Formspring keeps eating your questions, its not my fault.

This country has a history of right-wing militias but how come we never hear of left-wing ones?

Because you never took a history class on the 60s, apparently? Hippies used to bomb stuff, yo.

I mean, the concept of right wing and left wing is fairly modern anyway. And people didn't really start talking about militias as a bad thing until after Oklahoma City bombing. So history is quite short in the modern sense of the word militia now.

Maybe they are not so much around now, but that's probably because left wing groups were always more into bombings, which is totally not cool to do. At least, not like bringing ak47s to healthcare debates, which is pretty badass if completely batshit. Left wing groups are too much about the community, the group, to use things like individual weapons. They want big massive group think destruction. Right wing guys want to pick you off one by one and play the individual victim. Which is a lot more attractive to folks who want to be perceived as victims versus drones of a social reawakening group.

It also probably has to do with the fact that all those left wing crazies burnt themselves out on the Vietnam and Korean War protests. Their age peers who were right wing are now getting their moment of insanity. They had to work up to it with a lifetime of repressed rage and anger. I think everyone in that range of generations is just crazy. It must have been something in the milk or water or meat. We should check FDA records and see what the fuck changed.

And the reason that their conservative counterparts are coming out now? There are more right wing crazies now because they are all terrified of the new Digital Age and the major paradigm shift it represents, a paradigm where their farms and rifles and isolationism does not fit.

Beef or pork?

One gets me cursed by Jehovah, the other by like 20 Hindi gods. So I'm going with beef. Plus pigs are smarter than cows, which matters to me. It's like, I get sick when I see calamari being made, cause squid are so fucking smart, it's like watching a child be diced and deep fried. So gross. I mean, I still eat bacon. But they're not that smart. Just smart enough to make a difference if I have to choose.

I'm better at seasoning beef anyway. Pork I can never cook right.

The Boys favorite meat is chicken. That's weird, right? He doesn't believe me when I tell him it's weird, but its like totally weird that your favorite food would be chicken.

Is it just me, or does the letter q seem pointless?

Your face seems pointless.

Q is the prettiest letter in the whole alphabet. Think of all the great words. Quinine. Quite. Quixotic. Quill. Quintessential. And even when it's just in the word as a supporting actor: torque, burqa, qi.

The letter Q is like the saffron of our language, it makes everything taste exotic. I want to make rice with it, and alcoholic ice creams. I want Q to teach me tantric sex and then how to compose a South American folk song. Q is cinnamon infused condensed milk. It is the Buddha's eye and tongue and tonsils. Japanese ancestral ghosts always come back in the form of the letter Q.

Ask me anything

Bitch

So yesterday I went to the grocery store on my lunch break to buy kitty litter and wine. My all time favorite combination to walk up to the register with, especially when I haven't showered and am wearing the rattiest most cat covered sweater I own because I don't feel like finding my coat from that small dark corner I threw it in the minute the sun came out.

You know how you wander around the Giant Eagle wine selection, and of course it isn't about what brand of wine you want, since this is a grocery store, but what kind. Do you want a shiraz? A riesling? A cheap moscato that tastes like lemonade Koolaid? Well, what I wanted more than anything was a grenache. But there were NONE. I stayed in that wine section way longer than humanly decent looking for one, and nothing.

I did however see this:



So I decide to get it, thinking why not, since I can't find what I want. Then I turn it around and read the back. It's a grenache. Of course it is.

Later that night The Boy called the 1-800 number on the back of the label. It said "Welcome to Great Palate Imports, home of the bacon of the month club".

The Fickle Moods of Clevelanders

Oh my god, I know! It's so cold! We're all so cold, and wet, and it's gray and it sucks and what the fuck.

I think Twitter is the equivalent of conversations you have with cashiers at grocery stores. (if grocery store clerks talked about sex and foursquare a lot)

Listen, remember two days ago? When it was 80 degrees and beautiful, and you were all running and biking, and there were no dead bodies/deer on the side of 90 or mining disasters?

Oh, you don't remember, do you? Because you are apparently incapable of remembering anything that happened beyond the last 24 hours. It's like the same genetic instinct that helps us survive winter storms by forgetting their existence actually keeps us ungrateful towards Spring. Here, have a reminder. You will get this again. Probably in a week. Then once again you will wish you didn't have a job and that someone would pay you to just go into old buildings all the time, or write pithy commentary about tv shows.

A Clevelander's Pictorial Guide to Spring

First, you saw this, and were reminded of your childhood. And talked about it incessantly.

Then you saw this, and spent about twenty minutes taking pictures of the same flowers that the rest of the country was taking pictures of. Which coincidentally are the same pictures you took last year.

Then you remembered this color.

And this happened.



Which naturally led to this.

Have some faith people.

ANTM Cycle 14: The worst word in the whole English language is Romper.

Once upon a time, I wanted to write a book that came with a soundtrack, and calibrated the songs to come in at average reading times, so that everyone just about heard the same song while reading the same part of the book.

What I'd like to do now is apply that idea to ANTM. However, I don't have video skills or programs, so you're going to have to use your imagination. And hand eye coordination.

First, start the show and this video at the exact same moment:



Alright, now Anslee is crying about her baby, and some girls no one knows are talking about the relationship of pickle juice and bodily functions. Blah Blah. I hate babies. They should put more babies in pickle juice. Which is more heart killing, coroner or model? They both involved sucking liquids out of bodies and cutting open into the hidden spaces. The girls get all dressed up and go out to a tram, but like a city tram? Which seems horribly unsafe. I had a classmate that fell out of a ferris wheel once and that tram makes me think of that. Where is the tram going exactly? Are they going to throw them out of the thing one by one? Oh, only metaphorically. Miss Jay, Etiquette Queen, is there to teach them about chemistry. He's going to throw them into a tram with some unknown male model and teach them how to be real ladies.

1. Also ask about him. Talk about him. What does he like?
2. Be funny, makes jokes. It's your job to make sure he's entertained.
3. Hold eye contact. Hypnotize your prey, move in slowly.
4. Make him feel comfortable. This is your job. Do it.

Oh Miss Jay, surely you don't mean to imply that the 1950s is back, do you? Cause I seem to recall that being a time of hardship for, well, absolutely everything you embody. So I know you wouldn't want to thoughtlessly teach a generation of girls that taking care of their man is a solely one-sided proposition, and thereby ally yourself with those who would beat you senseless in a cow field and cut off your dick? I know you would never, right?

Then they get to meet their male model. Cue:



That's right, Nigel Barker. The teach is to flirt with Nigel Barker. Who is suddenly claiming to not be married and have no kids? Which I seem to remember from past seasons as being a complete lie? It is creepy and sad that all of the girls act like they were just told to dance with Uncle Albert at their aunt's wedding.

Some shit happened where the girls had to pose with some flamingly gay comedian I've never heard of in sexually suggestive positions, and it's also weird and creepy. Some of them are dressed up like chorus girls. Nigel shoots them from outside on the street, through a window, so it's all peeping tom like? This whole episode is making me squishy inside and also a little bit righteous. There should be some Barbara Streisand happening here.

Then the photo shoot.



Jay Manuel feeds us some crap about feeling bad for all the poor underage kids in China who lose their jobs when horrible evil poor people like us buy designer knockoffs. Then the girls get dressed up like 90's Dance vocalists and pose like broken dolls on the most uninteresting section of New York street ever. Anslee proves she is the worst kind of person in the makeup chair.

makeup artist: "Don't cry"
Anslee: "No I've already done that all morning."

That, my dear, is why no one likes you.

While we've got this song going on, let's talk Tyra's jumpsuits. There was something in the credits about this whole season being dedicated to Alexander McQueen, and I'm wondering if that's the jumpsuit thing? Did he do jumpsuits and rompers? If so, I'm kinda glad he's dead. No, that's mean. But you know, if he's responsible for this, I don't care, I'll say that to his cold dead face. Fuck jumpsuits.

Of course, with Talley in his 60th Level Zen Crystal Warrior robes, maybe Tyra's just being converted to the Scientologists.

Finally, Judges Panel:



Tats goes home. Where she will no doubt start her own funeral home with some nice guy who collects butterflies. When she is older and examining the bags under her eyes, she considers how the botox in her face might react to the crematory fires.

Then, as the girls stand in their accepted row, they slowly recede into the walls, sealed in pressurized chambers, turned off. The lights dim and Tyra stands alone in the darkness while her minions light candles behind her. She raises her arms slowly, eyes reached to heaven. Her earrings start to sputter and roar to life, miniature rockets that propel her toward the ceiling, which opens silently, and out out out above the lonely darkness of the city lights. The huge and sprawling concrete organism that lives off tears.

Meyers Dairy: Give Us This Day Our Mothers Milk

Winter has lifted it's shaggy head from my shoulder, and now we're back on the streets with the windows down, listening to unlabeled mix cds and making plans plans plans. Plans to drive into the country. Plans to find the salt mines. Plans to sit on porches drinking. Plans to bike to the lake. Plans to lie in bed late with the breezes and ceiling fan stirring the viscous sunlight around us. Mostly though, MOSTLY, I am dying to get dirty. Dusty and dirty and muddy and sweaty.

The first building hunt of the year took place last week. Our meeting place had changed. I could no longer automatically find the right settings on my camera. We were unsteady at first, driving through East Cleveland, eying every brick fortress with appraising larcenous minds. We were dipping our toes to see how warm the water was. We shook off our hibernations.

But I found it, and it was warm, and the moment my boots took those first steps on the broken brick and guided me around that first unknown corner, I felt back inside the city. Which is awake again. I find it comforting that it always wakes up, every year, the same way. I like cycles.


This used to be a dairy plant. A happy place to work. No harsh chemicals, no grease. Just thin white milk, for feeding babies, for making ice cream and cheese. It stills seems happy. Little touches are keeping the darkness away. The green and white, the yellow tiles, the little surprise pretties, the delicate holies.

Up the stairs, we have the stained glass windows, the industrial cathedral, the alcove of the sacrament, where upon the cream was separated from the milk and fed to the fatted city.

Next door, the cubicle rectory, with fluffy insulation piled high. Walled in glass like a nature center. The better to let the light of divine judgment in. The better to watch birds from while you fill out that paperwork that no longer exists.

Bridget Callahan

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