As we're closing up the shift tonight, my metrosexual friend and coworker, Josh, says to me "I miss these kids when I go. I made them. I brought them up, and made them who they are."
He is referring to the kids we work with who are leaving for college and one who is going back to high school in limestone. It makes me stop and think how wrong he is, and how a certain kind of man (unmarried, almost always, and living a relatively small life that they've inflated in their minds.) need to take credit for success of other people. People are smart or funny or who just stand out always have to deal with people trying to be a part of their success. I don't even have any real success, just, perhaps, a certain way with words and, perhaps, a certain amount of potential, and it makes me nauseous to think of how many people will say they made me what I am, when I am something.
Or perhaps a select few made me paranoid about this phenomenon...I'm not really sure.
Another thing that bothers me are people who are there for you just so they can take credit for being there for you. I think that trumps the first. I try to make it a point not to do that, but who knows if I succeed.
I've been thinking a lot lately about Alanis Morissette's song "Unsent", which consists of five short letters to men of her past, exposing the ulimate truths about their respective relationships with her (or what stood as the ultimate truths at that point in her life). I've been thinking I should write out my own version of it, that perhaps this would be an exercise in closure (something I never learned) and I think I may do that now, though I'm unsure as to whether it would particularly wise to post it here, as that would be somewhat....counter-productive. However, I'd like to inspire this as a new trend in blogs...I'd love to read some other peoples. I think, perhaps, I will change the names....let's see how it goes, and I'll get back to you.
Done, and less than a page. Emily's always on my ass for being too long-winded, she'd be really proud. I started by making a list of potential recipients, then I crossed out anyone who I've already comed to terms with the realities of our relationship. From there, I crossed out people who I wouldn't have had enough to say to that was really important, and then I crossed out, with one exception, people I still have a standing relationship with. If I change the names, everyone who read would probably know who everyone else was anyway. The thing is, there's something exposed in it that...I don't know if this is the time or the place, but...I guess it's now or never, and that all depends on the luck of the draw.
But you'll know who you are, and you should e-mail me. We maybe should talk this out.
I'm gonna leave the names blank, and the amount of spaces is no indication. Anyway, here goes nothing, and, as always, I leave myself open to some massive amount of backlash.
My Unsent
By the way, it's kinda in the same rhythym that she did it in, I think anyone who's heard the song will really appreciate it a lot more.
Well, that's enough ultimate truth for one night. Now to prepare for the fallout.
On with it.
Sunday, August 14, 2005
Saturday, August 13, 2005
Outside of my house (Residence. Hooch. Dwelling.) right now, it smells like cow manure. This is quite odd, really.
A few days ago, I went outside to stop my dog from barking at my neighbor, who was watering her extensive garden, and we got into a little conversation. We've only exchanged a few passing hellos since our last conversation, a few days after we first moved in (which would make it almost exaclty a year ago), and I had begun to foster the idea that she had grown to hate or at least deeply resent me, due partly to my barking dog, partly because of my comparitively unkempt yard and unadorned porch (taking away, with the uncomfortable proximity, from all the extravagant effort she put into her yard), and because I sometimes walk around the house topless (bottomless. in underwear. naked) without realizing the shades are not drawn, which I have imagined (in my paranoid mind) bothers her and her husband equally, but in two distinct ways.
While there's little that can be done about the first and third offenses at this juncture (Dogs will be dogs. Breasts will be breasts.), I have made the point to accessorize the porch a bit, for her sake. I've added a flower pot, a bonzai tree, a quaint little bench and two muddy paddles. The paddles were originally placed there simply for lack of anywhere else to put them subsequent to a very blunderous boating trip a few days after my birthday-- the boat, a little blow-up dinghy, was a birthday gift-- that started while the tide was coming in and ended walking across 500 feet of deep, soft, clam-bearing sea mud that sucked us in with every step. This, and more specifically the shower afterwards, may have been, it turns out, the source of my plumbing woes, now resolved (knock furiously on wood.) without much help from gallons and gallons of different kinds of drain cleaner and two hand-held augers (one which attached to a drill...that wasn't fun.) We owe our success largely to Home Depot, and a rental department employee named Mike, who's friendly demeanor, patient understanding, and complete help made everyone else in the world seem like an asshole, comparatively (especially the three professional plumbers who refused to serve us, due to the fact that we lived in a trailer park). Mike rented us a larger auger (he said no one calls it that, it's called a "sewer snake", but I refuse to change my ways) and explained exactly how to use it. Now, for the time being, at least, I can go to the bathroom at my leisure and my laundry water no longer shows up in my bathtub. Mike is a great guy.
The last paragraph was supposed to highlight the conversation I had with my neighbor-- largely about our dogs, and I was sure to mention that we're saving up for a citronella bark collar, which is only a half-truth, but they cost about 150 dollars, which, I suppose, amounts to a two-thirds truth. Anyway, somewhere along the line, she mentioned that I should take a walk down to Bay Bridge landing, a conservation site adjacent to the park in an area that I had presumed, for some reason, was off-limits. I took the dog down there and found it was lovely, right on the merrymeeting bay (apparently, our little park is named for a bridge that existed there, many years ago). Yesterday, Zack and I went back and had our second boating experience of the season, which was considerable more successful than the first. We paddled out to the middle of the bay and spent about an hour just laying back, him in my arms, with the sun on us. On our way back, still quite a distance from the shore, Zack noticed a drowning grasshopper, and we picked it out of the water. It rode back to land on my hand-- I have pictures, but they need to be developed. I'll put them up soon. Later on our voyage home, we noticed a cricket in-- or rather on- the water: while the grasshopper had nearly drown, the cricket was able to hop across the water unhindered, either because of it's small size and the surface tension of the water, or because it was the messiah-cricket; I prefer to believe that the cricket was the grasshopper's lover, and the grasshopper jumped into the water trying to stop the cricket from storming off after a fight. But that's just me.
I fear this may be too sentimental a post to meet the taste of most of my cynical readership, but perhaps a few homesick mainers abroad will appreciate it for what it is. I do believe I had more to say, but alas, I have no energy with which to say it, so it will have to wait for another time, perhaps a better time.
My name is Linda, and I save grasshoppers. On wihth it.
A few days ago, I went outside to stop my dog from barking at my neighbor, who was watering her extensive garden, and we got into a little conversation. We've only exchanged a few passing hellos since our last conversation, a few days after we first moved in (which would make it almost exaclty a year ago), and I had begun to foster the idea that she had grown to hate or at least deeply resent me, due partly to my barking dog, partly because of my comparitively unkempt yard and unadorned porch (taking away, with the uncomfortable proximity, from all the extravagant effort she put into her yard), and because I sometimes walk around the house topless (bottomless. in underwear. naked) without realizing the shades are not drawn, which I have imagined (in my paranoid mind) bothers her and her husband equally, but in two distinct ways.
While there's little that can be done about the first and third offenses at this juncture (Dogs will be dogs. Breasts will be breasts.), I have made the point to accessorize the porch a bit, for her sake. I've added a flower pot, a bonzai tree, a quaint little bench and two muddy paddles. The paddles were originally placed there simply for lack of anywhere else to put them subsequent to a very blunderous boating trip a few days after my birthday-- the boat, a little blow-up dinghy, was a birthday gift-- that started while the tide was coming in and ended walking across 500 feet of deep, soft, clam-bearing sea mud that sucked us in with every step. This, and more specifically the shower afterwards, may have been, it turns out, the source of my plumbing woes, now resolved (knock furiously on wood.) without much help from gallons and gallons of different kinds of drain cleaner and two hand-held augers (one which attached to a drill...that wasn't fun.) We owe our success largely to Home Depot, and a rental department employee named Mike, who's friendly demeanor, patient understanding, and complete help made everyone else in the world seem like an asshole, comparatively (especially the three professional plumbers who refused to serve us, due to the fact that we lived in a trailer park). Mike rented us a larger auger (he said no one calls it that, it's called a "sewer snake", but I refuse to change my ways) and explained exactly how to use it. Now, for the time being, at least, I can go to the bathroom at my leisure and my laundry water no longer shows up in my bathtub. Mike is a great guy.
The last paragraph was supposed to highlight the conversation I had with my neighbor-- largely about our dogs, and I was sure to mention that we're saving up for a citronella bark collar, which is only a half-truth, but they cost about 150 dollars, which, I suppose, amounts to a two-thirds truth. Anyway, somewhere along the line, she mentioned that I should take a walk down to Bay Bridge landing, a conservation site adjacent to the park in an area that I had presumed, for some reason, was off-limits. I took the dog down there and found it was lovely, right on the merrymeeting bay (apparently, our little park is named for a bridge that existed there, many years ago). Yesterday, Zack and I went back and had our second boating experience of the season, which was considerable more successful than the first. We paddled out to the middle of the bay and spent about an hour just laying back, him in my arms, with the sun on us. On our way back, still quite a distance from the shore, Zack noticed a drowning grasshopper, and we picked it out of the water. It rode back to land on my hand-- I have pictures, but they need to be developed. I'll put them up soon. Later on our voyage home, we noticed a cricket in-- or rather on- the water: while the grasshopper had nearly drown, the cricket was able to hop across the water unhindered, either because of it's small size and the surface tension of the water, or because it was the messiah-cricket; I prefer to believe that the cricket was the grasshopper's lover, and the grasshopper jumped into the water trying to stop the cricket from storming off after a fight. But that's just me.
I fear this may be too sentimental a post to meet the taste of most of my cynical readership, but perhaps a few homesick mainers abroad will appreciate it for what it is. I do believe I had more to say, but alas, I have no energy with which to say it, so it will have to wait for another time, perhaps a better time.
My name is Linda, and I save grasshoppers. On wihth it.
Friday, August 05, 2005
I need an auger.
In my last post, there was brief mention of the "broken toilet" fiasco, which has now evolved into the "broken everything" fiasco, in which our plumbing, dear friend though it once was, has decided to leave us in a twitchy, cross-legged, holding-it-in-because-there's-no-where-for-it-to-go, toilet-won't-drain, washer-machine-drains-into-bathtub, can't-do-dishes-or-wash-hair mess. And I do mean "mess", though at least now we have an excuse for our humble abode to look and smell as it does, so that's something of a relief.
I think we're six (seven?) bottles of various chemical drain cleaners (used, at certain desperate points, in conjunction with one another, despite the silly little obstacle of possible noxious fumes.) and I'm just now consulting the do-it-yourself-because-you-have-no-money-and-thusly-no-friggin'-choice manual, a little thing that I like to call the internet. My virtual plumber tells me that, used incorrectly, chemical drain cleaners can make the problem worse, and should only be used after the use of an auger, or "sewer snake".
If you look up "auger" on google, the most common result is something used to bore holes, a scary spirally tool that looks like it belongs to a dentist from hell, but if you update this to "plumbing auger", there's a much more friendly-seeming instrument that Zack and I saw at Wal*Mart a few nights ago (opted for the chemicals that time, but put it on our mental list of possible future attacks).
I know nothing about auging or snaking, even less about removing these "traps" that my internet plumper tell me that I have, (poor, naive virtual plumper. Has never lived in a '73 trailer.) but I will do my best, and, if that doesn't work, well, the drain cleaner seems to work for about 12 hours at a time. At 10 dollars a bottle for the heavy-duty main line stuff, I could subscribe to indoor plumping for the bargain price of 70-140 dollars a week! Funny how suddenly clean clothes and bowel movements don't seem so important anymore.
This whole experience has illuminated to me an important theme of my life: seems that everything in my world is a makeshift solution for something. My existence is a furious, chaotic ball of duct tape and super glue, a half-dilapidated shack where every picture's covering a hole in the wall, every inspection sticker drastically expired. Everything I do is intended to put off a little longer the chain of relatively simple misfirings that will be my armageddon. Just call me Jimmy. Jimmy Rig.
Maybe if I sell tickets when it all comes falling down, I'll be able to afford to live a week or so longer.
On with it.
In my last post, there was brief mention of the "broken toilet" fiasco, which has now evolved into the "broken everything" fiasco, in which our plumbing, dear friend though it once was, has decided to leave us in a twitchy, cross-legged, holding-it-in-because-there's-no-where-for-it-to-go, toilet-won't-drain, washer-machine-drains-into-bathtub, can't-do-dishes-or-wash-hair mess. And I do mean "mess", though at least now we have an excuse for our humble abode to look and smell as it does, so that's something of a relief.
I think we're six (seven?) bottles of various chemical drain cleaners (used, at certain desperate points, in conjunction with one another, despite the silly little obstacle of possible noxious fumes.) and I'm just now consulting the do-it-yourself-because-you-have-no-money-and-thusly-no-friggin'-choice manual, a little thing that I like to call the internet. My virtual plumber tells me that, used incorrectly, chemical drain cleaners can make the problem worse, and should only be used after the use of an auger, or "sewer snake".
If you look up "auger" on google, the most common result is something used to bore holes, a scary spirally tool that looks like it belongs to a dentist from hell, but if you update this to "plumbing auger", there's a much more friendly-seeming instrument that Zack and I saw at Wal*Mart a few nights ago (opted for the chemicals that time, but put it on our mental list of possible future attacks).
I know nothing about auging or snaking, even less about removing these "traps" that my internet plumper tell me that I have, (poor, naive virtual plumper. Has never lived in a '73 trailer.) but I will do my best, and, if that doesn't work, well, the drain cleaner seems to work for about 12 hours at a time. At 10 dollars a bottle for the heavy-duty main line stuff, I could subscribe to indoor plumping for the bargain price of 70-140 dollars a week! Funny how suddenly clean clothes and bowel movements don't seem so important anymore.
This whole experience has illuminated to me an important theme of my life: seems that everything in my world is a makeshift solution for something. My existence is a furious, chaotic ball of duct tape and super glue, a half-dilapidated shack where every picture's covering a hole in the wall, every inspection sticker drastically expired. Everything I do is intended to put off a little longer the chain of relatively simple misfirings that will be my armageddon. Just call me Jimmy. Jimmy Rig.
Maybe if I sell tickets when it all comes falling down, I'll be able to afford to live a week or so longer.
On with it.
Saturday, July 30, 2005
Ups and downs in Linda's current life:
Downs:
~I owe lots of money to my credit cards (3000-something), lots of money to U.S. Cellular's collection agency (300-something), and lots of money to my parents, for the matter (I'm guessing it's around 10 G's, but I haven't asked. I don't want to know.)
~I have a speeding ticket. (200-something)
~It looks as though, once again, this month's bill payment is going to be down to the line in terms of actually being able to afford my payments.
~My obnoxious dog won't quit barking.
~Subsequent to a huge, disgusting, broken-toilet problem on thursday night and a kick-the-coffee-table-out-of-anger-until-bowl-of-old-cereal-milk-falls-onto the floor, there is now a variety of three of disgusting liquids soaking into a variety of soaking carpets in my home. What's the third disgusing liquid? See fourth (obnoxious dog) point. Of course, in my happy little trailer, that hanging dog stench in the are is something of a leitmotif, so it hardly merits a mention.
~My doubts about attending Andover are in the air again, though this time, it's for Zack, not myself. A "medical assisting" degree seems somewhat laughable, when you take into consideration that medical assistants only make about 23,000 a year, which is less than twice of what we're paying for the degree (or would be, were it not for a few scattered grants) You're talking about getting a degree to earn 11 dollars an hour for the rest of your life. The upside is that you can take the medical assisting degree and then earn a certificate in something vaguely related but better, (looking at Radiology for Zack), but, in most cases, it's no where you couldn't have jumped to directly, sans the bullshit.
~There are far too many points on my downs list.
Ups:
~Both Zack and I are currently in escrow (in the inaccurately overused Gilmore Girls sense of the word) to better jobs: I have been promoted to shift manager at my lovely little McDonald's and am currently training (got my new uniforms today...will miss the visor) and Zack's in limbo between two positions offered to him with dueling merits: Alternative Warehouse Services in Portland offered him a job first, which looks less stressful (no crazy customers) and has lover-ly medical benefits (copays? I get to have copays again! Blessed be!), but the pay rate is confusing (Ten Dollars an hour plus 20% incentives two days a week if you're a fast worker...except that the flat rate and incentives go up at staggering months, and he keeps getting different stories on what the average worker actually makes home: the receptionist says as much as 13/hr within the first week, as much as twenty after the first year, the human relations lady says more like 12 within the first three weeks, and you'd get up to about 14 in a year, the commercial says that the best workers make 15-20 "when they're fully trained") and the long commute takes a bite out of the extra earnings because of gas prices. The broken-hearted Wal*Mart franchise lingered in passive-agression for the first week and a half of his notice, enticing him to stay with hypothetical management positions, but then hiring other people. On the second-to-last day of his notice, however, they interviewed him for a Customer Service Management position that payed 9.00/hr and pretty much promised it to him. He came home to talk to me to weigh the benefits-- less pay, but much, much closer to home, more familiar, and the benefit of not jumping from job to job so much (which looks better on a resume.) Ultimately, we chose AWS and thought that was that. But Wal*Mart, now regretting it's inaction for the past two weeks, came back fighting. If they made Zack and overnight CSM he could be paid 10.50 an hour, and technically he'd only have to do two overnights per week. Then, to attempt and seal the deal, the entire store made that famous, puppy-faced, pouty-lipped, yes,-we're-a-retail-giant-that-mistreats-they're-employees-and-offers-crap-benefits-and-shoddy-merchandise-and-smashes-all-competition-into-bleeding,-howling-oblivion,-but-we-wuv-you!!! face, and we forced contemplation on our part. Once again, we decided on AWS (copays, damn you! don't take away my copays!) Today was to be his last day at Wal*Mart, and it may still well be, but I've started thinking that perhaps, if he were to stay with Wal*Mart, with overnights and their desperation working for them, he might just be able to leverage a schedule that would allow him more flexibility to attend college, ultimately allowing him to transfer out of the laughably pitiful "Medical Assisting" program and at Andover and into SMCC's "Radiology Technology" program, or, better (-paying) yet, "Radiation Therapy". (I haven't sprung that last part on him)
So, tonight, we will discuss that possibility, and hope that, in their misguided-but-endearing hopefulness, they will still hold the position open for him tomorrow, a day after he's already stopped working their, and a day before he's supposed to start somewhere else.
The point is, whichever direction he goes, there should shortly be more money coming in, which might allow up to catch up (slightly) on some of those debts.
Uh, more Ups (or did you forget that this was a list?):
~I finally got glasses. They are pretty, and they allow me to see. Isn't that novel?
~I'm just two pounds away to the weight I was at pre-McDonald's (which is by no means my weight-loss goal, but it is a milestone.) Thank you, GNC Total Lean! Thank you for working with my uniquely passive approach to fitness!
~I've gotten Zack's permission to try a somewhat...unorthodox approach to overcoming my vaginsimus. Now I just need a helper...
~Uh...I'm hungry, and I'm missing Gilmore Girls to write this. That's enough ups for now.
On with it.
Downs:
~I owe lots of money to my credit cards (3000-something), lots of money to U.S. Cellular's collection agency (300-something), and lots of money to my parents, for the matter (I'm guessing it's around 10 G's, but I haven't asked. I don't want to know.)
~I have a speeding ticket. (200-something)
~It looks as though, once again, this month's bill payment is going to be down to the line in terms of actually being able to afford my payments.
~My obnoxious dog won't quit barking.
~Subsequent to a huge, disgusting, broken-toilet problem on thursday night and a kick-the-coffee-table-out-of-anger-until-bowl-of-old-cereal-milk-falls-onto the floor, there is now a variety of three of disgusting liquids soaking into a variety of soaking carpets in my home. What's the third disgusing liquid? See fourth (obnoxious dog) point. Of course, in my happy little trailer, that hanging dog stench in the are is something of a leitmotif, so it hardly merits a mention.
~My doubts about attending Andover are in the air again, though this time, it's for Zack, not myself. A "medical assisting" degree seems somewhat laughable, when you take into consideration that medical assistants only make about 23,000 a year, which is less than twice of what we're paying for the degree (or would be, were it not for a few scattered grants) You're talking about getting a degree to earn 11 dollars an hour for the rest of your life. The upside is that you can take the medical assisting degree and then earn a certificate in something vaguely related but better, (looking at Radiology for Zack), but, in most cases, it's no where you couldn't have jumped to directly, sans the bullshit.
~There are far too many points on my downs list.
Ups:
~Both Zack and I are currently in escrow (in the inaccurately overused Gilmore Girls sense of the word) to better jobs: I have been promoted to shift manager at my lovely little McDonald's and am currently training (got my new uniforms today...will miss the visor) and Zack's in limbo between two positions offered to him with dueling merits: Alternative Warehouse Services in Portland offered him a job first, which looks less stressful (no crazy customers) and has lover-ly medical benefits (copays? I get to have copays again! Blessed be!), but the pay rate is confusing (Ten Dollars an hour plus 20% incentives two days a week if you're a fast worker...except that the flat rate and incentives go up at staggering months, and he keeps getting different stories on what the average worker actually makes home: the receptionist says as much as 13/hr within the first week, as much as twenty after the first year, the human relations lady says more like 12 within the first three weeks, and you'd get up to about 14 in a year, the commercial says that the best workers make 15-20 "when they're fully trained") and the long commute takes a bite out of the extra earnings because of gas prices. The broken-hearted Wal*Mart franchise lingered in passive-agression for the first week and a half of his notice, enticing him to stay with hypothetical management positions, but then hiring other people. On the second-to-last day of his notice, however, they interviewed him for a Customer Service Management position that payed 9.00/hr and pretty much promised it to him. He came home to talk to me to weigh the benefits-- less pay, but much, much closer to home, more familiar, and the benefit of not jumping from job to job so much (which looks better on a resume.) Ultimately, we chose AWS and thought that was that. But Wal*Mart, now regretting it's inaction for the past two weeks, came back fighting. If they made Zack and overnight CSM he could be paid 10.50 an hour, and technically he'd only have to do two overnights per week. Then, to attempt and seal the deal, the entire store made that famous, puppy-faced, pouty-lipped, yes,-we're-a-retail-giant-that-mistreats-they're-employees-and-offers-crap-benefits-and-shoddy-merchandise-and-smashes-all-competition-into-bleeding,-howling-oblivion,-but-we-wuv-you!!! face, and we forced contemplation on our part. Once again, we decided on AWS (copays, damn you! don't take away my copays!) Today was to be his last day at Wal*Mart, and it may still well be, but I've started thinking that perhaps, if he were to stay with Wal*Mart, with overnights and their desperation working for them, he might just be able to leverage a schedule that would allow him more flexibility to attend college, ultimately allowing him to transfer out of the laughably pitiful "Medical Assisting" program and at Andover and into SMCC's "Radiology Technology" program, or, better (-paying) yet, "Radiation Therapy". (I haven't sprung that last part on him)
So, tonight, we will discuss that possibility, and hope that, in their misguided-but-endearing hopefulness, they will still hold the position open for him tomorrow, a day after he's already stopped working their, and a day before he's supposed to start somewhere else.
The point is, whichever direction he goes, there should shortly be more money coming in, which might allow up to catch up (slightly) on some of those debts.
Uh, more Ups (or did you forget that this was a list?):
~I finally got glasses. They are pretty, and they allow me to see. Isn't that novel?
~I'm just two pounds away to the weight I was at pre-McDonald's (which is by no means my weight-loss goal, but it is a milestone.) Thank you, GNC Total Lean! Thank you for working with my uniquely passive approach to fitness!
~I've gotten Zack's permission to try a somewhat...unorthodox approach to overcoming my vaginsimus. Now I just need a helper...
~Uh...I'm hungry, and I'm missing Gilmore Girls to write this. That's enough ups for now.
On with it.
Sunday, July 24, 2005
More commercial-inspired thought...
Right now there's an add for diet pepsi featuring Lovin' Spoonful's "Did You Ever Have to Make Up Your Mind?" (thank you AdTunes.com) wherein a Diet Pepsi and a Diet Coke machine are placed side by side, and the coke machine is continuously getting replaced. The commercial is neither bad nor good, a little infuriating perhaps because coke is so much better than pepsi, but it lead me to think of this: When I was growing up, neither coke nor pepsi could use the other's copyrighted imagery in their ads. They had to design their own laughable facsimiles that were close enough so that everyone knew what they meant, but that left some room for ambigouity. This, in a sense, was an entire dimension of the art, and an appreciable factor in the commercial's production quality, albeit one that was taken for granted. Now that it's gone, gosh, is it gone. Will our children's children ever know the glory that was a mock-up prop can labelled "Pipsi", "CooCoo Cola" or the simple classic, "Generic Soda"?
The nostalgia for prop soda cans of days past really wasn't where I meant to go with this. One should never underestimate the cathartic quality of the creative process.
What I did intend to do was to pose this question: Was this some sort of shift in the international copyright law, or is this a change of contract between Coke and Pepsi. Was there a meeting over this?
Coke Guy: So, you've called us here today to the Pepsi Corporate Offices, and I think you know by now that we're more than a little curious as to why.
Pepsi Demon: Mmm, indeed. You want to know why we've called you here to beautiful downtown Tartarus...mwah hahaha.
Coke: Get to it already, Mr. Beelzebub. I want to get home to see my wife and kids.
Pepsi: Indeed. Well, our research shows that consumers are taking our mock-up prop cans for granted. Furthermore, we've found that we can do far more damage to each other's profits if we are allowed to show the actual product which we are slandering.
Coke: Agreed. Our market studies have shown that certain southern states have a high number of people confused about "Pipsi."
Pepsi: So then, it's all fair game from now on? Mmmm?
Coke: Yessir. All's fair in love and brand wars.
Pepsi: Excellent.
Hmmm....*ending pending...ha! that rhymes*
For now...on with it.
Right now there's an add for diet pepsi featuring Lovin' Spoonful's "Did You Ever Have to Make Up Your Mind?" (thank you AdTunes.com) wherein a Diet Pepsi and a Diet Coke machine are placed side by side, and the coke machine is continuously getting replaced. The commercial is neither bad nor good, a little infuriating perhaps because coke is so much better than pepsi, but it lead me to think of this: When I was growing up, neither coke nor pepsi could use the other's copyrighted imagery in their ads. They had to design their own laughable facsimiles that were close enough so that everyone knew what they meant, but that left some room for ambigouity. This, in a sense, was an entire dimension of the art, and an appreciable factor in the commercial's production quality, albeit one that was taken for granted. Now that it's gone, gosh, is it gone. Will our children's children ever know the glory that was a mock-up prop can labelled "Pipsi", "CooCoo Cola" or the simple classic, "Generic Soda"?
The nostalgia for prop soda cans of days past really wasn't where I meant to go with this. One should never underestimate the cathartic quality of the creative process.
What I did intend to do was to pose this question: Was this some sort of shift in the international copyright law, or is this a change of contract between Coke and Pepsi. Was there a meeting over this?
Coke Guy: So, you've called us here today to the Pepsi Corporate Offices, and I think you know by now that we're more than a little curious as to why.
Pepsi Demon: Mmm, indeed. You want to know why we've called you here to beautiful downtown Tartarus...mwah hahaha.
Coke: Get to it already, Mr. Beelzebub. I want to get home to see my wife and kids.
Pepsi: Indeed. Well, our research shows that consumers are taking our mock-up prop cans for granted. Furthermore, we've found that we can do far more damage to each other's profits if we are allowed to show the actual product which we are slandering.
Coke: Agreed. Our market studies have shown that certain southern states have a high number of people confused about "Pipsi."
Pepsi: So then, it's all fair game from now on? Mmmm?
Coke: Yessir. All's fair in love and brand wars.
Pepsi: Excellent.
Hmmm....*ending pending...ha! that rhymes*
For now...on with it.
Thursday, July 21, 2005
Congrats to Elorza on his acceptance to the absolutely enviable Columbia College in Chicago, where he has picked the Fiction Writing major (over competing, and equally intriguing, majors like Playwriting, Television Writing and Producing, Poetry, Journalism, Every other Writing you can think off, etc...) This pulls him into a near-tie with other forerunners like Jeff and Casey in the "Which of Linda's close friends and relations will be the first to have a book published or otherwise meet with some notable success in writing" race.
I still intend to bring home the flowery horse shoe thingy (don't worry, google image search didn't know what I meant, either) in this one, but it's looking less likely by the minute. Despite my ever-improving descriptive skills. (You know, the big flowery, wreath-y things they hang on the winning horse's neck. That thing.)
I'm still hoping David Sedaris is going to discover me one of these days, finding my blog having randomly searched for himself on google which, in case your wondering, is why that hyperlink of his name leads here. It just seems like something David Sedaris would do.
Support the effort to get David Sedaris to visit my blog by putting up a David Sedaris hyperlink that leads to my humble internet abode on your site today!
I'm wishing he'd put me in his next Children Playing before a Statue of Hercules-type project, or perhaps just e-mail me personally to start a dialogue about how to improve my writing. Of course, I'd never catch David Sedaris's eye with this kind of drivel; it is for this reason, and generally in the interest of best representing myself to the hundreds of new hits monthly who come mostly looking for Andy Milonakis lyrics (in the "Guest Writer" Section, though I have few) that I've decided I will soon be making a list of a few of my personal favorite entries to add to the sidebar. A little sampling of my A-material to wow the newcomers with, and make them forget all about Ducky Whores.
Because that's the kind of thing David Sedaris thinks about. On with it.
I still intend to bring home the flowery horse shoe thingy (don't worry, google image search didn't know what I meant, either) in this one, but it's looking less likely by the minute. Despite my ever-improving descriptive skills. (You know, the big flowery, wreath-y things they hang on the winning horse's neck. That thing.)
I'm still hoping David Sedaris is going to discover me one of these days, finding my blog having randomly searched for himself on google which, in case your wondering, is why that hyperlink of his name leads here. It just seems like something David Sedaris would do.
Support the effort to get David Sedaris to visit my blog by putting up a David Sedaris hyperlink that leads to my humble internet abode on your site today!
I'm wishing he'd put me in his next Children Playing before a Statue of Hercules-type project, or perhaps just e-mail me personally to start a dialogue about how to improve my writing. Of course, I'd never catch David Sedaris's eye with this kind of drivel; it is for this reason, and generally in the interest of best representing myself to the hundreds of new hits monthly who come mostly looking for Andy Milonakis lyrics (in the "Guest Writer" Section, though I have few) that I've decided I will soon be making a list of a few of my personal favorite entries to add to the sidebar. A little sampling of my A-material to wow the newcomers with, and make them forget all about Ducky Whores.
Because that's the kind of thing David Sedaris thinks about. On with it.
Friday, July 15, 2005
Zack, in the other room listening to the "Woo Hoo!" song , the one about...bullets...whatever, keeps exclaiming this rather disruptive interjection loudly enough so that it becomes a badly-timed feature of "Islands in the Sun", playing in my headphones. This is only endearing for so long.
Zack's temper has played a big part of my evolution in the past three years, and I suppose my lack of tolerance for it has played a big role in his. Still, it's there, and I feel it affecting me all the time, changing the way I react to things. Today, my outbursts tend to be far more phsyically violent* and intense than they were before I had spent such a large amount of my life with him. When I get this way, it scares him, but I suppose this is only the most poetic of punishments for making me feel that childish, fetal-positioned way my father used to make me feel so often. My father will never know, but Zack is learning what it's like to see someone's anger come on so suddenly, for them to go from frustrated to frantic in a burst, and all you can possibly do it watch it happen. This, hopefully, will get through to him before we have kids, and the cycle, perhaps, will end there.
I can't help but wonder if this is my greatest strength as a healer. To take on the other's faults and then display them, so as to teach. Then again, if it is true that that's my greatest strength in that department, it's probably only as a default. "Healer" isn't a term that would show up in my autobiography, I think, without a biting irony to it.
It was a momentary thought; I think it may be in my best interest to learn to ignore those.
I'm loving the opening of "Falling for You" and thinking, as I have been lately, about how incredible this whole "blogging" thing is-- because of these logs that literally hundreds of thousands of people are keeping publicly, future generations are going to have so much access to the thoughts of the common person at this time in history. We will be the oldest generation that future people will have a thorough and deep perspective of, a true cross-referencing of all the different kinds of people, different kinds of thoughts and feelings and priorities. Historically, the average person has only had access to sort of a vague political-cultural painting of an era, involving the illustrious extremes that most people werent't involved in. The twenties were Saco and Venzetti, Flappers and Speakeasies, but if you talk to your grandmother she says she never did anything like that, and she wasn't old enough to care about the major news story. Ditto your parents and the sixties-- maybe you're lucky enough to be borne of hippies, but more than likely, they never went to a protest, didn't smoke pot, and their understanding of Vietnam was on par with the average high schooler's understanding of today's situation in Iraq.
Imagine the changes from now on. There are blogs representing the thoughts and interests of every demographic. And christ, how misrepresented would we be otherwise? "In the year 2004, everyone listened to Britney Spears or Will Smith, loved 'American Idol' on TV. For fun, you would go bungee jumping, which was popular until the many bungee-related deaths of 2015, or you would go to an IMax theater, a primitive version of our cinaplexs today. This was the generation that voted for history's dumbest president, and that is why we, today, have these post-nuclear genetic mutations, children." "Boo!"
This is perhaps a bit of brain food for you for now, and I will discuss this later. For now, I need real food, and my husband is awaiting his date, perhaps too patiently.
On with it.
*Towards objects, before you get all "intervention" on me.
Zack's temper has played a big part of my evolution in the past three years, and I suppose my lack of tolerance for it has played a big role in his. Still, it's there, and I feel it affecting me all the time, changing the way I react to things. Today, my outbursts tend to be far more phsyically violent* and intense than they were before I had spent such a large amount of my life with him. When I get this way, it scares him, but I suppose this is only the most poetic of punishments for making me feel that childish, fetal-positioned way my father used to make me feel so often. My father will never know, but Zack is learning what it's like to see someone's anger come on so suddenly, for them to go from frustrated to frantic in a burst, and all you can possibly do it watch it happen. This, hopefully, will get through to him before we have kids, and the cycle, perhaps, will end there.
I can't help but wonder if this is my greatest strength as a healer. To take on the other's faults and then display them, so as to teach. Then again, if it is true that that's my greatest strength in that department, it's probably only as a default. "Healer" isn't a term that would show up in my autobiography, I think, without a biting irony to it.
It was a momentary thought; I think it may be in my best interest to learn to ignore those.
I'm loving the opening of "Falling for You" and thinking, as I have been lately, about how incredible this whole "blogging" thing is-- because of these logs that literally hundreds of thousands of people are keeping publicly, future generations are going to have so much access to the thoughts of the common person at this time in history. We will be the oldest generation that future people will have a thorough and deep perspective of, a true cross-referencing of all the different kinds of people, different kinds of thoughts and feelings and priorities. Historically, the average person has only had access to sort of a vague political-cultural painting of an era, involving the illustrious extremes that most people werent't involved in. The twenties were Saco and Venzetti, Flappers and Speakeasies, but if you talk to your grandmother she says she never did anything like that, and she wasn't old enough to care about the major news story. Ditto your parents and the sixties-- maybe you're lucky enough to be borne of hippies, but more than likely, they never went to a protest, didn't smoke pot, and their understanding of Vietnam was on par with the average high schooler's understanding of today's situation in Iraq.
Imagine the changes from now on. There are blogs representing the thoughts and interests of every demographic. And christ, how misrepresented would we be otherwise? "In the year 2004, everyone listened to Britney Spears or Will Smith, loved 'American Idol' on TV. For fun, you would go bungee jumping, which was popular until the many bungee-related deaths of 2015, or you would go to an IMax theater, a primitive version of our cinaplexs today. This was the generation that voted for history's dumbest president, and that is why we, today, have these post-nuclear genetic mutations, children." "Boo!"
This is perhaps a bit of brain food for you for now, and I will discuss this later. For now, I need real food, and my husband is awaiting his date, perhaps too patiently.
On with it.
*Towards objects, before you get all "intervention" on me.
Thursday, July 14, 2005
I'm trying to expand my tastes in music. It's such a waste to have a fifty-dollar-a-month modem and not download everything that it's possible to find illegally, from Microsoft Publisher (done and done) to previously unaired family guy episodes (an exploit of Chad's, apparently).
As the radio is no longer a viable option for finding worthy music, I look to people for musical influence. Today, and probably for the next few weeks, I've decided to emulate Jacquie, my off-and-on-again internet pal, who's gone from freshmen to graduate in what's seemed like a blink of an eye-- it's crazy how quickly people grow up when you forget to check in on them. Remind me not to do that if I ever have kids.
When I met her, Jacquie's favorite band was Weezer, so this is where I've started. At random, I selected 10 Weezer tracks to download (I already had "Sandwiches Time", and "Pink Triangles", thanks to the influence of Jacquie and Rachel from California, respectively.) I've been thinking a lot about Weezer lately, thanks in part to WCYY 10's infuriatingly endless air time and, in part, to a young manager at work who's new glasses remind me of Weezer...or of what I assume a Weezer member would look like, I should say.
Damn. Boring post so far.
I think next I will download all the songs from the "Grosse Pointe Blank" sound track.
Hmmm...minor emergency, must devote full attention. Will write more later!
On with it.
As the radio is no longer a viable option for finding worthy music, I look to people for musical influence. Today, and probably for the next few weeks, I've decided to emulate Jacquie, my off-and-on-again internet pal, who's gone from freshmen to graduate in what's seemed like a blink of an eye-- it's crazy how quickly people grow up when you forget to check in on them. Remind me not to do that if I ever have kids.
When I met her, Jacquie's favorite band was Weezer, so this is where I've started. At random, I selected 10 Weezer tracks to download (I already had "Sandwiches Time", and "Pink Triangles", thanks to the influence of Jacquie and Rachel from California, respectively.) I've been thinking a lot about Weezer lately, thanks in part to WCYY 10's infuriatingly endless air time and, in part, to a young manager at work who's new glasses remind me of Weezer...or of what I assume a Weezer member would look like, I should say.
Damn. Boring post so far.
I think next I will download all the songs from the "Grosse Pointe Blank" sound track.
Hmmm...minor emergency, must devote full attention. Will write more later!
On with it.
Tuesday, July 05, 2005
Note on Below: Jeff e-mailed me to let me know that my credibility suffered, since I apparently did not know that the name of the gentlemen in queston is "Karl Rove". I submit that I did and do, in fact, know the man's real name, and that the multiple instances of "Roves" was but one typo gone awry when I decided to be lazy and repeatedly use ctrl+V, rather than type it out.
My apologies, and thanks to Jeff, the bitch.
My thoughts on this whole "One" campaign that assaults me every time I start AIM:
The Oval Office, sometime in the past few months:
Karl Roves: What we need is something to distract the American people from the whole "Strangling Democracy Slowly and Occupying Iraq" situation. Something flashy, something Jazzy...something with even more death.
Squeaky-voiced White House Intern: Death, sir?
Karl Roves: Yes, yes, the masses love their death. Something global and scary...a giant, horrifying diversion.
Suck-up Assistant: Absolutely Brilliant, Mr. Rove, you've done it again. How about this whole Africa situation?
Roves: Mmmm, refresh me.
Squeaky: Millions dying, wide-spread poverty, AIDs. Wiping the poor off the face of the continent.
Suck-Up: One death every three minutes, I believe.
Roves: Damn! That's so SEXY!
Suck Up: *Glances at his beeping watch.* Ooops, there goes another one!
Roves: This is perfect! But...AIDs. People don't care about AIDs. They think it's a government-disease created to control the population of blacks and gays.
Squeaky: Isn't it, sir?
Roves: Well, of course it is, but that's not the point. We need to get someone to endorse this little project. A celebrity, perhaps.
Suck-Up: A GROUP of celebrities!
Roves: PERFECT!
Squeaky: But...sir.....Celebrities only care about themselves.
Roves and Suck-up: Ooooo.
Roves: We need to change their minds...Who do we have blackmail on?
Suck-Up: We have pictures of Rita Wilson taking it up the ass from P. Diddy while Tom Hanks does Kate Hudson in the background.
Roves: Ooooh, Goldie won't like that. But we need more...Who's that sexy activist slut?
*Squeaky and Suck-up Glances at each other*
Squeaky: You'll have to be more specific.
Roves: That actress...from all those bad movies.
Suck-Up: Drew Barrymore?
Roves: No, the really hot one, with the African kid.
Squeaky: Angelina Jolie, sir?
Roves: Yes! Her! She's perfect. This is right up her alley, and she'll do anyone for a good cause.
Suck-Up: Or for any other reason.
Roves: Exactly. Get her to sleep with a few big names. They'll be putty in our hands in no time.
*Rove begins to laugh maniacally, and Suck-Up Joins in. Squeaky begins making key telephone calls as the President walks into the room and joins up in the laughter.*
Bush: Heh heh heh....boobies.
Okay, I took that way too far, but I think I've managed to illustrate my point. Me, I haven't signed the "One Declaration" because I have this nagging feeling that AIDS may be the only thing to give us a fighting chance in not becoming horribly overpopulated and having North America torn apart by riots that are likely to kill us all in twenty or so years. (I watched a shock-umentary about this while I was in California and it scared the crap out of me. I'll have to do some personal research on how credible these predictions are, and report back to you.)
I'm finding that it's really, really difficult to feel strongly about global issues when you think too much. I wish I could be really straightforward and simple and go with my instincts on this, which urge me to make a difference (Not because poverty and death are bad, but because celebrities want me to. What? Are your instincts any different?)
Anyway....Supreme Court Justices. Trying to compile a list of potential replacements to Sandra D. (lousy with moderat-ity) to see whom I support. I've crossed out any with the following phrases in the description: "(strongly OR consisently) conservative", "Mini-Scalia" or "Scalia-Lite", "wants to overturn Roe V. Wade." Taking out just the ones with those red-flags eliminates about half. This website gives better information on the possible candidates than the others I've seen. Check it out, so you can, at the very least, speak intelligently about it when the end of the civilization as we know it takes place. I'll let you all know when I've get my money on one or two...unless I've got something better to do.
On with it.
My apologies, and thanks to Jeff, the bitch.
My thoughts on this whole "One" campaign that assaults me every time I start AIM:
The Oval Office, sometime in the past few months:
Karl Roves: What we need is something to distract the American people from the whole "Strangling Democracy Slowly and Occupying Iraq" situation. Something flashy, something Jazzy...something with even more death.
Squeaky-voiced White House Intern: Death, sir?
Karl Roves: Yes, yes, the masses love their death. Something global and scary...a giant, horrifying diversion.
Suck-up Assistant: Absolutely Brilliant, Mr. Rove, you've done it again. How about this whole Africa situation?
Roves: Mmmm, refresh me.
Squeaky: Millions dying, wide-spread poverty, AIDs. Wiping the poor off the face of the continent.
Suck-Up: One death every three minutes, I believe.
Roves: Damn! That's so SEXY!
Suck Up: *Glances at his beeping watch.* Ooops, there goes another one!
Roves: This is perfect! But...AIDs. People don't care about AIDs. They think it's a government-disease created to control the population of blacks and gays.
Squeaky: Isn't it, sir?
Roves: Well, of course it is, but that's not the point. We need to get someone to endorse this little project. A celebrity, perhaps.
Suck-Up: A GROUP of celebrities!
Roves: PERFECT!
Squeaky: But...sir.....Celebrities only care about themselves.
Roves and Suck-up: Ooooo.
Roves: We need to change their minds...Who do we have blackmail on?
Suck-Up: We have pictures of Rita Wilson taking it up the ass from P. Diddy while Tom Hanks does Kate Hudson in the background.
Roves: Ooooh, Goldie won't like that. But we need more...Who's that sexy activist slut?
*Squeaky and Suck-up Glances at each other*
Squeaky: You'll have to be more specific.
Roves: That actress...from all those bad movies.
Suck-Up: Drew Barrymore?
Roves: No, the really hot one, with the African kid.
Squeaky: Angelina Jolie, sir?
Roves: Yes! Her! She's perfect. This is right up her alley, and she'll do anyone for a good cause.
Suck-Up: Or for any other reason.
Roves: Exactly. Get her to sleep with a few big names. They'll be putty in our hands in no time.
*Rove begins to laugh maniacally, and Suck-Up Joins in. Squeaky begins making key telephone calls as the President walks into the room and joins up in the laughter.*
Bush: Heh heh heh....boobies.
Okay, I took that way too far, but I think I've managed to illustrate my point. Me, I haven't signed the "One Declaration" because I have this nagging feeling that AIDS may be the only thing to give us a fighting chance in not becoming horribly overpopulated and having North America torn apart by riots that are likely to kill us all in twenty or so years. (I watched a shock-umentary about this while I was in California and it scared the crap out of me. I'll have to do some personal research on how credible these predictions are, and report back to you.)
I'm finding that it's really, really difficult to feel strongly about global issues when you think too much. I wish I could be really straightforward and simple and go with my instincts on this, which urge me to make a difference (Not because poverty and death are bad, but because celebrities want me to. What? Are your instincts any different?)
Anyway....Supreme Court Justices. Trying to compile a list of potential replacements to Sandra D. (lousy with moderat-ity) to see whom I support. I've crossed out any with the following phrases in the description: "(strongly OR consisently) conservative", "Mini-Scalia" or "Scalia-Lite", "wants to overturn Roe V. Wade." Taking out just the ones with those red-flags eliminates about half. This website gives better information on the possible candidates than the others I've seen. Check it out, so you can, at the very least, speak intelligently about it when the end of the civilization as we know it takes place. I'll let you all know when I've get my money on one or two...unless I've got something better to do.
On with it.
Tuesday, June 28, 2005
Ryan Coffin has posted on his site a list of his ten favorite novels, and, being that lately the time to write and the subject matter have been out-of-sync with each other, this seems like a conveniently short post, while still telling enough to include. My list won't be as impressive and literary as his, though.
In no particular order:
1. The Lost World, Michael Crichton
2. To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper Lee
3. Where the Red Fern Grows, Wilson Rawls
4. Lullaby, Chuck Palahniuk
5. About a Boy, Nick Hornby
6. Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger
7. The Princess Bride, William Goldman
8. Big Trouble, Dave Barry
9. Rats Saw God, Rob Thomas
10. The Stranger, Albert Camus
I don't feel good about that list. I didn't want to use the same author twice, so I picked "The Lost World" and left off "Jurassic Park" (an easy choice, but JP should have probably been on the top ten) and "About a Boy" above "High Fidelity" (ditto, though they're both a great deal better than "How to Be Good", a book I stopped reading with two pages to go.) The last three listed their were a bit of a stretch-- I remember very little about any of them, and I'm not sure if I'd "The Stranger" deserves a place at all, as I was a relatively illiterate freshmen when I read it. Had it not appeared on Ryan's list, I probably wouldn't have remembered reading it at all.
With the exception of "The Stranger" and maybe "Where the Red Fern Grows", both of which it's been some time since I last read through (though, to be fair, Zack and I got about halfway through the latter a year and a half ago or so), these aforementioned books may be the only novels I've read in the last five years. Oh! Oh! The Hottest Place, by Ethan Hawk! I read that....oh, god, I think between sophomore year and junior year, it was in Florida when I met Elorza. I don't know if it deserves a place or not, but it deserves mention as further prove that I am not unliterary. I should give lip service to my favorite writer of all time, David Sedaris, whom would easily have made the list if it weren't for the fact that he does not , in fact, write novels. I've read all of his stuff except "Naked", which I haven't gone out and purchased yet for fear that I will have nothing else to read if I do. (Currently I'm on my second attempt at Crichton's "Prey", having gotten through the first half a number of years ago and given up, and I've sporatically reading, or trying to read, bits and pieces of "Samuel Beckett: The Complete Short Prose", having seen an episode of Judging Amy that made it look good. This man, it should be said, is impossible to read, though probably brilliant, if you can manage.) I've also kept myself in poetry and blogs and bland newspapers sitting around the various McDonald's that I eat at over the years. So who are you to judge me?
This was supposed to be such a short, simple post.
The Fish Guy, whom I very rarely talk to these days (and should drop in on, soon) hasn't read a book since he graduated high school. And he's got, like, twenty thousand in the bank. So. There's that.
On with it.
P.S.
Ryan, if you read this, I totally caught the Camus Reference on the top-info-section thingy of your site, from the very last page of the novel. That quote was my scrolling marquis screen saver for years. Solidarity, dude.
In no particular order:
1. The Lost World, Michael Crichton
2. To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper Lee
3. Where the Red Fern Grows, Wilson Rawls
4. Lullaby, Chuck Palahniuk
5. About a Boy, Nick Hornby
6. Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger
7. The Princess Bride, William Goldman
8. Big Trouble, Dave Barry
9. Rats Saw God, Rob Thomas
10. The Stranger, Albert Camus
I don't feel good about that list. I didn't want to use the same author twice, so I picked "The Lost World" and left off "Jurassic Park" (an easy choice, but JP should have probably been on the top ten) and "About a Boy" above "High Fidelity" (ditto, though they're both a great deal better than "How to Be Good", a book I stopped reading with two pages to go.) The last three listed their were a bit of a stretch-- I remember very little about any of them, and I'm not sure if I'd "The Stranger" deserves a place at all, as I was a relatively illiterate freshmen when I read it. Had it not appeared on Ryan's list, I probably wouldn't have remembered reading it at all.
With the exception of "The Stranger" and maybe "Where the Red Fern Grows", both of which it's been some time since I last read through (though, to be fair, Zack and I got about halfway through the latter a year and a half ago or so), these aforementioned books may be the only novels I've read in the last five years. Oh! Oh! The Hottest Place, by Ethan Hawk! I read that....oh, god, I think between sophomore year and junior year, it was in Florida when I met Elorza. I don't know if it deserves a place or not, but it deserves mention as further prove that I am not unliterary. I should give lip service to my favorite writer of all time, David Sedaris, whom would easily have made the list if it weren't for the fact that he does not , in fact, write novels. I've read all of his stuff except "Naked", which I haven't gone out and purchased yet for fear that I will have nothing else to read if I do. (Currently I'm on my second attempt at Crichton's "Prey", having gotten through the first half a number of years ago and given up, and I've sporatically reading, or trying to read, bits and pieces of "Samuel Beckett: The Complete Short Prose", having seen an episode of Judging Amy that made it look good. This man, it should be said, is impossible to read, though probably brilliant, if you can manage.) I've also kept myself in poetry and blogs and bland newspapers sitting around the various McDonald's that I eat at over the years. So who are you to judge me?
This was supposed to be such a short, simple post.
The Fish Guy, whom I very rarely talk to these days (and should drop in on, soon) hasn't read a book since he graduated high school. And he's got, like, twenty thousand in the bank. So. There's that.
On with it.
P.S.
Ryan, if you read this, I totally caught the Camus Reference on the top-info-section thingy of your site, from the very last page of the novel. That quote was my scrolling marquis screen saver for years. Solidarity, dude.
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