Monday, June 23, 2008

IT'S ALL ABOUT timing. George Carlin- rest his gnarly little soul- knew about timing, knew the art of The Ba-DUM-bum-bum. Barack gets it; he's the master of the timed news item, the Grand Poobah of Apropos Announcements. And who is it again who says timing is everything? Oh, that's right: everyone.


On July 17th a grand confluence of gaming companies comes together in Los Angeles for the E3, where every game company worth a crap or two will announce the upcoming and in-progress electronic games for this year. I wish I were going to be there; not even huffing paint would give you that kind of contact high. Amy Winehouse was taken to the hospital for fainting and while there it was discovered that (shock!) her years of crack smoking had given her emphysema. Had it gone a month later and she would've been hooked up to an oxygen machine like a little old lady (she already has the wig, house slippers, and criminal insanity for it). Good timing for them both.


I spent last night playing Magic and watching Battlestar Galactica. It was fun. It was entertaining. But as my thirtieth birthday comes around on the calendar, I have to ask myself if the time is really right to be spending it in such a way?


Answer: Hell, yes.

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

LEONARD'S HOME LAY in terrible disarray. His easy chair rested on one side, the stuffing spilling out of a slash in the fabric. His neat rows of books had tumbled to the floor in wild profusion, pages lying torn and fluttering. The kettle was missing. With a cry he sprang to his feet. The fire burned brightly, and Leonard seized the fire tongs to pull out a smoldering book. The remains of his hearth rug lay in the corner, shredded to bits.

With a strangled gasp Leonard ran back to his bed and threw back the covers. No MacGuffin! He tore the bedclothes from the pallet, scrambled behind the headboard, ripped the pillowcases off: still no MacGuffin. Leonard climbed onto the bed, hid his face under a pillow and... best if we draw a veil over the events of the next quarter of an hour.

Some time later, a dry-eyed and only faintly tear-streaked troll face hovered over a rough burlap sack to which two straps had been neatly stitched. Leonard stood in his ruined kitchen, stacking in the sack dried lizard tails (full of protein), extra bottles of rat blood, and several containers of Garp (a mixture of his own invention made of crunchy salted bird feet, chewy sundried snake livers, and sweet chocolatey mouse droppings in a candy shell). His claws moved to pick up a stack of fallen dishes. He hovered indecisively a moment, then left them lying on the ground.

Leonard moved through the ruin of his home placing essentials in his sack. A sparkle on the floor caught his eye. He reached down and picked up a tiny black shoe button. "MacGuffin!" he whispered, and placed the stuffed bunny's eye reverentially at the bottom of the pack, wrapped carefully in a hankie, before closing it tightly. Brushing away a tear, Leonard walked slowly to the arched entry to his bridge home. He shouldered the pack as he turned and took in the devastation with a deep sigh.

Reaching out, Leonard clawed the support beam directly above him and swung his way to the ground.
LEONARD SHUFFLED OVER to the kettle and poured the hot water into his favorite mug (the one with a chip taken out of the rim). He slid the mouse out of the fire and put it on a plate, placed a napkin under it, and carefully placed mug and plate on the battered little table next to his easy chair.

As he settled himself, sucking out the eyeballs of the mouse before delicately patting his mouth, Leonard couldn't help but look over his shoulder. The sound of crunching mouse bones was deadened by the snow, but nothing else could be seen.

After clearing up, Leonard sat on his haunches on the edge of his truss and thought. Why was he so certain something watched him back from beyond the blustery whiteness? He was, perhaps, a little lonely. After all Leonard had no friends and no relations. No one would come and see him, which is why (here he nodded to himself) he simply imagined someone wandering around in the snow around his bridge. He much preferred it that way, of course. Leonard nodded again and reached out to take his stuffed bunny from his chair. He gave MacGuffin a little kiss on the head and cuddled it as he dangled his legs over the truss edge.

The day passed. Leonard sat on the balustrade with the wind in his face. He ate six cockroaches for afternoon tea. He read his book- Humans: A Compleat Guide To Meat Preparation- in bed and drifted off to sleep with it open on his face, MacGuffin carefully tucked in beside him.

The next morning, Leonard awoke to silence.

He lifted the book off his face. A scene of horror met his eyes.

Wednesday, June 4, 2008


"DUTCH MAN INJURES posterior in mooning incident". I think, on the whole, that the news is getting better every day. Ever since Barbara Walters outed herself as the lover of a Republican senator, it's been wonderful! Dutch media goes on to say that he is recovering since the accident, during which something went "horribly wrong".


Of course it went horribly wrong! You can't have a "mooning incident" without following with the phrase "horribly wrong". They go together like toast and butter.


I'm sorry to say this young man pressed his hiney up against the plate glass window of a restaurant, and the inevitable occurred. Should you be concerned about the small businessman, you'll be happy to know the man paid for the broken window.


Baby... got... back.

Friday, May 30, 2008

LITTLE PEOPLE SHOWED up on film yesterday deep in the heart of the Amazon jungle. When I say 'little', I mean, of course, those civilization-impaired humans, not midgets. (Is 'midgets' still P.C.? For that matter, was 'midgets' ever P.C.? A people defined by their penchant for circus work, exotica porn production, and pointing at jaundiced brick paving deserve a name that strikes fear into the hearts of men, just to make up for it. I'm thinking 'Piledrivers'. 'Shitkickers'. 'Devilbunnies'. But I digress).


The existence of this tribe utterly fascinates me. I've spent more time than I care to admit squinting at the fuzzy pictures of men painted with red clay pointing their tiny bows at the devil machine in the sky, while a lone female figure painted black dances crazy-dance behind them. What are they doing? Why are they painted red and black? Why is the lone woman out there? Is she a priestess dancing herself into a frenzy to bring the spirits of arrow accuracy down upon the red men? Where is everyone else? Is this just a scouting mission of three people?


You can imagine that from the moment that helicopter appeared (and rapidly disappeared) onwards, that has been the sole topic of conversation in the Amazonian huts.
"I think it was a sign from God!"
"The Gods are pleased! They did not kill us!"
"No, the Gods are angry! They left us here in the mud!"
"Larry, you think everything is a sign from God."
"Nuh-uh!"
"Yuh-huh! Just last week you said that when you woke up with bird poop on your face, it was a sign from God!"
"Well, it was!
"Idiot, it built a nest above your bed!"
[Silence]
"I hate you, Steve."


The Amazon really is trackless. Imagine: this isn't the only tribe of civilization-less people out there, it's, like, one of several that we know about! And scientists predict there might be many, many more. Think of all the other things that could be lost in the rainforest besides tribes of little people. Car keys. Mateless socks. A-Ha.


Kind of makes you think about humanity, doesn't it? Man's inhumanity to man, power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely, marking distinctions is the first step towards destruction, that sort of thing? What must it be like to be those painted people? How must it feel to see that big ol' copter, and what could we see that would be to us as the copter is to them?


Discuss.

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

MEMORIAL DAY WEEKEND became a full-frontal vacation with the addition of a day off on Friday. Jason's friend Billy came into town, and- in addition to eating ourselves senseless- we saw as much of Memphis as it is possible to see and still sleep nights.


For me, the best part was finding out that Earnestine & Hazel's has Sunday night jazz (during which the entire audience- made up of thirty people carrying horns- got up, moved by an internal clock, and just started to play in front of the house band. Then they sat down. Then they drank. Then they went up again, sometimes cutting out the middle man by standing at their tables and playing right there). We were the only people there not fondling a brass instrument, and the only people there who didn't know everyone else. It was great!


Sushi, pulled pork at the Barbeque Shop (twice), losing money on roulette at the casinos, breakfast with a senator down on the river, tours of Memphis architecture, Redbirds baseball game: it was all quite exhausting.


We finally made it to the pool for an afternoon of unwinding on Sunday, only to find that Sparky (the mechanical pool cleaner) had gotten hung up during the weekend of thunderstorms. An hour later, after skiffing the pool with the long net (and cursing the lazy boyfriend who was sitting in the air conditioning, drinking a beer, and chatting happily with friends as I cleaned and sweated), relaxation kicked in.


After bidding Billy a fond farewell on Monday afternoon- not before stuffing ourselves with BBQ once again- Dad called and required a car battery jump start from, of all places, the parking lot of Taco Bell. It took three minutes for Jason to start his car and twelve to harangue Dad about not eating fast food (and Taco Bell! The lowest of the low!). He was properly ashamed of being caught in such a compromising position and attempted to throw us off the scent by serving us wine and cheese on the porch during a real summer thunderstorm.


Even with all the craziness, Jason and I were able to sneak in lots of together time (which was great, and well overdue) and even a couple of movies. The house got cleaned, the laundry got done, the garden got tended. The only thing that we didn't do was go to the Farmer's Market on Saturday morning, and I plan to rectify that this weekend. Go, veggies!

Friday, May 16, 2008

I'D LIKE TO riff on the subject of stubbornness this morning, if you'll bear with me while I indulge myself. Most people, I find, describe themselves of stubborn. I think that's an American thing, "Oh, I'm so stubborn, tee hee! Isn't that awful?" with the kind of tongue-in-cheek pseudo-shame that typifies those things of which we are most proud. What is it that makes us pride ourselves on being intractable?


I'm not the most stubborn person I know; that honor belongs to a good friend of mine to whom I haven't spoken in ages after a particularly nasty fight. "I'll never speak to you again!" he said, and by golly, he hasn't. I'm only a pathetic stubborn compared to this; I send notes of apology and mea culpa with depressing regularity which are met with awesome silence. Compared to this, I'm an amateur.


My own version of stubborn is more a knee-jerk reaction. Jason will ask me something- anything- and I'll immediately refuse, then start shouting, then lapse into angry silence. It doesn't matter what it is. It's so stupid, so childish, so perfectly the way to start an argument with no resolution. There's no way to end it except owning up to my own idiocy and apologizing (not an attractive option). Man, it damn near kills me to apologize. It takes the most profound feeling of love to do it.


Studies keep showing us that the thing that keeps marriages and friendships together for the long haul isn't our spontaneous attraction- however phenomenal that may be- our shared interests, or even the things we do together. Rather, it's this willingness to set aside our too-human stubbornness for a few moments every day, to apologize and unbend. Just the willingness to stop and say, "Hey, you know what? I don't have all the answers, and I can be a stupid jerk. I'm sorry I wasn't listening to you; try again, and I'll really try, too."


Now if I could just do it.

Monday, May 12, 2008

REASON #3,428 THAT Alec Baldwin is the single finest celebrity on the face of the planet: He recently went on '60 Minutes' and described Kim Basinger's lawyer, Judy Bogen, as "a 300 pound homunculus with a face like a clinched fist". He then immediately recanted, saying that description was "too kind".


Who says 'homunculous' on prime-time television? Alec Baldwin, that's who!

Monday, May 5, 2008

ONCE UPON A time, there lived a young green troll. He made his home under a stone bridge which he had caulked carefully in order to make it draft-proof. In the autumn he collected provisions for the coming winter- sheep's eyeballs, goat ears, cow intestines and the like- and secreted them away in the well-organized pantry he had carefully carved into an abutment of the bridge. He liked nothing better than to claw his way to the top of the bridge during a winter snowstorm and hunch down on the balustrade, snow blowing in his eyes, and crack open a decayed pigeon from his stores for teatime.


Leonard- for that was his name- loved the quiet peace of these times. That wasn't to say he didn't enjoy leaping out at a hapless traveler, claws akimbo and fangs bared, to feast on their skin, but all that joggling around sometimes upset his stomach. He had always had a delicate constitution. His mother had warned him time and again to avoid too much physical activity during and after meals.


One particular Tuesday morning, Leonard woke up to a blinding snowstorm. He watched the swirling whiteness from his bedroom girder for a while, then yawned and swung down onto his wide living room truss. The little troll lit a fire in the grate, scratched his bottom with one claw and, yawning, put the kettle on. He rummaged for a moment in his live mouse box, picked out a plump wriggling specimen, and impaled it neatly on a sharp skewer. The mouse twitched a moment longer, then went still. Leonard turned to place his breakfast mouse in the glowing embers of the fire, but as he did so caught the faintest glimpse of grey beyond the sheeting curtain of white.


Leonard stared.


Nothing. The white snow puffed and played around the bridge. He shook his head, jowls jiggling a bit and drips of slime falling to the floor, and placed the mouse in the fire. He mounded the embers carefully over the skewer, turning once or twice to look over his shoulder. The silent snowstorm looked back.


The whistling kettle startled Leonard out of his reverie.

Friday, May 2, 2008

THIS IS TOO good to be true. This is so good, it must be fattening. It's so good, you're going to puke on yourself.


Barbara Walters had an affair with a U.S. Senator.


Barbara Walters! U.S. Senator!! Ahh, I'm in heaven!!


From now on, Babs' new nickname is 'Jack Donaghy'. For those of you who are foolish/busy enough not to watch '30 Rock', Jack is the fictional uber-conservative head of NBC who dallies in an illicit relationship with an uber-liberal Democratic senator from Illinois.


Democrat journalist Barbara Walters was screwing around with a married, Republican, black senator from Massachusetts!!!! Are you dying? I'm dying!!! He's not even dead, or anything like it. He's divorced and remarried and living in obscurity somewhere in Boca. Or rather... WAS living in obscurity in until Jack's book came out yesterday! Welcome back to the spotlight, Edward Brooke!


You know what they say... once you go Republican, you never go back.


Or something like that!

Thursday, May 1, 2008

THIS MORNING, JASON asked that I write about Barack Obama and the Wright Controversy (sounds like the title of a children's story, doesn't it? 'Barack Obama and the Land of the Teddy Bears'). I was deeply flattered that he would want my point of view, until I realized that in reality he simply doesn't have the patience to read CNN.com and wanted the Cliffs Notes version of the controversy. When I said this, he enthusiastically agreed that this was indeed the case.


Bastard.


But I'm a sucker for guys who runs on the treadmill in boxer shorts, so to keep the peace, encourage him to keep doing that, and hopefully secure a free dinner, here's the haps:


Wright was Barack-o's church pastor for many years. Wright was a bit of a father figure to Barack since B's own dad was pretty much out of the picture. Wright was Barack's pastor up until about a year ago when B.O. went heavy on the campaign trail. Lately, the Wright Reverend's sermons got on YouTube. He said some things that could be either him being (1) a shoot-from-the-hip straight-talker or (2) totally racist (just as an aside, that makes him the black identical twin of Donald Rumsfeld). Among his possible assertions were that the U.S. brought the Twin Towers attacks upon themselves and that Hilary Clinton had an advantage in the election because she's white.


I know, I know. That's just crazy talk!!


Unfortunately, he then went to the National Press Club this past week and said those things all over again, then suggested- among other things- that the government had manufactured and released AIDS as a way to control and kill the black population, and that the US government is a terrorist organization. Oh, and by the by, he's still a super-duper good friend of Barack and B.O. listens to everything he says; the two of them are like twinned souls.


Because it's really, really easy to scare the crackers by saying that stupidity, brutality, and utter lack of political skill are inherent in black people and that Barack personally will rape your wife while stealing your silver if elected, Republicans are taking that ball and running with it as fast and far and hard as they can. Vote for Johnny Mac, because otherwise THEY'll be in your home, up to their elbows in government-grade AIDS!


I don't know about you, but I'm beginning to suspect that the government manufactured and released Reverend Wright as a way to control and kill the black candidate. Poor Barack.

Tuesday, April 29, 2008


WHERE'S THE SUBTLETY? Where's the originality? Where, in short, is the beef? It saddens me deeply to tell you that for reasons best left to television executives, HRH Britney Spears shall be returning to 'How I Met Your Mother'. This, of course, is because she appeared on the program earlier and gave them a big ratings boost. Everyone watched.


Of course they watched! They wanted to see if she'd shave her head or birth a baby right in the middle of the taping, or stand up and let her paunch dribble out of the sides of her pleather lace-up mini. And now it has been declared that she will return, since clearly what people want to see is more Britney Spears. If I were an exec, I might question whether people actually like the poor girl or whether they're just waiting to see what heinous breech of common decency she perpetrates next. I mean, that's why I'm watching! If she returns and again does nothing Louisianan, well- what's the point? They'll piss off the regular fans in exchange for thirty minutes of slightly higher ratings which will drop back to nothing when Brit-Brit (1) crawls back under the rock from whence she came, or (2) fails to deliver the crazy. Poor Doogie Howser. He's the Cassandra of his generation.


No, if you want originality you'll have to turn to the headlines, where you'll find that charming Austrian gentleman who imprisoned his daughter in the basement of his house for twenty-odd years and forced her to have his children (seven in all).


!!!!!


?!?!?!?!?


!!!! ??? !!!!


The part that really rocks you back on your heels is the information that he was in fact married to someone and had children with her... and that they all lived in the house!


?!?!??!


"Excuse me, Klaus, but you're standing in the way of the basement."
"I, um... You don't need to go down there."
"Yes, Klaus, I need some pickles. Move it."
"You can't. I... uh... I just farted down there. Sorry. I'll go get your pickles."


How does one keep that up for twenty years? Additionally, why do German-speakers turn out to be so insane? Is it the language? The weather? The genes?


At least you know you can trust Governor Shwarzenegger. Sure, he uses his basement to re-animate skeletons with the help of an Igor and some lightening bolts, but at least he's kind enough about it to take them into the daylight and call them his wife.

Tuesday, April 22, 2008


IT'S THE BIG day! You're excited, I'm excited- hey, who isn't getting their panties in a bunch today? Oh, you know what I'm talking about: watching the results of the Pennsylvania democratic primaries roll in! Can you stand it?!


The deal, or so I understand it, is that Hilary either wins this one or walks away a loser. Even if she wins, she has to win by more than fifty delegate votes just to stay in the game in a real way; tough, when she's polling lower every day. I was a Hilary fan before I was an Obama fan. I hate to see her like this. At the same time, Obama just seems... well, like he could win. That means a lot to me right about now.


I'm not in any way dismissing the Ron Paul enthusiasts. In fact, bless their little cotton socks. I like his spray-painted signs and presidential hair. I like libertarians. In general, they tend to be sexier than most people. But I don't see Ron Paul walking away with this one, I really don't. John McCain is not clever and a Republican (redundant). Hilary is unlikeable. Obama rhymes with Osama. Everyone's got their problems.


I ride my bike to work (and everywhere else, since my car battery died at work and my Honda is now gracefully reposing there in ghetto splendor), open the windows instead of using heat and air, and try to grow my own food in a small, one-zucchini-a-week kind of way. I don't care about gas prices and have given it up as a bad job. This is my professional opinion as a geologist/economist, you understand, not just navel-gazing; total oil supply slowly going down, demand remaining high or rising, prices will simply go up (along with profits, since it's not that much more expensive to get it out of the ground) until there's no more oil, which I give ten to twenty years. I'd draw you a graph, but... yeah. You don't care.


At any rate, I'd like to see gay people living in as much official misery every other married couple. I don't want 16-year-old girls to go to back alley coat hanger services because they can't get legal abortions. I'd like someone to, oh- I don't know- raise funding for schools. Maybe teach a little sex ed so that the question of coat hangers can be avoided entirely. Good bike paths. Health care for all kids. And that's it.


And even though I said I wouldn't, too bad:

Thursday, April 17, 2008

WHEN YOU REGISTER to vote, there's a little box at the bottom of the page that says 'Sign or Make Your Mark Here'. Sign... or make your mark. Now, my first thought was that this is for people like Opie down in Packing & Shipping; Opie who can't be trusted to hold a safety pencil the right way up without nibbling on it, and who needs someone else to guide his hand for his caveman-like, scrawled 'X' (or possibly straggling squiggle). I can just hear Opie's high-pitched squeal of delight as the pencil makes a mark down the page. Pleased, he does it again and again until a new form must be retrieved to replace Opie's enthusiastic damage.


And then Opie gets to go vote.


It was a very depressing thought. 'Sign or Make Your Mark' pretty much has to be for the feral among us; even worse, the voting feral. But then I remembered Prince (The Artist Formerly Known As). If Prince is foolish enough to change his name to an unpronounceable glyph, surely many other Americans must be as well. It made me feel immediately better. 'Sign or Make Your Mark' is for people with symbol names, not Opie!


Not Opie.


To register to vote, or just to sign or make your own mark, go to Rock the Vote and fill in forms old school.

Monday, April 14, 2008


YOU CAN RELAX. Bush is gonna pick the Pope up at the airport today. Thank God. I know you so didn't want to go get him yourself.


I can just hear George now: "Laura! What's the flight number? No, I'm looking for my shoes- just Google it for me, will ya? Dammit, where the hell are my- Northwest!! Jesus, woman, just look it up, he's gonna be here any minute! Where the fuck are my shoes?!"


Tee hee!

Thursday, April 10, 2008


LEGOS DOMINATED MY childhood. I was a collector of Legos, as much as any third child can be of any toy that costs more per square inch than hair plugs. My real breakthrough came one day when the boyfriend of an older sister decided to toss off his childish things in the pursuit of manhood, I believe at the ripe old age of sixteen. His loss was my gain, as he came to the house one day bearing an enormous tub of assorted Legos which he then gave to me.


My memory is fuzzy, but I may have peed myself.


What I do remember with remarkable clarity is sitting down with the tub and carefully sorting them out by size and color. My stepfather, an architect and- I like to think- more sympathetic to my desire to sort Legos than anyone else, had taken me to the hardware store for several plastic storage containers. Each had a multitude of tiny clear drawers intended for the separation of different kinds of nails and screws, but mine were full of perfectly sorted Legos.


When it was done, I liked to take a few days just to admire things, and this was my downfall: invariably, another sibling would steal the cases and build something enormous, using up everything in the drawers and often leaving a small trail of one-bumps leading back to the offender's bedroom. Their defense was always that it was so easy to play Legos when they were so nicely sorted, to which I invariably yelled back that I knew that, that's why I had done it.


I'd re-sort and find a better hiding place. And I did actually play with them, instead of just sorting them like a loony. I remember one Father's Day in particular, when I must have had less than nothing to do, creating a Lego card for my stepdad. It used the largest flat board I had, and from the side looked like just a Lego village. Seen from the top, though, the little trees and bushes read 'HAPPY' and the buildings made up the word 'FATHER'S'. The 'DAY' was spelled out by tiny Lego people, all of them raising a teensy plastic goblet in salute.


With four children in the house and busy, professional parents, we were almost always left to entertain ourselves. We only got an original Nintendo (that's right, the NES) one Christmas when I was almost eighteen, and we'd never had electronic toys, with the exception of a hand-crank printing press one of my sisters had gotten for a birthday (there's one episode of the Simpsons where Bart gets his hands on such a device and prints a newspaper with the headline 'Todd Smells'; that typified our level of journalism). Anyway, we were much more resourceful about our entertainment as a result. One sister and I built elaborate clay houses in the backyard mud which we populated by stick people with families and complex, Days Of Our Lives-style dramas; we biked around the neighborhood from sunrise to sunset; we roller-skated through the living room.


In hindsight, it probably all drove my mother crazy. It probably would have been heaven to her to have us to sit quietly in front of the TV blowing up aliens-- although, thinking back now, she never let us watch more than an hour of TV at one time. It's a shame that video games today are so great. When you think of all the funny, silly, dangerous, and above all imaginative things we could be doing instead of sitting in front of a computer screen... well, it's enough to make you want to stop reading blogs and go run through a sprinkler.

Monday, April 7, 2008


MY FRIEND OMAR began a McMuffin/McGriddle (sorry, McGriddles!) controversy in the comments which now has progressed into full-blown posting, if only because as I was researching the McGriddles phenomenon I came across some truly fascinating bits of information. Basically, he questioned if Dr. McMuffin loved the McGriddles as an homage to his original genius, or would he have shunned it like a red-headed stepchild?


Naturally I had to find out more about the McGriddles (I've never actually eaten one), and became instantly exposed to the deep, bizarre world of breakfast sandwiches.


In direct competition with McDonalds' original McMuffin is the Burger King Croissanwich- however, the technical spelling is actually "Croissan'Wich". I find this immensely pleasing, as they have followed to the letter (no pun intended) the rules of grammar which are so often abused in your fast-food chains. You put an apostrophe wherever you remove a letter when creating a contraction (the way "I'm" replaces "I am", and the much-maligned "they are" becomes "they're"- not "their", as so many people would have you believe). As BK is removing the '-d' from "sandwich" and the '-t' from "croissant" simultaneously, they've actually stuck in a very neat and correct apostophe. I salute you, King of Burgers.


But I digress. The Croissan'Wich has many variations, like the McMomo and the McGriddlesss. The plain-jane Croissan'Wich is a trifling 32 grams of fat- just a bit over your daily recommended intake, so you might need to bulk it up with the double Croissan'Wich. The double Croissan'Wich, with ham and bacon or double sausage, your choice, has a staggering 51 grams of fat. The only higher-fat things on the menu are the BK Triple Stacker and Quad Stacker (54 and 68 grams of fat, respectively), and the Triple Whopper with Cheese (84 grams of fat. 84! 84!! 84!!! Christ in a bucket!!). I'm certain that's what the creepy King eats, though possibly his is people-flavored. I'm a big fan of the creepy King. The McGriddles is only 21 grams of fat, so you should really eat about forty of them in a sitting. Starbucks is actually slowly and quietly rolling out their own version of the McMuffin throughout the country, though I'm hoping their momos will at least be whole-wheat. Their normal breakfast selection leaves more than a little to be desired.


This kind of fatola is mind-boggling. It's not as though most of what's in those patties is meat, after all. Instead, much of the meat-like substitutes in those burgers and bacons and sausages are actually carrageenan, which is a red seaweed extract. Lest you go thinking this miracle gift from the sea is somehow as healthy for you as a sushi seaweed wrap, consider that carrageenans are also used in fire-fighting foam, shoe polish, and as a sexual lubricant that could very possibly inhibit the transfer of certain STDs between partners. Mmmmm. McHerpalicious.


Lastly- to get the imagined taste of carrageenen-filled muck out of my mind- as I was reading my big red gardening book on the porch yesterday (and admiring my fine container garden handiwork, which is now complete- including two blackberry bushes- the excitement!), I came across the most entertaining bit of information I've heard in a long time. I thought it was hysterical; Jason was less amused. You be the judge: Apparently the word 'avocado' comes from a Native American word, ahuacatl, meaning 'droopy testicle'.


I now dare you to ever eat an avocado again without thinking of that.


STEVE IRWIN CONTINUES to work miracles from beyond the grave. His father, Bob, has come out publically to praise his son for stopping him from commiting suicide: once, after his wife died in a car accident- Steve called his cell phone at a pivotal moment-- not to pick holes, but wouldn't you turn your cell phone off if you were really making away with yourself?-- and once after Steve's own death. Apparently, Irwin junior has been sending out healing vibes from beyond the grave. Funnily enough, the actor's many superhuman abilities were revealed only after his tragic demise (any conclusions drawn from this are slanderous, unsubstantiated, and completely correct).


Ciara is currently listening to Yeah Yeah Yeah by the Flaming Lips


Thursday, April 3, 2008


LAST NIGHT, I dreamed about Barack Obama. I'm certain I'm not the only one out there doing this (including Mrs. Obama, Democrat nerds, and Barry himself). He and I were discussing campaign strategy just before his big speech in a high school gymnasium. I was helping by handing out small plastic pom-poms to the crowd (yellow for McCain supporters, green for Obama supporters, and none for Hilary; I had a very funny joke to tell people when they asked about this, but can't remember now what it was) and reminding him that John McCain probably wasn't going to show. Sadly, Obama had just missed an excellent women's ice hockey game played in the gym before his speech; luckily for us, the players fell through the ice and the ice then vanished, so there was little to do in the way of cleanup.


I don't know what the hell was up with the hockey- other than the fact that I've missed the entire NHL season this year, much to my dismay- but Obama is going to be here in Memphis today, potentially, at the Mason Temple. Today, you see, is April 3rd, 2008, forty years to the day after Martin Luther King's final speech in Memphis at the Temple ('I have been to the mountaintop!'), the day before he was assassinated not five blocks from where I now sit. McCain and Hilary are going to be here; they've already announced it, their people are downtown securing all kinds of perimeters. Obama, though, hasn't said anything at all. No confirmations. No denials. I suspect he is going to be here with bells on, not sitting in the audience like his plastic-fantastic competition, but up at the podium in the Mason Temple, giving a speech which almost certainly will contain the phrase, 'I have been to the mountaintop!'


Last night I had a long dinner with charming company, one of whom was my former stepmother. She highly recommended Obama's biography (written in 1995 and containing references to smoking dope, doing blow, and bangin' pussy) and outlined it in fascinating detail. The more I learned, the more I liked him, and I do hope he's downtown this evening getting Memphis voters all riled up about voting for him. It's a tough road; here in Tennessee, there's only the small Democratic pocket of Memphis versus The Rest Of The State. However, a large voter turnout in Memphis can- and has, notably during the Clinton elections- sway the whole pointy state away from the Republicans and into the loving embrace of democracy. We can only hope. Hope, and play ice hockey.

Monday, March 31, 2008


BECAUSE IT JUST would not stop raining this weekend, it was the right time to garden. Spring is in the air, and even getting my house hit by lightning wasn't going to slow me down from getting seedlings in dirt (it filled the bedroom with red light and fried the toaster- the lightning strike, that is, not the dirt).


Key to the planting extravaganza was the purchase of three windowboxes and one hanging planter, with more to follow next weekend. I invariably go for the moss windowboxes. These are living boxes made entirely out of moss and evergreen branches wound around a wire frame (not inserts like the ubiquitous brown coconut mats, which are themselves not bad but unlovely). They retain water very nicely, particularly if you keep the plastic shipping liner that comes with them and just poke drainage holes all through it. You can't see the plastic once it's all filled with dirt and drying out becomes much less severe. MiracleGro- not known for its planet-friendliness- now makes a decent organic potting compound at Home Depot, and as Home Depot resides in my backyard, I went with that instead of a make-your-own peat/sphagnum/blood-and-bone-meal blend. Normally I mix my own with those ingredients, but as that's a very messy proposition and the balcony is quite small I resisted. The moss boxes have an excellent color of soft green and pale brown which does much to recommend it to high-visibility locations. My hanging baskets are of the simple black frame and coconut insert variety, but at $4 a pop they have the inestimable bonus of being really, really cheap while looking quite charming.


My holy trinity of herbs was first to be planted: sage, basil, and thyme. A few lavender plants for the smell, and then a tentative foray into vegetables. Heirloom Kentucky Runner climbing beans went in with one zucchini, and one squash. All three are very prolific, budding and fruiting continually throughout the year, and all are climbers, which I thought would look nice as they start to spill over the balcony railing. With such limited space, high productivity with any veg is a must. Two or three small harvests a year is all I think they'll manage, but it's better than none.


Still to come are four more hanging baskets (one of strawberries, one of oregano, and two of part-shade rotating flowers), and two more windowboxes (one of herbs that can stand part shade- chives, parsley, and dill- and another of creepers or flowering vines). I'm deeply tempted to plant blackberries in the final windowbox on the short end of the balcony. These start out as pathetic, dry little bundles of sticks but shoot skyward with gratifying speed in April, fanning out to cover any trellised area. A string trellis on the short side of the balcony, facing the neighbors, would quickly become an excellent screen during the spring/summer/fall months if blackberries were planted beneath. Either way, there needs to be a climbing plant there to either frame or screen the opposing balcony entirely.


As you contemplate your own gardens, I can only caution you not to be deterred by the torrential spring rains. Getting wet isn't the least a problem, and if you fail to get your shoots in the ground this weekend or next, you will be, as the Brits say, for it.

Friday, March 28, 2008


I READ MY horoscope every day. Wait, it gets worse! I know my astrological profile, and those of all my friends. I believe my tendency towards obsessive hygenie and nagginess comes from having Mars and Venus in Virgo. I find myself thinking horrible thoughts like, "Yes, well, perfectly understandable as his ascendant is in Cancer!" and think my moon in Pisces makes me somewhat psychic. It's all very embarassing.


The late, great Douglas Adams, who passed away bounding on a treadmill in California several years ago- a very classy way to take your ticket out, I feel- once said that he wrote this passage as the only possible way to get his friends to stop mocking him for reading his horoscope every morning. It's brilliant and, to my mind, the ultimate answer to astrology (and to life, the universe, and everything):


From Mostly Harmless by Douglas Adams, p.19:

"I know astrology isn't a science," said Gail. "Of
course it isn't. It's just an arbitrary set of rules like chess or
tennis or - what's that strange thing you British play?"

"Er, cricket? Self-loathing?"

"Parliamentary democracy. The rules just kind of got there. They don't make any kind of sense except in terms of themselves. But when you start to exercise those rules, all sorts of processes start to happen and you start to find out all sorts of stuff about people. In astrology the rules happen to be about stars and planets, but they could be about ducks and drakes for all the difference it would make. It's just a way of thinking about a problem which lets the shape of that problem begin to emerge. The more rules, the tinier the rules, the more arbitrary they are, the better. It's like throwing a handful of fine graphite dust on a piece of paper to see where the hidden indentations are. It lets you see the words that were written on the piece of paper above it that's now been taken away and hidden. The graphite's not important. It's just the means of revealing their indentations. So you see, astrology's nothing to do with astronomy. It's just got to do with people thinking about people."



If you are now curious about your own chart, I recommend the excellent Astro.com, which has the added benefit of being quite free. Go to 'Free Horoscopes' at the top and then 'Personal Portrait'. You will, at the very least, be entertained. I like to add in my friends for comparison and of course you must share your findings here!

Thursday, March 27, 2008


THE CREATOR OF the Egg McMuffin died today, and I think a moment of silence is called for.


Wait for it.


Wait for it...


Done! It's a shame, really, for though I haven't eaten at a McDonald's in ten years or more, I have a certain fondness for the ubiquitous breakfast. Any morning meal in my house that includes an english muffin (or 'mo-mo', as we call them), egg, and slice of cheese is an Egg McMuffin (as in, "I'm makin' eggs; you want bacon on your McMuffin?"). I was reading the article- because my time really is that valuable- and was struck by the sentence: "Peterson came up with idea for the signature McDonald's breakfast item in 1972". 1972. 1972!


That means that a world used to exist in which there were no McMuffins, a world inhabited by my actual parents. No color TV. No Bob Saget. No Egg McMuffins. It's a wonder they survived.


It would be nice, I think, to live in a world without those things. A world with screen doors and packs of neighborhood kids roaming wild until sunset, a world of pies cooling on windowsills and Victory Gardens.


In other news, my favorite plant, Sweet Woodruff, has just come into season. It's a hideously ugly spiky little shrub, but the smell... the smell! I want hundreds of these things lining my balcony, preferably out of sight, so's that scent can just impregnate the bricks. Feel free to send me as many of these plants as you can, by post, dog cart, autogyro, whatever. Or you could just leave one on my doorstep next to a flaming bag of dog poop, ring the bell and run away. Whatever makes you happy.

Tuesday, March 25, 2008


JASON AND I were talking last night about communication- well, arguing about it, ironically. His premise was that in order to communicate one must use only language; you had play the verbal game, so to speak, in order to get other humans to understand you. My counter was that humans communicate in a variety of ways: art, music, smoke signals, and so on. He dismissed all these and tried again: why must humans use only the avenues we traditionally think of as communication to communicate? Isn't there another hidden option out there that we could reach if only we could figure out what it was?


It's a sticky proposition he's making: humans can communicate in another way, but as this way is hidden to them, they... don't know what it is. I suspected that the problem Jason was really trying to talk about was slightly different than the somewhat enigmatic point he was arguing. He claimed that he found all forms of (known) human communication difficult, and that he really needed to find another way (and, by golly, would find it if it killed him!). I disagreed. I think Jason in fact does communicate, through his art, but because that art is architecture, (a) it is on a scale so enormous that it's difficult for people to bring it down to human level; (b) it requires a great deal of specific study to learn its language- study in a field people don't generally learn as much about as they do, say, art; and most importantly (c) can be stymied by the massive number of middlemen who can get in the way of the original vision of the structure.


The litany of architectural woes is all too familiar from my childhood: Contractors who don't follow the plan. Foremen who take it upon themselves to improve upon the original design. Clients. Inspectors. Unless one is Frank Gehry or I. M. Pei, the chances of getting your design from drawing board to physical structure wholly intact is microscopically small.


Jason's point (I think) was that human communication formed a box that constrains all interaction. There needed to be another way to interact, a way that simply doesn't exist, at least in a way our limited human brains can understand. Why must 'black' mean 'black' if what the person really means is 'white'? Shouldn't 'black' mean 'white', if that's what the person speaking really meant?


I suspected (and was foolish enough to say) that I thought the real problem was that he was currently feeling stymied in his efforts to communicate. Jason primarily speaks through his art and is regularly frustrated by his own attempts to beat the English language into submission. He often does say 'black' when he means 'white', lulled into laxity, I think, by the poetic cadence of language and his own lack of familiarity with the spoken/written word. I know he gets terribly frustrated when he can't explain in words what he thinks. When he's building, though, his ideas flow. Sometimes they're better, sometimes worse (hey, not every blog of mine is a gem), but the artistic language has always been one he understands instinctively.


Lately- like, since he got out of college- the world has conspired to totally prevent Jason from getting his design ideas out into the world. Contractors have been "improving" on his designs ad lib. Clients have nixed important elements of his architectural plans on the advice of friends, construction workers, and psychic visions. Other architects have changed his plans at the last minute. Instead of an integrated pod of architecture, the end result becomes a cheap version of his original ideal- death to his perfect communication with the world. In the tangled realms of trying to explain this verbally to himself and to me, he comes up against his own inability to articulate his thoughts using English.


I think that this has been building within him for some time. In college, he was able- and encouraged- to let his imagination run wild in designing buildings. Architecture students create hundreds of drawings and plans for buildings that will never exist (and from what I've seen, it's lucky all around that they don't). For Jason, college was a momentous five years. He was around intelligent, articulate people who were interested in making art out of buildings, just like him. Life had, I think, finally become what he wanted it to be: a place where imagination was rewarded and his particular (and peculiar) brand of communication was not only listened to, but given fuel.


When he left, Jason had to deal with a much more profound separation than most of us feel when elevated out of the safe, warm womb of a university campus. It had represented the first time in his life that he had been around people as smart and interested in the world as he is himself. His first task after graduation then was to deal with this new but all-too-familiar isolation from smart people. This manifested itself in a number of ways: holding onto a relationship with someone still at the university when emotional attachment was nonexistent; maintaining college friendships to the exclusion of creating new ones in his new town; living alone in an apartment distant from work and new aquaintances.


With admirable rapidity (I couldn't have done it as well or quickly myself) he weaned himself away from these attachments and began to create an intelligent and secure social sphere for himself in this new location. He moved into the heart of the city, secured a solid relationship with an (amazing!!) in-town girlfriend, and involved himself in a number of professional and social organizations. The most pressing task of socially evolving away from college life had been achieved.


However, now that the immediate problem of socially re-integrating his life into this new environment had been solved, an infinitely more complex one arose. When his mind was occupied with the more basic issue of getting to know this new place, Jason didn't have to think as much about the much larger challenge that lay in wait. Once you have a social circle, how can you communicate with it?


In university, it was easy: everyone spoke his language. They were all architects, and they all were aware of how good he was in his chosen field. Effortless to impress, effortless to communicate! Now, though, in the larger world that is comprised of doctors, contracters and psychic hotline workers, that careless empressment no longer works. In general, people don't appreciate that he is good at what he does, and being able to verbally convince them of this has suddenly become crucial. No longer does he show his work to people who speak his language. Instead, clients have an unpleasant tendency to say things like, "Yes, but where's the damn bathroom?" and "Can't we do that cheaper? It's just a light fixture!". My voice joins the throng ("I want you to make me a house where the closet opens into the laundry room and the bedroom!") and pretty soon he's lying on the bed, gibbering about how humans need another dimension in order to communicate effectively.


It's enough to make you feel sorry for the guy.


I don't know what the key is to integrating the way he speaks into the way people listen. He would, I know, like me to understand more about architecture so that my praise of his design has merit, so that I can see his genius in every dimension. Remarks along the lines of "That plan looks awesome!" are just vague and tepid enough to be wholly unsatisfying to him, as well they should be. But what he doesn't quite get yet is that even though I don't speak Architecture, I'm well on my way to becoming fluent in Jason.


And that plan looks awesome!

Friday, March 21, 2008


DAN AND KRYSTINA are gracing me with their presence this weekend, and I couldn't be more pleased. I've tried to think of ways to entertain them in a particularly Memphis style, and it's been an interesting exercise in realizing what it is I like about Memphis, something I haven't ever had to do before.


When I think of good bars, I think the P and H, Ernestine and Hazel's, and Celtic Crossing- clearly I'm into dives (and I always thought I was such a nice girl). In fact, at Ernestine and Hazel's last Halloween- ha! Well, that's another story for another day. A list of great places to hear music is certainly topped by the Hi-Tone. Food is another set of seven sub-categories itself, but the sunny porch at Cafe Ole with a pitcher of margaritas (with Burke's excellent used bookstore around the corner) is too relaxing to pass up on a Friday evening. Brunch at the Arcade. The Farmer's Market on Saturday mornings. Redbirds baseball. Morning coffee on the porch with a little gardening to follow. Spring is upon us, and the choices are endless and deeply satisfying. Who could be stressed out in such a place?


A friend of mine commented yesterday that she couldn't believe how upbeat all my blogs were. She said she was surprised that I was never stressed or unhappy or deeply bothered by anything. I thought about that for a long, long time- all last night, as I was trying to get to sleep, and most of today, and I finally realized something bizarre: I only write when I'm stressed or unhappy or something is deeply bothering me. I wrote back to tell her that and she replied that at least I knew how to hide it. It made me wonder why on earth I do that- why write about stupid politicians and superheros and gardening? Contrary to what everyone I know thinks, I hate, hate, hate to share my real feelings about anything with anyone, ever. Finally, I came to the conclusion that maybe when they threaten to overtake me, I write about my idiotic nonsense to remind myself that nothing is ever as serious as it seems. And do you know what? I think it works. Eventually. I highly recommend it.


And with that revelation, I leave you with the gift of song.


Ciara is currently listening to Time Is The Enemy by Quantic.

THE MAYOR OF Memphis decided yesterday afternoon to resign. He wishes us to believe that this is delightful whim brought on by the rising joys of spring. He also said he would like to re-apply for his former position of Superintendent of City Schools, which is currently vacant (Memphis not having 'educational priorities', so to speak). Charming! What fun!


What is emphatically not being said is that clearly this man- who has been the mayor for sixteen long, dreadful years- has a skeleton which has not only jumped out of the closet, but has grabbed him by the throat and is currently throttling him purple on top of his desk. Imagine, if you will, what could possibly have brought about such a turn...!


For those of you who don't live in our fair city, allow me to offer a bit of background:
Willie Herenton was elected as the first African-American mayor of Memphis (a city which is by all estimates at least 80% African-American, making it the largest black urban population in the United States) with overwhelming black support. He has presided over several major corruption scandals and spent considerable effort adding to the general muckheap with his own.


Those which directly concerned him included, but were not restricted to, endless accusations of political favoritism and cronyism (appointing a woman with a Bachelor's in Marketing and nothing else, for example, to take over the entire library system after ousting the national award-winning former head); gross incompetence (at best) and fraud (at worst) with the local light, gas and water company; attempting to shut down voting mid-election several times; massive voter fraud; refusal to address the crime problem in Memphis, stating 'No mayor in any American city can solve the crime problem'; bizarrely hateful and/or racist rhetoric during his mayoral victory speech this year, full of invective for his detractors after running a campaign in which he refused to either advertise or debate AT ALL; and, perhaps most politician-y, fathering a child two years ago with a local waitress without express written permission from his wife.


With all this juicy scandal weathered so indifferently for a decade and a half, one must wonder what could possibly oust him now?!? What horror is so grave that it cannot ever see the light of day?


I can't help but be reminded of the immortal words of charming but morally bankrupt Louisiana governor Edwin Edwards: "I couldn't lose unless I was caught in bed with a dead girl or a live boy."



Ciara is currently listening to Turn On Me by the Shins.

Thursday, March 20, 2008


EVERYONE WANTS TO be a superhero, it looks like from the comments and emails. I like this. I encourage this. I think we all need to be pixelated into comic dots, to see ourselves in superhero form. Yesterday after I wrote my Flash blog I started thinking about my friends and trying to figure out which superhero each would be*.


Some people were easy- one friend is certainly the Hulk (perfectly sweet until angered) and one is Sage (she brings out the best in everyone else). Evan would have to be Multiple Man, ideal for the politician that he is, Jason would be Razorback, of course, and Beau might wear the mantle of Ambush Bug.


As interesting as all this was, I really got more distracted creating new superheros out of people's pre-existing personalities. We all already have our strengths and weaknesses built in. I like characters who have one or more fatal flaws, and everyone I know seems to have those in abundance.


So here's the game plan: take your favorite personal quality and enhance it to an extreme, ridiculous level. For example, if you particularly like that you can sympathize with other people, turn that into the ability to read people's minds (or at least sense their emotions). Next, choose one physical realm you've been exposed to since childhood. Born in a super-hot climate? Lived on the beach? Skied every day on snowy mountains? Raised by fire-walkers? Incorporate that into your talent. Now choose your biggest personal weakness- say, you're awfully vain. Now you're an empath immune to cold damage who can hurl snowballs from nothing, but who is completely powerless against mirrors. Your nemesis is Reflectoman (made of highly polished silver), and your sidekick is Avalanche Boy. A costume would include ice blue and white with some sort of mind-bending helmet (a nod to your psychic talents), snow motif, and a silver cape.


Now go, my minions! Make your own superhero!


* I also learned that the phrase 'super hero'- two words- is trademarked by Marvel and DC Comics. I'll stick to 'superhero' so we don't all get sued.


Ciara is currently listening to You Never Can Tell by Chuck Berry.

Wednesday, March 19, 2008


IF YOU HAD to be any superhero, who would it be? I think the answer says more about a person than anything else. The real challenge of picking your superhero is not just choosing which traits you'd want, but- more subtly- seeing the downside of the traits you might not want.


Superman, for example, is a perennial favorite. But some things you might not want to know. Would you really get a lot out of x-ray vision? Wouldn't you then be compelled to scan your friends for cancer on a regular basis? You'd attract nothing but hypochondriac friends. Mothers whose children had fallen out of trees would constantly be knocking on your door, asking you to give little Martha 'just a glimpse' to save them the time and expense of an emergency room visit. If something else was wrong with little Martha which you didn't detect, you could get sued for malpractice, despite the fact that you're Superman and not a licensed medical doctor.


It helps to have superhuman skills. You wouldn't want to be, say, the Question or Batman, merely relying on a series of mechanical devices which would inevitably get stolen by Proctor & Gamble and mass marketed around the world, or at least to the US military. Having a secret identity and independent wealth is key; you need to be able to turn off your superhero identity when you want to catch a break. Mind-control offers interesting potential scenarios but again, there are some things I think you just wouldn't want to know. People would stop buying you birthday presents on the excuse that you always ruin the surprise. Eventually no one would want to hang out with you. Dating would be right out of the question.


I would choose the Flash, myself. I hate airplanes and I think it would, in fact, be very difficult to find a downside to super speed. Plus I like the little earwings on the costume. Is 'earwings' a real word?



Ciara is currently listening to Long, Long, Long by the Beatles.

Tuesday, March 18, 2008


SAY IT AIN'T so, David! Everyone's favorite blind governor and his wife have also been having extramarital affairs. Patterson, the new governor of New York who took over from Eliot "John" Spitzer, dated one woman from 1999 to 2001. That's three good years! Halfway to a common-law marriage! This means that being blind won't stop you from screwing around. This means that everything I really liked about David Patterson is a lie. Worst of all, this means that Ari was completely and thoroughly right. Bitter pills, folks.


Last night I went to the Dixon Museum for an architecture/ art show/ University of Memphis party, which was very fun. The artist on display was David Macaulay, who illustrated the great 'How Things Work' books. His sketchings of the bowels of ships and happy little Roman plazas were great, but the best part was getting to walk through the Dixon gardens before going inside. Nothing is growing yet, but the weather was so beautiful and the sunset so attractive that it didn't matter. When I had a membership there, I went to the Dixon frequently by myself with a sandwich and a book to have illegal picnics in the woodland garden. The mulch paths, elderly verdigris dew-drop lanterns, the birds- it's very lovely and isolated. Somehow the gardners there manage to evict every single insect from the entire place; it's probably not very environmentally friendly, but is deeply satisfying to eat egg salad sans ants.


Ciara is currently listening to I Don't Want To Get Over You by the Magnetic Fields.

Monday, March 17, 2008


IF YOU HAPPEN to pick up your latest college textbook edition of Urban Art and Design, you'll be treated with my lovely visage. That's right, smack on the front of Chapter Eleven (where the most important photos go), my friend Jon and I smile like maniacs during the downtown Chalk Art Festival. Our chalk artwork is not clearly visible, much to the relief of all. It was not well-executed, to say the least.


I don't sleep well at the best of times, and lately I haven't been getting more than two or three hours a night. Brush teeth, get in jammies, read a book- then take out another book, throw it aside, get up, pace, put dishes in dishwasher, play with dogs, get back into bed with a book- and repeat. Ad nauseum. No, ad infinitum. No, ad exhaustion!


I'm open to suggestion; any tips you have at all on getting to sleep, besides filling and re-filling out my NCAA bracket on CBS Sports. It's Memphis v. Tennessee for the championship! You heard it here first.


Ciara is currently listening to Real Love by Regina Spektor.

Friday, March 14, 2008


HOUSING PRICES ARE the number one topic of discussion on NPR. At least, I can't turn on Morning Edition without hearing about them. There's so much hair-clutching about what to do about housing prices. They're falling! Dear God, they're FALLING!!! AHHHHHH!!!!


It infuriates me that all Congressional and presidential bills proposed on the subject are aimed at:

1) limiting foreclosures

2) forgiving some percentage of outstanding debt


I don't blame the president. He was born without crucial sections of grey matter responsible for comprehending complex economic data (or any data, for that matter). One looks not to the asylum to solve one's fiscal crises. But Ben Bernanke? He knows better! I know he knows better! Alan Greenspan taught him!


Taking it one point at a time:


1) Houses are being foreclosed upon because lenders are facing a monthly bill that is far higher than what they initially anticipated paying. The blame for this rests squarely on the shoulders of an unregulated lending industry-gone-wild, which, as I'm certain you know, offered ridiculously low temporary rates on mortgage loans which increased hugely after one to five years of low rates.

Persons who embraced these loans have my sympathy. They were tricked in the sly way that only grossly unregulated banking can oik out. They didn't deserve that treatment... but they didn't deserve those loans, either.

People who were not home owners before the housing bubble grew were not home owners for a reason: they couldn't afford it. But banks effectively increased the number of consumers who demanded houses by lowering their standards for lending. Without a commensurate increase in supply- it takes a while to build a house, after all- housing prices increased dramatically. None of this is news, and everyone knows it.

Short answer: Demand for housing was artifically inflated, which raised prices.


2)Should the banks be allowed/required by the extraordinarily foolish Republican administration to forgive any percentage of home debt, housing prices will stay artifically inflated forever- fantastic for rich honkies!! Even as a rich honky myself, I find this morally reprehensible. You took advantage of those scam-ola loans? You bought a house you couldn't afford? Fantastic! Let's keep you in the house you're in, thereby preventing anyone who could truly afford it at fair market prices from owning a home. Fantastico.

Short Answer: Forgiving debt will keep artificially high housing prices high forever (or until a Democrat president, whichever comes first).


All of this assumes one very important point: people who own houses are infinitely more important than people who do not own houses.


Very George W., no?


And lest you think my ire comes from a place deep within dominated by jealousy for home owners, I myself am currently the proud owner of an utterly unsaleable four-bedroom. My former husband lives there in glorious, solitary splendor, dreaming, no doubt, of the day he will be free of the white elephant and move into a nice studio apartment downtown. No one cares to give us $200 grand in exchange for this delightful home, and I certainly can't blame them. That amount is ridiculous. Housing prices are far too high and must be allowed to self-correct. Two college graduates make about $40,000 a year each. That's $80,000 a year- gross, not net, mind- and the chances of buying a modest home like my own are quite simply impossible. What about having kids? What about building equity? Aren't Republicans supposed to be all for the heterosexual married couple who plan to produce some young 'uns and build up their savings? What the hell is their demographic if not that?


Let housing prices fall! Let 'em drop like stones! A condo in my apartment building- one bedroom and just a condo, for heaven's sake!- is a very optimistic $120,000. Asking more than $70,000 for such a thing is criminal.


And if you're wondering how I managed the neat trick of buying my own home, W. and I have one thing in common: my daddy got it for me.


Ciara is currently listening to Tupelo Honey by Van Morrison.

Thursday, March 13, 2008


I READ A number of blogs myself, and wanted to be able to see when each of them was updated. I hadn't been able to find a way to do this until this morning, when I stumbled on a site that lets you know when each of your blogs is updated. Since it took me so long to find anything like that, I thought I'd pass it on: BlogLines.


If anyone knows of another one, though, pass it on! This one is just okay. There needs to be some sort of notifying desktop widget, which this doesn't have. Additionally, I don't understand about Feeds or RSS, or anything like that. Feel free to lecture.


Ciara is currently listening to I'm No Good by Amy Winehouse.

Wednesday, March 12, 2008


HUGH FEARNLEY-WHITTINGSTALL is something of an obssession for me. In brief, Hugh is a 30-something London chef who decided one day to chuck all the trappings of smoggy industrial city life. Instead he buys a farm in Dorset, England, and begins to grow his own food and raise his own animals. For one year, he vows he'll try to grow, make, or barter everything he needs to live.


This doesn't sound very amusing. In fact, it sounds deadly dull, depressingly earnest and self-righteous, like serious hippies in Birkenstocks. But Hugh is not a hippy, and he's definitely not serious or dull by any stretch of the imagination. You see, the really entertaining part of this show, called River Cottage, is that Hugh has absolutely no idea what he is doing.


He gets mocked by his own pigs. He plants all his best vegetables in a slug-infested swamp. He stands tall, sodden by rain in the middle of a field with his hat drooping down to his ears, and delivers a lecture on why his wheat crop has just failed so miserably.


But never does Hugh get downcast. When he decides what he really needs to cheer himself up is to get roaring drunk, he offers up his slave labor to the Chidook Cider Circle, picking up apples and filling the monstrous beer presses with the laughing, drunk, elderly cider club in exchange for several barrels of hops (so that he can brew his own, of course). He's nice- genuinely friendly and interested in absolutely everyone. As a result, even the crustiest of farmers unbends enough to tell him how to grow the longest bean for the local garden club competition (which is rife with spying and sabotage). The gnarliest of fishermen give him a few extra lobsters after he works for a day pulling up whelk pots in the bay of Lyme Regis, with the added bonus that he's learning more about the specifics of fishing in his local bay.


He particularly delights in seeking out craftspeople who work for the love of what they do, and demands their goods in exchange for only the most pleasant of hard labor: getting several handmade pottery chicken pots for that perfect coq au vin in exchange for serving delicious make your own pizzas at the potter's Fire-The-Kiln-Night party; asking a local basketweaver to make him a seventeenth-century eel trap for his little stream in exchange for a special dish of Conger eel. As a chef, his shows generally center around the creation of some fantastic dish. As a crazy person, it's inevitably a dish that would make you cringe on a menu, but when Hugh makes it... it's bring on the calves testicles!


Sadly, Hugh is not available in the U.S. and he must be downloaded by getting yourself a Torrent program (BitComet, for example) and searching for 'River Cottage' on a Torrent Index website (isohunt.com, for example). Do it. Trust me. To whet your appetite, I give you Hugh:





Tuesday, March 11, 2008


IF SPITZER RESIGNS, the lieutenant governor (let's call him the governor-in-waiting, for funsies), David Paterson, would be
(1) the first black governor of New York
(2) BLIND!!!


!!!


I'm so excited I can hardly type. Spitzer! Spitzer! Spitzer! Out! Out! Out! Lt. Govey Paterson lives in Harlem with his wife and two children. What do you want to bet he doesn't waste thousands of dollars in prostitutes every few weeks?


EVAN CAN NOW say 'Fuck', he reported to me yesterday afternoon. Apparently this is quite a big step despite the fact that he has years of practice with the expletive in question. The doctors report that he is suffering from an exceptionally rare variation of the chicken pox virus called Ramsay Hunt syndrome. This indeed causes acute facial paralysis on par with what occurs in stroke victims, though in his case it is caused by this viral infection that- hopefully- will spontaneously disappear. He reports that speech is a pain in the mouth but that not being able to blink one eye is causing him the most frustration. Much to my delight, he is wearing an eye patch.

Monday, March 10, 2008


TURN OFF THE sound. Don't look at him. Just watch her eyes.



Have you ever seen anyone look more like they're contemplating murder?


YOU HAVE TO love Eliot Spitzer. It must be very difficult to manage both the state of New York and a prostitution ring and still find time to spend with your three lovely daughters (all of whom are of pimpable age). One wonders whether the good governor partook of the fringe benefits that must have come with his pimpin' position.


Krystina and the Dan will be descending on my little self for Easter, which I hope means we get to dye chickens and hide rabbits in the yard. It's been a long time (years!) since I saw either of them; very exciting. Also, Krystina told me that something bizarre has happened to Evan's face, and he can't move one side of it. Weirdness! I'll keep everyone updated on what happened as soon as I find out!

Friday, March 7, 2008


MY FRIEND JOE wrote this most disturbing blog today. He's living in Angola at the moment and writes about how his western perceptions- on personal space, say, or the value of human life- don't meet up anywhere with African ideas.


I read that and then immediately read a story about a 101-year-old British man who plans to run a marathon this weekend. He says when he's done he'll do what he always does, have a fag and a pint (I assume he means a cigarette and a beer, rather than a boy-butt and some milk).


Another friend, Krystina, used to write the most wonderful blogs about her adventures in New Orleans and then Egypt, but sadly that is now defunct and I can't find it anywhere. Even her most dull day in the Big Easy included a run-in with several transvestites and a conversation with Gabagoo, the mentally retarded gentleman who lives next door to them (and is so named for the only word he says: "Gabagoo!!"), not to mention her sometimes-successful attempts to add to her skeleton collection. This mainly involved finding a small dead animal and leaving it in a shoebox off her front porch to watch the process of decay, generally until some larger animal ran off with the corpse.


Evan does not blog, and this surprises me. He writes regularly for himself. He has plenty to discuss: he's also a neighbor of Gabagoo, recently ran for City Council in New Orleans, was in the Navy, is subversive, and can regularly be found in the places one least expects him. I once ran into Evan at a victory party for the new governor of Louisiana (we had both snuck in) and once passed out on the floor of the Dragon's Den at about five in the morning. My father, I am sure, has legally filed the paperwork to adopt him, and dad regularly came down to New Orleans when Evan and I both lived there in order to take Evan (not me) out to dinner. Every Thanksgiving when dad gets together a wine from each guests' year of birth, Evan's is opened first. Were it socially acceptable, I believe they would wed.


What was my point? Did I even have one?