Questions, sort of....

Sip sop sip sop! SOOOoooop! SiiiiIIIIp! Sip sop!

Are you eating bread and soup? My favorite kind of soup is the pea soup my mom makes, with carrots and ham. I tried to make it once, and ended up burning the peas to the bottom of my crock pot, which I then really didn't want to clean so I didn't. It got really moldy and I was tempted to just throw it out, but instead I lit a bunch of scented candles, opened all the windows, and cleaned that bitch out. It was horrible. But I did it. Eventually I do it.

The other possibility is that you are a milk monster. Milk monsters live in your refrigerator and turn your milk invisible, so you forget its there until you really want some rice chex and then you find out the milk is not quite turned, but turned enough, and you end up eating rice chex out of the box. Which I guess is one of the reasons you hear stories about people eating cereal with beer or orange juice. Milk monsters suck, and if you are one, I hope the baking soda suffocates you.

Point is, I have a very unclean kitchen usually.

Why is your photo here radiating mischief, whereas your, uh, other one looks like you're pissed off that you're bored? Is it the cat? You're not a cat, are you?

For those who are not in the know, ie Facebook friends with me, this question is referring to this picture...

I don't think I look pissed in that picture. I do think Eddy looks like she is going to eat my eyeball, which is why I like it, because that's exactly what Eddy would do if I died in my apartment and no one noticed for a while. She would go straight for the soft sweet eyeball. She is resourceful like that.

No, I am not a cat. I would think that would be obvious from the picture, as I am next to the cat. I am on occasion covered with enough cat hair that in person, you might make that mistake. Also, people tend to be allergic to me. But definitely not a cat.

I am never bored if someone is paying attention to me. Which is why I have cats. And I keep them hungry.

ok i went to see the banksy movie and they had a song that i liked and it turned out to be one of the pulp bandmembers. i did not have pulp on the mind all this time but it just turned out this way. check out www.richardhawley.co.uk --c.



First of all, now I have to see the Banksy movie. I found a review that said "Even the soundtrack is like a hip-hop version of Henry Mancini." SOLD.

But I gotta say, I didn't like the Richard Hawley stuff so much. I'm going to get the album and give it a full and proper listen though, because hey, Pulp. But I find Pulp band member solo stuff lacks the smarmy danciness of the band. I mean, the smarmy is there. But the dancey is not.

Thanks for tip though Cat.

Who is worse LeBron or Satan?

For those of you who live in a world outside Cleveland, the Cavs lost the semi-finals last night, and everyone is super mad at Lebron, because they say he played poorly. They are not using the word "poorly", in most cases, but that's what they generally mean. I didn't watch the game last night, or the one before it, because I was working. Also because I don't really give a shit. But I was among people last night after the game, and I was reading my twitter feed during, and let me tell you, twitter is hilarious. It went from "Cavs Cavs Cavs!" to "Fuck LeBron, with various degrees of hostility over the course of the game. This tells me that Cleveland is a bunch of turncoats. You people will abandon anyone and anything in the blink of an eye. I'm not saying I think you should hold Lebron in such fucking self-esteem anyway, but after six months of hearing how he's the Great Hope of the City, now you want to stab him in the back and bury him on the East Bank? I think you are all rejecting him out of insecurity, cause you know he's going to leave the team next year and all you'll have left is Vareajo. Whose entire career consists of him falling down.

Satan wins. Nobody born in Akron can fall from grace because they were already born out of grace. I know, I was born in Akron. It's like a tire stain on your soul.

Have you heard of the Clock Without a Face? I think you could find the emeralds - http://gustwintig.com

This is great. I'm going to do something like this someday, but instead of emeralds I will use My Little Ponies. Once you collect all of them, they will activate and allow you to target any electro-magnetic source in the world, and turn it off. Think about it.

Ask Me Anything

ANTM Cycle 14: The Girl Who Left Pine Bluff

You will go forth into the world,
and the righteous will know by the T upon your brow
that you are but sculpted clay,
and possess no spirit of man
but imprison a djinn in your heart.

I like the title of the second to last episode as it read on my DVR, "Ugly Pretty Woman". First of all because of the Julia Roberts nod, and second because I love when pretty people get so bored of looking at themselves that they lapse into making ridiculous faces in the name of art.

We know right away Krista is going to win because she used to be a store manager. The editors can't give her such a banal back story and then send her back into that world. All the other girls are going back to families or college or commercial careers. Krista will go back to managing a store. I want to know what kind of store. It seems really important. But she never says. Instead we are introduced to Krista's superstitious side, where she latches onto simple percentages as lucky icons. 25% 25%25%! I imagine its her version of a hail mary, this ocd recitation of her odds. She ends up saying it a lot, because she is terrified of Raina, and know the time will soon come when the three of them will enter the pit. Raina and Raina's Face. Locked together like some sort of Minnesotan Super Battlebot/Snowblower.

A wizard stops by the penthouse to have a sit down with the girls. He leaves the glass slipper and ticket to Manila at home, but brings them flowers. Real flowers. Hey Angelea, here's a tip for you: Do not ever act like this, whatever it is, is the first time it has happened to you. For instance, when I was taken to my first really nice restaurant on a date, did I tell the guy that? Did I say "go you!" Fuck no. I'm happy for you that you got real flowers for the first time, even if they are from Babar in Black, but keep that shit on the DL. Talley is actually incredibly likable in this part, as he talks to the girls about how to treat Japanese designers versus French ones, and how he worked for Andy Warhol when he was a young baby fashionista, and Warhol paid him 50 bucks a week and made him sleep in the YMCA. Which sounds exactly like Warhol, who was a dick. And now he works with Wintour, hinting at a very long history of asshole bosses, but yet he's not an asshole? So I'm on Team Talley now, despite the fact that calling something Team Anything reduces it to below soccer hooligan status. More on that later. Talley is fucking tall and huge by the way, not Yoda like at all.

I think my hard heart softens at the end of every ANTM cycle. Talley and his climb to eccentricity. Angelea and her naivety. Alex and her stink of desperation. I want them all to fly away to a hotel in the sky, where they live fabulous unexamined lives and get real flowers all the time.

So the Jays hijack a plane. They make the girls walk the aisle, as if the two of them were just sitting there in first class saying to themselves "oh my god, none of these girls can walk" "Who do you think walks the worst, Raina or Angelea?" "I bet you fifty bucks and a handjob Raina." "Alright, let's see. "

In my scenario, Mr. Jay wins, because Raina really does have the worst walk ever.

Then the girls are parachuted down into the wilderness of Queenstown to rescue a group of hostages, unaware that they are also being hunted by a extraterrestial bounty hunters.

No, actually, they are crowded onto the Hogwarts Express and taken to the mountains to get their O.W.L.s in making ugly faces while dressed as steam punk prostitutes. At least, that's what I got from the soundtrack.

Krista wins a bunch of jewelry, and the photo shoot, and then there's elimination finally and...
It's 50/50 versus the Second Coming of Brooke Shields. The Second Coming of Awesome gets sent home, because apparently Brooke Shields is better than awesome? Just like I would guess she is also better than puppies, cotton candy, Colombian snow, and pistachio gelato. You know what creeps me out about Brooke Shields? Those new commercials for growing your eyelashes. Where they are all like "side effects include staining your eyelid dark and maybe turning your eyes brown permanently." Angelea cannot resist one last embarrassing awkward moment of dancing, and then she is swept out of our lives forever.

Tyra yells at us violently to not go anywhere, like a CW drill Sergeant, and it works, I am frozen to my seat. Of course, it's 2am when I watch this, so I may actually be asleep, and this may not actually be what happened. Did anyone else hear her?

The finalists, Krista and Raina, are kidnapped and taken by black ops helicopter to an abandoned island resort, where a strange man gives them champagne and a butcher knife. They relax for a moment, savoring the drink after days of dehydration, when knock knock at the door are the Covergirl legions, led by zombie Nicole who looks like someone has been keeping her sedated in a lab and experimenting on coloring her hair through genetic alteration. The girls fight off the hordes as long as they can, but are overwhelmed and dragged down to the basement of the resort, where they are hooked up to every cosmetic torture device CG owns. After days of "treatments", Krista emerges as a high class New Orleans escort, Raina as a Russian underwear model/sex slave. They both bomb the commercial, and have their ankle bones shaved.

Later they find out their families have been kidnapped and brought to this same Island of Misfit Makeup. Tyra briefly shows them their loved ones faces, then drags them away again, promising to use them as test subjects unless the girls successfully walk in a Rock in Roll Circus show which appears to just be "dress up like an English school girl" show. All the other sad unhappy toys are trotted out, and they will all walk to school together, taking away any meaning this prize has at all. It's like they only got their New Zealand Air tickets in bulk or something. Someone needs to burn that hat Jessica keeps wearing. The girls divide themselves into Team Krista and Team Raina, proving Stockholm syndrome works across the equator. Fuck you Twilight.

There is a runway show. It features insanely boring clothes. Krista pictures her mom and stepdad, locked in that cold lab with shampoo in their eyes, and smiles smiles smiles until her face is frozen that way. Raina cannot fight the fear for her father, and her walk is stilted, stompy and uninspired. At the end of the night, Raina's father is brought out for the audience, tied to a wheel, and they throw daggers at him until one hits home. Alex wins, just for a brief shining moment, and is then sent back to the fishing village.

They meet at elimination, all our familiar characters. Raina is inexplicably wearing a tail. Tyra saved the best jumpsuit for last, an electric blue which symbolizes all the pain and wear and tear we've suffered to reach this final scene, all the sorrow and shame, the pride and dignity required to make it here. They crown Krista queen of the chocolate girls, and Talley cries a little. Then she is allowed to beat Raina to death with her bare hands.

THE END

The Oracle of Madison High

The narrative of high school: that here is where your little slimy parts coalesce, like a comic book villain (Clayface), pieces of animated goo sliding themselves together from all directions. Pull yourself together, Man No Longer Child, Woman No Longer Girl. And it is assumed that out of this hazy slurry of childhood experience, the best in you will rise to the top, like cream fat. You will discover your talents. You will be young and sexy. You will do bad things with your friends and learn how to not get caught. You will have sentimental moments that will be the foundation of your in depth drunk phone calls later in your thirties, after you are married and have kids and are old enough to look back and laugh at how silly, how very SILLY it was to hold things like passion, fun, reputation so seriously.

So year after year these children, these young spotty faced giraffes, are transferred from the war-like, gladiatorial cages of middle school into the strict structure of Teenage Temple. You know what makes high school so fucking long? The constant unwavering, unmerciful introspection. Find yourself. Be Yourself. Don't Be That Bad Version of Yourself. Make Friends. Don't Listen to Your Friends. Be Aware That This is the Only Acceptable Time to Mistakes, But Don't Make Any Mistakes.

Now here's the other thing, on top of that, you also have to become an Adult. Because children can't be Adults. They don't understand what goes into that title. The knowledge of bills, of costs, of arguments and requirements and schedules, of struggling to make sure people like you, and hating them intensely when they don't. Learning how to ignore criticism of yourself as stupid, foolish, shallow, and be all those things despite the warnings. Memorizing the alternate meanings of words like Bitch, Diva, Geek, Player.Inventing your own definitions about what they try to inject in your head, and being unconcerned with the fact versus the perception.

And everyone you meet has gone through some version of this conversion. Everyone had a high school experience, even if it consisted of quitting high school. The messages are clear to everyone who has touched these walls, if only for a moment. Some have good stories. Almost all have bad stories. Sometimes, every once in a while, a prescient kid comes along who gets that stories don't have to be one way or the other, that sometimes stories just are and just continue and end where they want to. Those are the ones who later forget what happened in that school, and it washes away in a blur of unimportance later. Not necessarily a virtue, not a fault, just what it is.

So some of you will be assholes, and some of you will be good people. Some will be nurses. Some will go the army. Some will work in shitty jobs for a little while, some will work at shitty jobs always. Some will get married. Some will get divorced. Some will never be able to stay in relationships. Some will hate their parents forever. Some will wish they were closer to them. Some will have children. Some will not. Some will do cool things, like travel, or work on important scientific things. Others will slowly ascend the corporate ladder with no intentional momentum, and retire after 30 years with the same company. Some will be on unemployment at multiple points in their life. Some will do drugs and then quit. Some will be 40 yr old potheads with engineering degrees. They will become cat or dog people. They will find they have a type. They will get fat, or thin, or develop chronic conditions. This is what we learn in high school.

It seems important in high school to collect momentos. Dresses. Dried flowers. Sketches. Notes. Cds. Pictures of yourself, your friends, your life. It's like your body is actually warning you of the impending flood of life waiting outside, trying to build a nest against the coming cold. Our DNA has coded pubescence with an imperative to document the maturation.

The only things really important to keep in high school are the books they made you read. Those were the only things that didn't bullshit you. It's good to pick up A Separate Peace again, with your name and the name of all previous owners written on the front page, so it couldn't be lost among the identical copies of all your classmates and the three other classes also reading it.



More photos can be seen here.

Happy Mothers Day Mom!

I remember you sterilizing your midwife tools on the stove, and me pulling out all the pots and pans onto that kitchen floor which was red and orange tile in which I could trace faces in the pattern. And I remember those awesome yellow flowery curtains, which I really want now. The awesome dress up clothes we got from the place that used to be across from Lutheran Hospital, the black dress with the day glo flowers. And when you made us those bonnets so we could play Little House on the Prairie, only Carrie and I just fought about who got to be Laura and who got to be Mary. And remember when you found the snake eggs I had hidden under a blanket in my room, cause the twins down the street had thrown them out in an aquarium and I didn't want them to die. And the flower fairy books, the little ones, that we used to play fairies in the yard? And all the fucking kittens I went through. Bouncing on your bed upstairs while you had meetings in the living room? Getting East Coast Custard with you any time we had to drive to Parma for the dentist? The Indian costume you made me for Halloween one year, where you drew the pictures on it with marker? Or how about the California Raisins costume. Or the Doritos costume. I remember coloring in your Grays Anatomy with the pencils, and the little raspberry candies you used to keep in your desk. I remember your graduation from nursing school, and I think I remember which church it was at, sometimes I drive by it, but actually there's like 18 churches in this area that look like that. Remember when you got Fox? Remember Easters at St. Boniface when I sang with the choir and you kept telling me I should wear my hair out of my face? And the time the bat got into the cabin at Lake Hope? Also all those damn turkeys you loved that would wake us up at 6am. Watching Mystery on Thursday nights when they used to have Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot on all the time? Oh, and when Sunday nights used to be X-Files nights?

Remember when you made that joke about the giant vagina with teeth that ate Tokyo? You should, since it was like, last year.

Happy's Mothers Day. I know you worry that all I remember are the bad times between us, but it turns out only the important stuff sticks.

Strictly Speaking, I'm on the Side of the Carnivores. They are Smarter.

Isn't horse racing kinda mean?

Isn't eating cows kinda mean?
And keeping gorillas in plaster rock climbing cages?
And not letting the pigs eat the truffles they find?
And letting little kids kick the shit out of ponies while learning to ride?
And keeping your cat inside an apartment, with his only link to the outside through screen windows, where the prey he naturally longs to kill is taunting him not 2 feet away?
Don't you ever lie in bed at night, thinking of all the animal muscle and skin and bone digesting inside your carnivorous unsatisfied gurgling cave of a body, and doesn't the guilt rise up somewhere in your chest like a smothered barely flickering light, reminding you of your untapped ability to evolve both in consciousness and digestion, if ever one day the light could make the dangerous journey to the part of your head where empathy lies? I feel it, I am capable of compassion after all. But for the moment, and probably forever, I am definitely a member of the ruling class.

Considering the rest of our sins, isn't racing horses, instead of making them pull carts or eating them or making glue out of their hoofs, kinda the least of it?

Do you like Emily Gould? Please say no.

I had to look up who Emily Gould was. I knew the name was familiar, but couldn't place it. Turns out she's a woman, approximately my age, who is currently out being way more successful than me at selling her words. I'm not sure why I'm supposed to dislike her? I haven't read her book, but she has one. Someone published it for her. I happen to like Gawker, a lot. So I don't hold that against her. I don't particularly like her blog, but not a lot of people like mine, so who am I to criticize?

One weird thing about internet celebrity is that since it's online, everyone is expected to have an opinion about you. It's like, why are you on the internet at all if you don't have an opinion, right? I don't need to have an opinion about Emily Gould. She doesn't intersect with my life at all in any way that matters. In the absence of any real conviction or need, I will go to my default setting, which is that I like her fine. I know, everyone thinks I'm so mean and snarky and pessimistic. But I totally like you all, until you give me reason not to. I think that's the first step to being a nice person.

I totally just schooled you on being nice. Next time I write about the lemon drop sluts at the bar last night, remind me of this.


What do you have against sweet monkey chaps?

My problem with the above sentence is threefold.

1) The word sweet means something amiable, pleasing, gracious, sugary. It does not mean cool. Cool doesn't even mean cool. But I prefer it's usage over "sweet", because while there are a million words for cold I can use instead, there are not that many flavors.

2) Chaps are offensive, period. Always. They are ugly. They are completely unnecessary unless you are driving cattle for weeks, and can't afford to buy multiple pairs of jeans.

3) Monkeys clothed in the dead skin of another animal is creepy, and really makes you think about your place in the universe in a very uncomfortable though thoroughly realistic way. Monkeys remind me of where we came from, and where we need to run from. It's hard to run in leather. It is, however, easy to wield a gun.




Ask Me Anything

ANTM Cycle 14: "Amoebas don't make motorcycles and atomic bombs! "

Kaneda: This has GOT to be a trap.
Kei: Then go back.
Kaneda: No. I just have to find how MUCH of it is a trap.
-akira

This is how it works. Miss Jay will make some extra money, shilling for a travel site, and you won't mind as much as you thought you would. Because the power of tv is such that even watching an episode on DVR, you still stop to watch the AT&T commercial because really why hasn't someone draped the St. Louis Arch in satin? It needs to be done. It screams to be done.

This is how it works. Angelea is actually scrapbooking. Since the rise of the upstart Krista, Angelea has become more and more likable, as if in direct proportion to the decaying of her weave. A little humbleness has done wonders for her poise, and the villain here is really fickle Alex now, stripey side kicking Alex who feeds off the energy coming from Krista's new found bitchdom.

And this is how it works now bitches, Krista will win everything. Amazed by her recent string of wins, Krista's head has expanded like a nitrous balloon, slightly squeaky, cold to the touch, and liable to pop. 28th in a line of cheekbones, the praise has sunk into her skin and bloomed, an iridescent bloom of fame fungus. It leaves her with the shakes. She is literally withdrawing the moment the camera leaves her stone cut face. Outside Hobbiton (I'm not touching that, one geek reference a post, we must have continuity people, a theme, the STRUCTURE is everything), waiting for the winner, her frame trembles with every word. She sees the end coming, she doesn't know when, but she's determined to expand, and she is terrified of the ceiling coming close down upon her. Of running out of room to win. When her name is called, it's as if a fuse is fixed and all the appliances come back on at once. Krista is growing her soft exoskeleton slowly, it will harden with time, she is a Top Model Ninja. She goes on set and, grrr, she eats them all.

Tyra is the Shadow. But she is the Shadow in broad daylight. And she is the shadow in broad daylight with a secret. She slinks into the brightly lit, glaring even, vineyard in a denim jumpsuit and have you ever noticed that the universal hand gesture for "fierce" bears eerie resemblance to the universal gesture for removing a brain sucking parasite from your face?

So give Tyra your secrets my lovelies. Alex, tell her about the bag of halloween candy under your bed. Jessica, tell her you know the reason she keeps asking you about your family is because she knows you're going home and why doesn't she just tell you? Angelea, tell her your fake hair is telling you to do things, at night, when everyone's asleep. Tell her it scares you and you don't know how much longer you can hold it in. And Krista. Krista, tell her about the hunger in the pit of your abdomen,, and about the fear you see when you look in the mirror. The stranger with the hateful eyes that looks back at you. Raina, tell her why you chose "Oh MyLanta" as the catchphrase you want to be remembered by a nation for?

Tyra wields a camera, and the results are as follows. Alex is actually Diane Lane in Under The Tuscan Sun. Raina is a ghost pirate. Angelea is waiting for the Spartans to rape and pillage her. Jessica is Bambi's little sister. And Krista is a Cheetah with a Secret.

She follows Jessica back, after elimination, to the penthouse. She swallows her whole, and then slowly chews on the camera crew. The footage is later found and pieced back together, at the end of the world. Which apparently we have to look forward to.

We Could All Sing When We Were 11.

Found at BestWeekEver.tv

Return to the Castle

The Queen wanders back to the construction site, every once in a while. She stands on what used to be, what was supposed to be, her parapet, thinking of the day when the Doctor first brought her here, this spot in the wilds of Western Ohio, undeveloped yet in the early 70s. She remembers the vision he had built for her, standing in the spring mud, in the middle of nowhere. A huge fortress, 7 bedrooms, 5 baths, a pool. She always wanted a pool. She had always wanted lots of things, this little girl now trapped in a grown woman's lumbering body. And if he wasn't going to marry her, at least he was going to build her a castle of her very own.

She had spent the following months imagining all the parties she was going to throw, with all the other doctor's wives. Nobody gave the King his share of respect at the clinic, she knew all those wives looked down on him, with his shiny suits and salesman face. But wasn't he a doctor too? And wouldn't they be jealous when they saw the 4 towers rising up out of the trees, and walked through the courtyard shining with lamps. Into the rooms warm with rich thick carpets and parquet floors. She wanted mirrors in every room, throwing light into all the corners. She wanted to be able to sit in her grand parlor, turn her head in any direction, and see herself sitting there in that beauty, a queen finally.

Together they had excitedly drawn out plans, on paper towels one night at the kitchen counter in their two bedroom Colonial. A moat! Floating staircases! Diamond paned windows! And most importantly a pool! For the pool parties they would have. A huge dining room, for the dinner parties she would host. And a giant bedroom, worthy of a royal couple, just for the two of them. In there, together, they would hide from the judgments that had followed them. Couldn't ever be good enough for the rest of the world huh, couldn't be anything but cheap, shallow, trash huh? Fuck them. The King was a doer, a player, a man of means. He had built his kingdom from the ground up.

It was all going so well. Every day she came out to the site to watch the construction crews lay bricks and foundations, bronzed and sweating in the summer sun. The men treated her with respect to her face, though she imagined the lurid things they whispered once she had left, she repeated them in her mind late at night. She wore white, and in her mind, she was their cool ice queen descending from the heights to bless the indentured servants with a thin but sincere smile. The walls slowly but surely went up. She felt sure it was because of her.

The King didn't tell her directly when things began to unravel, but she sensed the trouble clouding around him, smelt the fear like a thunderstorm gathering. He was distracted and irritated. He hardly went out to the site, instead staying huddled in his office drinking. He dosed himself more often, and started to skip meals.

Then some people died. They were patients of his, addicts at the clinic. It was ridiculous, they would have died either way and all the Doctor had been doing was trying to help. And it wasn't like he was selling heroin. Methadone was legal. But the lawsuits started coming, and into their living room a parade of other suits. Grim faced lawyers, trailing the smoking remains of papers and triplicate wherever they went. She hated their devious little lizard faces, tongues flicking nervously, all the "ahs" and "well..."s that slipped out of their mouths in nasty whispers. She stayed in her room, and maybe on some days, she helped herself to the medication. Lay on the bed, dozey and high, thinking of all the rooms that might have been.

They arrested the King, he went to jail. There was no more castle, the crews had been dismissed. The Queen found herself taking a condo in North Olmsted, because there was no money left after the lizard bills had been paid. A rumour had started among the construction crews that the King had hidden his drug money in the walls of the castle, and they told their brothers, and their friends, who told their friends. Soon vandals were attacking the walls daily, punching holes in the brick like woodpeckers, looking for the gold of Treasure Castle. It was ridiculous. They were hick idiots. At first she was mad, but later it didn't bother her so much. She had nothing left, not even the status of a widow, and who was she to care if the locals tore the very walls of that incomplete husk apart?

So every once in while she comes back here. She tried to sell it, but even in the real estate boom of the 80s, there were no takers. The driveway has been worn away and covered with the trash of partying kids. Graffiti is here and there, but for the most part the castle remains clean, except the holes. Everywhere holes. She wishes her own life hadn't been the same way, years of punching walls, always hoping to find the ship coming in.


More pictures can be seen here. And from the first time we went there. Also, some required listening..

Lupe Fiasco - Kick Push download at emp3

Hey Everybody, Watch the President Being Funnier Than You

C'mon, it's totally worth ten minutes of your time. Honest. My favorite part is when he calls Michael Steele "The Notorious G.O.P.". Also when he makes fun of CNN for having a guy who points out Iceland is too cold to have a volcano.



"There are like, hundreds."


Also, earlier tonight I watched the second episode of The History of US on the History Channel. In the first twenty seconds they flashed to a roaring attacking bear. That image was repeated three times. They actually started the episode with a flaming meteor headed for America, that explodes! But they only showed that part once. Did you know people used to be so stupid, they thought beaver pelts were the same as money? True story.

I only got about as far as Lewis and Clark, which is the best part of the whole Go West story always. The bear finally attacked actually, and tore the head off some trapper who lived! Cause he had American Grit! I will let you know how the rest of it turns out. I'm sure lots of pregnant women in covered wagons bite it.

May 1st, 2010

Yesterday, May 1st, was my sister's birthday. Happy Birthday Carrie! She's 28, which is kind of fucked up, mostly cause it means there's no way I'm 28 anymore. I think she went to an immigration march yesterday, because that's the sort of stuff she does on her birthday. Since it so conveniently coincides with International Workers Day. I don't think that was by accident. I think my parents, when I was born, knew right away I would never do anything for the socio-political advancement of humanity, and they planned Carrie's birth specifically to curse her with do-goodingness.

It was also Buddy's birthday. Happy Birthday Buddy! We'll hang out soon and do something debaucherous. Like watch tv. And I promise you, from here on out I'm going to completely forget how old you are ever, because I've been doing a smashing job of that so far.

It was the Kentucky Derby yesterday. The Boy was working, so I hung out with the Ex (it's a thing we're trying to do now, not hate each other, and who else do I watch horse racing with? When are the rest of my friends going to get on this fucking bandwagon?) and went to an Irish bar nearby to watch it. I argued that jockeys could in no way be cokeheads because they are such professionals when it comes to the big leagues like the Derby. Calvin Borel proved me right by crying a lot, which I don't think he'd be able to do if he was tweeking. Calvin won again, and Fletcher got his first Derby win, and the horse named Dublin did not win which was sad because that is totally a great Triple Crown Winner name, whereas Super Saver makes everyone in the team's hats look like they work at a dollar store. It was a good win though.

I have officially renamed West Park Station, the bar populated blocks near my house, Douchebag Station. I know douchebag is SO over, but so are all those people, so it still fits. Sitting outside the bar after the race, I listened to the same gel-curled girl explain to her guy friends, all of whom had knee braces on and some sort of jerseys, that:
- her mom was mad she was not getting married by 25
- she had better put off getting her masters and have kids now, because if she has them after 25, they'll be unhealthy
- her sister's husband is gay because he bought her a mani-pedi and knew what that was, also because he took off work to help his little sister shop for a prom dress. (to which one of the boys said "of course he's gay, he lives in Lakewood". In West Park they said this. Like, 2 blocks from the border of Lakewood.)

Then we watched the Cavs game at a wine bar, and it was super close and we left before the end, but stopped at a store to buy cigarettes and watched the final minutes of the game with the store owners on the little tv behind the counter, and everyone cheered when they won, including me, who may have jumped up and down a little. I can get really into the end of basketball games. Not so much the beginning though. I like belonging to the winners.

Also, though I haven't watched it yet, Mayweather bested Mosley, which apparently wasn't supposed to happen.

So yesterday was all about competitions, and I think that fits right along with Workers Day and birthdays. Cause that's what this is all about right, competing every day to get something right, to make more money, to have a better life, to win something you're not supposed to be able to. Congratulations! You've won another year of your life. You've won one step in a championship. You've beaten a record. You've proved you're not old and used up yet. May 1st is Winner's Day. Congratulations for choosing to be a player in this whole crazy set up. Someone should make you some cookies.

It may be me, because I finally got a new(er) stove yesterday. Oh the joys of a working oven! Win!