middle of continent by a tsunami, and then the tree grew up below it, hoisting it into the air as a symbol of the impermanence of man? Cause I will, if you tell me to. I did appreciate learning about the giant fences sprawling across the continent to keep dingos out, and that it's all repurposed scrap metal, like a massive Mad Max style barricade. Maybe Australia is permanently stuck in 1929.


Oh, but the zoo is still fun and pleasant. It's still a good place to wander around with a date, avoiding large school groups, sipping coffee while the lions sun themselves. It's beautiful and grandiose and peaceful. More intellectually stimulating than just watching Planet Earth reruns. It's got a public purpose, and a sentimental one, and it reminds you to feel things in your soul even if they are not the best things. You can't go to the zoo without being reminded of your own selfishness, but then it gives you opportunities to ask for forgiveness. Mostly by donating money, but also with appreciation.



PS the other great thing about going to the zoo is if you don't have kids, there are a ton of other people's kids to entertain you with their kidness. But you don't have to take them home. In fact, it's encouraged that you don't.

If I Were to Ever Get a Tattoo, It Would Probably Be Something About the Stockyards

I know I come off as highly opinionated about a lot of different strange things. Sometimes at bars or parties or on buses, I will occasionally shout about topics with my outdoor voice. And I may or may not have threatened to break up with a boy because he didn't like Finding Nemo and therefore had no heart.

But when it comes to actual things worth having opinions about, I fully admit my inadequacy to tackle this topic. I will, because I love you, but please do not yell too much at me because your doctoral thesis was about how people who idolize Fitzgerald are ruining American literature. My doctoral thesis is currently about Should I continue watching American Idol even though ANTM is back on, because I already started that shit. So, you win by default.

In no particular order, here are ten books that I think of as the quintessential Americana.

1) To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee
2) The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger,RD.
3) The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
4) The Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller
5) The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
6) O Pioneers! by Willa Cather
7)The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
8) On the Road by Jack Kerouac
9) A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
10) Beloved by Toni Morrison

I know these are all novels about American History now. But whether or not you like the American character in Tropic of Cancer, it rings true. Selfish, decadent, decrepit, soul seeking, confused, drunken, weeping, whoring, desperate, evil, futile, beauty in our faults, murder for ourselves, clawing our way from the fields, disappointing our forefathers True. History of the Empire True.

My favorite American short stories (which I think are harder to write when they are truly memorable, like ships in bottles) are by Flannery O'Connor, Fitzgerald, Hawthorne, and Asimov. Yes, I'm counting him. I claim him for country.

And the quintessential American short story winner is The Lottery by Shirley Jackson. I would like to have that story tattooed on my back, scroll-like.

PS I would have Margaret Atwood's "Rape Fantasies" tattooed on my torso and inner thighs, but she's Canadian, so you know.

Ask me anything

True Story

The Dinner Party of Doom! (part 2)

So you know how there are some people that have aspirations? Like, they really enjoy something, so they try to actually get good at it? This girl Laura is so aspirational, she actually throws dinner parties for 14 people at a time, because she says she ENJOYS it. The nerve.

And then she actually makes like, a ton of food. For OTHER people. Just to watch them enjoy it. I know, it's beyond comprehension. I've been trying to wrap my head around it now for days. So she like, sends out invitations in advance and plans this really large menu that involves really time consuming prep. She shops for weeks ahead of time. And does she do the decent thing and demand money or some other form of material payment for all this work? Of course not. Does she politely wait until everyone has shown up before starting to chop vegetables and assemble stuff? As if. She does like, all this annoying cooking work ahead of time. Someone needs to stop her before she hurts herself.

Unbeknownst to you, the party had collectively consumed 7 bottles of red wine within the first hour. So we will all live to 97. It's a scientific fact.

The biblical Samurai of Death by Red Wine, illustrated in a way that says "look, I'm an actual artist deigning to use your artfully placed coloring books. You all are inferior."

This is, by the way, the expression most people make when talking to Jere.

Really yummy Beef Bourguignon. I would sort of like to have an entire plate of this again, right now please. With a side of egg noodles.

Our lovely and way overqualified for her job cook, Laura. I didn't get a shot of our hostess Christie, but lets just say that the rug and sofa set in her living room would make you weep with correctly hued decorating joy.

The chicken mole was easily my favorite dish that night. It was so chocolaty, it was eating dessert for dinner. But that was later of course. After she added the chocolate. I couldn't take a picture of that because I was too busy eating it a lot.

So I think lots of girls, no lets say every girl, has moments of such complete adorableness, that we should all probably have paparazzi around us to capture that, so when we're old and considered completely out of the game we can hang these pictures somewhere on our bedroom vanity mirrors and remember how young and sweet we were.
This is Lauren, having one of those moments.

Chocolate peanut butter cream cupcakes. What.

Finally, and having nothing really to do with the dinner party but being really important nonetheless, at the exact moment that this picture below was taken, the song playing in the bar was Candlebox. It's now recorded for posterity. Long live the West Side of the Flats, refusing to remain relevant for 20 years and counting.

The Incident

By Steven Tabutt

If Mean Girls Were a Disney Film...

yanked from Jezebel



I have always thought Sleeping Beauty would be a Regina George. Boo, you whore.

This American Idol Thing, Right?

Alright, as a last ditch effort to save some small part of my dignity before I get really into this, let me just point out that I have never watched a season of American Idol, and have kept myself chaste from Ryan's cold dirty stare.

But see, now I have a DVR.
Also, look, I know I've got my reality show sins. Top Chef. Tool Academy. America's Next Top Model. Which by the way starts next week (thank fucking god), so I've been thinking of this Idol thing as just a pre-game show, you know. The warm up to the apocalypse.

So I started watching Idol this year when they hit the top 24. There is no point to watching anything before the actual performances start, at least unless you really enjoy feeling superior to the rest of the country and watching people cry in pathetic and heartbreaking ways. Which I DO, but two hours straight of it, and at that point you either hate yourself, or you're getting off on it in an inappropriate way. It's deliberate I bet, a way to get your ego pumped enough so that you'll feel completely okay judging these people when voting hits, even though the worst of them is still more talented than you. Except for...well we'll get to that. C'mon America, you OWN these people, separate the wheat from the chaff you fat couch bound motherfuckers. Remember, you saw her during the auditions before they picked her! It's like you discovered her yourself! You are prescient, honestly. Your contestant's fate is completely dependent on your support, you god blessed children of the sweet green flatland.

How does anyone watch this show without DVR? First of all, it's on three nights a week. And each show is like, two hours long. And 1 hour 15 minutes of that is commercials. This is not the fucking Olympics guys. There are 12 people each show, they sing like a minute thirty worth of song and then boom, commercial break again, between EACH ONE. They are just fucking with you. Or they think you have a real bladder control problem. Maybe you are drunk enough that you do. Maybe they figure all the drinking you would have to do to get through 2 hours of this shit, for the past nine years, has fucked with your soft insides enough that they are willing to be a little merciful. Or Kara has to take a break every ten minutes to refresh her spray tan. Who is this Kara creature and why is she on here? Every time she opens her gaping maw, she looks around for approval, like an Italian aunt. "I like you!" "You're dirt, but I like you!" "I hated this, but I like YOU." Over and over again, like Paula's soul was implanted in her and looped. She is every girl you have ever met in a bar downtown that you hated.


Oh I criticize but shit, I think total? I've watched about 4 hours of this show. The Boy usually calls me just as it's finishing, and then I feel even more dirty because he wants to talk about other things, and I just seriously want to talk about song selection. I wonder if he's going to be okay when Top Chef starts and I no longer have shame holding my tongue.

I have opinions about this show, guys. And here they are.
First, the boys. There are only two boys I like, and I don't really like either of them much, but they are the only ones who don't make me want to never touch a dick again. Wait no, there's three. But the third one is David Cassidy, so I don't think it counts. Everyone else is a) flat b) trying to be Josh Groban or c) has a mullet. To be fair, Mullet Guy sorta has a Marty McFly vibe going on, and I'd like to believe it's deliberate, but I don't think it's as deliberate as it should be. There's some guy from Atlanta who wore tails last week, and needs to be a senate page, really it's his true calling. There's Egghead Latino, as he's being referred to on the interwebs. Everyone's a big fan of him, but he smacks of Wannabe Fallout Boy to me, and I think if there's any justice in the world, he will fall. He sang "Sugar We're Going Down" the first week, and I thought to myself, if the Barenaked Ladies singer ever dies in a fiery not at all intentional plane crash, this guy has a job for life. Also I just looked it up and the Barenaked Ladies singer just quit the band last year, so hello?

But here is my top pick guy: Lee. I have nothing deep to say about him. He does songs I hate, but he's adorable, and not singing old R&B songs, so win.



There a rumor that this year the producers really want a girl to win, presumably because Clay and Adam really burned them. And I think they have stacked the deck accordingly, because the guys are generally exactly what you find if you searched youtube for "High school band doing cover of John Legend." The girls aren't much better. There's a stylish Cuban mami church singer who sang Creed, so GOODBYE I don't care how awesome your little outfit was. There's that blonde girl from One Tree Hill who played the piano this week, though she played it so slow, it made me think maybe she also learned to play the piano this week. Some sixteen year old lounge singer named Katie, who is like, the new Rickie Lake.

Oh, but there are three girls I love. LOVE.

First - Jewel. Totally the best singer. Charmingly reticent to the whole Idol thing. Looks at Ryan like he's on crack. Only pays attention to Simon's criticism, which oh my god, the stereotype about him was completely correct. It's like I've been hearing about this mythical Simon creature for years, and only now I can admit that yes, he is the only real person in this whole show. Everyone else is a hologram. Even Ellen. Ellen looks like she fought a little before they took her, like she was hiding out in the Costa Rican jungle, which is my explanation for her safari outfit this week.



Next - Jewel. But Jewel after she got rich. I like the Gray Haired Wonder, cause at least she's trying to actually have a sound, even if it is the same sound coming out of every British recording studio right now. I suspect she's a good front woman. She's going to get a recording contract out of this either way.



And finally: Siobhan. The girl everyone knew in high school who had the lead in every play ever done in that cold creaking auditorium. Rachel from Glee. Did I mention I love that show? It was only a matter of time before the Idol got me I guess. This is her performance from the week before, cause she did Aretha this week, which was okay, but she looked like a complete tool doing it and you knew she did it only so she could hit a high note. I think I just like her because I like the idea that not all those high school drama club stars end up getting fat and married in Illinois somewhere. Though the mere fact that no one bothered to make a youtube video of her actual performance is disconcerting. All of you East coast fat cat liberals need to get off your high horses and vote for her so everyone's dreams everywhere stay marginally intact.



So there are my honest favorites. And then there is Haley. Haley is not a girl or a boy. It is a Haley, the first completely self powering self propelled karaoke machine/wii. It got eliminated this week, I just found out while searching for this video. I wonder if they will repurpose it to make lattes.



If you want to waste an hour of your time looking at the disintegration of our gene pool, here are the other performances.
I'm sorry I did this to you. To all of you.

What Dreams Are Made Of:

You know how you have those things about yourself that aren't exactly "trademarks" but might as well be? The traits you assume about yourself? Like, this girl thinks she's party girl, and this guy thinks he always shuts up around parents, and this other guy knows he's the guy who buys people drinks at the bar.

Well I've always been the girl who dreams about herself in third person, doesn't have sex dreams, and almost never has nightmares. Like maybe a few times in my life, but mostly they are just dreams about scary things that I don't feel connected to, because it's in third person.

Lately though, and I can mark the first time to a few months back, I've started dreaming in first person. Which means sex dreams and nightmares too. I don't know exactly if it's linked to dating the Boy, or if it's working from home, or what, but something has shifted in my psyche and all of a sudden my dreams are about me.

I don't know that I like it that much, frankly. Last night I had a dream where I was in a Chinese museum, and the corrupt Chinese military dictatorship had been embezzling money and hiding it in this shrine vault that they were going to open up that day, only they had hidden a massive bomb in the building and they were going to blow everyone up to conceal what they had done. So I had to escape and maybe also try to get people out without the military catching on that I knew, but I wasn't successful. Then as we were leaving I realized a friend of mine was still in there, but I couldn't get him out and he wouldn't pick up his phone. I woke up before the bomb blew up, but it sucked. I woke up feeling like a failure.

The night before I had a dream that I was in that movie The Crazies, and my sister and I had escaped from a large public building, but then this homeless guy with a very large knife started coming after us, and he trapped us in a bathroom and was breaking in, and it was terrifying.

Not every dream has been a nightmare, just those two. But I miss my third person dreaming. It was more interesting and less emotionally taxing.

I'm sort of obsessed with this song right now.

"So now I'm in the cut, alcohol in the womb
My hearts an open sore that I hope heals soon
I live in a cocoon opposite of Cancun
Where it is never sunny, the dark side of the moon
So it's more than right, I try to shed some light on it man
Not many people on this planet understand"

Best description of Cleveland right now tonight in winter ever.

The Blood Sucking Jesus Lizard God is Displeased.

I have this co-worker. For the sake of anonymity, we'll call her Critter. Critter is like 5 years younger than me and lazy. How do I bridge the generation gap? I've found yelling and sneering at her is a good start but need more ideas.

Alright, so first of all, not to point out the obvious, but let's start with the fact that you nicknamed her Critter, instead of Caroline, or Jackie. This naturally leads me to assume you are working on a farm, and your co-worker is the mule that pulls your grindstone. I can see how in a high pressure industry, like barley farming?(I don't know, millet?) That you would resent a co-worker not pulling her own weight. But I think you need to look at this from Critter's perspective. She must be an old mule, if she's only five years younger than you, and mules don't live that long. Like you, she's watched the best years of her long eared life be pulverized by the same daily grindstone that haunts your own dreams. She only wants to stay in her nice warm stable, munching some feed, chatting with the cart horses. She figures she's put in her time. But there's no retirement for mules, they work until they drop dead in the leads. She knows this, and deep down you know it to, which manifests in your obvious superiority complex towards this poor creature. Yelling? Sneering? Hardly professional, and really, mules can't read facial expressions like we do, so you're wasting your time on that last part and probably giving yourself wrinkles on top of it. Do you really want to be seen as the mean old mule driver with wrinkles?

Buy Critter some carrots and have a little sympathy. Not everyone has thumbs.

Which supernatural creature or monster should be the next big thing, now that vampires and zombies are kind of overplayed?

This is like practically begging to have your blood drained or your brains eaten, so I hope you took the proper precautions before writing this question. I promise no protection to my readers. If some zombie comes banging on my door looking for your IP address, do not think for one second I am taking one for the team.

Moving on.
Mermaids.
I would prefer giants or fox spirits with nine tails, but the first one has no sex appeal and the latter smacks of Pokemon. Mermaids though are sirens and shape shifters, and can be used to get across an environmental message. Also, they ride killer whales, which is trendy right now. At least, my mermaids ride killer whales. They also use crabs to brush their hair, and molt their scales by scratching them against the coral. They're warlike, but slightly hapless, what with the no legs thing. They have socialized medicine, but a fanatical political party within their parliament is urging an agenda of xenophobia and offensive raids on unsuspecting coastal towns. Their princess wishes she was a real girl. They harvest the livers of drowned sailors and use the gin fumes to power Atlantis on completely clean energy. They've been at physical and spiritual war with the unicorns ever since the Red Bull drove them into ocean and forced them to evict a whole village of mermen, to make room for their Unicorn Romping Grounds/Refugee Camp.

I mean, this shit just writes itself. Plus, think of the merchandising. You can't market bath products for vampires, what's your tagline then? "Smell like the hot undead?" Mermaid happy meals could encourage kids to eat fish. Mermaid vodka. Mermaid target practice nerf spears. Mermaid change purses and mace holders. Mermaid makeup- providing young girls with another legitimate reason to wear glitter. Really, any monster that does that wins.

what is your opinion of Goodnight Moon?

Goodnight Moon is a wonderful childrens book. Not only is it a memorable,simple ritual, but it introduces a basic mental game to little kids as they try to spot the differences between each illustration of the room. It also allows kids to imagine inner lives for inanimate objects, one of the most important traits of a healthy imagination. Seriously, SO IMPORTANT to be able to visualize everything mundane around you being alive.

Also, the more your child identifies with bunnies, the more he's gonna get his mind blown when he finally reads Watership Down. Though, the Velveteen Rabbit phase before that might be a bit hard. And he might grow up hating cats. But in all fairness, that could have happened anyway, it's not necessarily my fault.

Do you believe in life after death?

Short answer: no. I've had a few people I loved die, and I'm completely comfortable with the idea that they ceased to exist, and their molecules disintegrated, and that's that. I don't talk to them. I don't pray to them. They were around, and now they're not, and that's what happens to all life forms eventually.

And the long answer is, you want to know how this affects my morality and ambition. After all, if nothing happens afterwards, then whats the point right? Why not just kill myself then right? Or kill other people. Or do the bare minimum until I die.

The point is, I could do any of those things. It wouldn't matter to me after I died. But thankfully, nature has programmed me with these awesome electrical impulses that make me want to eat, fuck, sleep, and not die. If I were to kill other people, or sit in my own filth watching Soap Network until I passed out, neither of those things is going to advance my aforementioned biological imperatives. Also, there's this really cool thing that happens in my skull when I learn something, or formulate a question I hadn't thought of before. It's great. It's like, the greatest thing ever. Endlessly entertaining and thoroughly meaningless, so you're guaranteed success with it, because you can't fail.

Morality is in fact a survival skill. Community and government and laws, these are all based in the idea that we have boundaries for the greater good and happiness. You don't need fear of hell or a carrot on a stick to see the sense in that.

OK- as a follow up- tell me more about Stephanie Meyers as a repressed mormon. I am fascinated. (And aware this isn't really a question.)

Oh, nice segue from Morality and Death. Great. Just great.

Stephanie Meyer does not drink, does not smoke. Because of religion, not health. Graduated from Brigham Young University, a place named after a horrible man who killed a lot of people and controlled a whole population with the authority of a exacting and cruel made-up god. Coincidentally the only time she lived outside of Arizona was her time in Utah, which is when they sent her secretly to South America for the alien virgin rites. She also refers to herself as a "straitlaced" Mormon, which is good cause I've known so many relaxed Mormons and it's hard to tell sometimes. It means she had all her organs removed and donated to the Church Elders, so she's laced up in the back, which is how she's getting to heaven. Heaven doesn't allow people in without properly laced straits. She married at 21, only worked once briefly as a receptionist, and then stayed at home with her three children all the time.

Then she had a sex dream one night where a vampire was love with her, but also thirsted for her blood. Unfortunately, she knew she wasn't good enough to write a story about Jesus, so instead she named him Edward, and the rest is history. Yes, that's right. Twilight is the story of the Mormon Jesus Blood Sucking Lizard God Who Has Sex With Babies. The Baby is you. It's a metaphor.

Also, look at her website. It looks likes it was designed for people who are scared of websites.

Dear Mormons reading this: it's not that I dislike your religion more than most, it's just that yours came after the Age of Reason. And only gained legitimacy cause you bred like bunnies in the most isolated barren wasteland you could find. Totally the traditional way to turn crazy rapist cult into a tax break, so good for you. But we're not friends.

Really, how bad does twilight suck

Oh clever, a little pun. Aren't you proud of yourself? Why don't you go write a book now? Maybe it will make you millions.

Twilight sucks THIS much.

Ask me anything