A journal entry from September 16, 2003:

I got an email from Reagan tonight and I can’t sleep although I’ve taken a Xanax. Now I’m sleepy and at the same time my mind is racing. Reagan mentioned college. I was laying here and I thought, was there such a thing as college? Is it possible that I even existed in that world? And I thought, I am so lucky to’ve met one friend in college — I should be thankful — I should fall to my knees — and this will be in the kitchen, and I will fall upon spilled sugar and random dirt and perhaps a grain of rice, and these items will dig into my skin as I give thanks, and when I stand I will have the memory of that moment preserved in the grooves dug out of my skin.

I should think about him more often. It might help me stop being such a complete bitch all the fucking time.

1. “America’s Worst Tattoos.” I underestimated how entertaining this show would be. The commercials didn’t indicate that the people themselves are crying at night because their tattoos are so bad. I might’ve watched four episodes last night and cackled through them all. Here are some of the tattoos that were featured and/or covered up:

– pink baby devil holding a candle that looks like a weiner
– two forties being poured into someone’s buttcrack
– Japanese fighting tampons

One of my favorite features of the whole thing is that about 75% of the time, the new tattoo is just as stupid as the original; it’s just done really well. For example: a guy angry at his last two girlfriends got them as skeletons tattooed on his leg along with their various vices (booze, pills). Rule 1: do not put the enemy’s likeness on your person. His current girlfriend, with whom he has a child, was not a fan. So instead, he opted for a dad and kid elephant pair. The dad elephant has a mustache and the kid elephant is holding a rubber duckie. It is infinitely better, but still: mustache elephant. On your laig.

2. Tenth of December by George Saunders is one of the only things I can think of that lives up to the hype. It’s one of the funniest/darkest/saddest/best things I have ever read.

3. The Pink/Nate Ruess song “Just Give Me a Reason” is on a constant loop in my head. So then I started humming it at home. Then Spike asked what it was, so I sang it, and now HE sings it, and I have to say, hearing your little boy go “You’ve been talking in your sleep / oh oh / Things you never say to me / oh oh” while he’s sitting on the toilet is rad.

4. I have this hackberry tree in my backyard that got tired of standing up all the time and decided to lay down. It eased over a bit and is leaning on some phone and power lines. Luckily, it is good friends with an oak in my neighbor’s yard and the oak is holding it up. It a mess, y’all. It a big mess. Also there is a tree that dumps giant murder logs into the yard when the wind blows — giant, 10 feet long limbs that leave gouges in the ground. It’s going, too. As is all of my money. While it’s kind of hurting my feelings that I have to pay a bunch of money and will not get anything in return — no new transmission or trip to Paris. I have done my fretting and grieving and on Tuesday, there will be two less trees trying to kill me.

5. Someone buy me this.

1. Overheard:

Person 1: What’s the sexual orientation of unicorns?
Person 2: I think they’re all virgins.

2. Today at a meeting someone apologized to me for their weird behavior three years ago. Then an older fellow said I was wacky. Dream day!

3. Today is also Spike’s 5th birthday! Longtime readers, can you believe that mess? It seems like only yesterday that I was talking about my cervix too much around here.

4. I’m reading The Dinner. I hear it’s going to get crazeballs but it hasn’t kicked in yet. Other things I’ve read lately: Birds of a Lesser Paradise by Megan Mayhew Bergman (AWESOME STORIES — I loved this collection), The Secret Keeper by Kate Morton (sort of cheesy, yet rewarding), Stranger Things Happen by Kelly Link (creepy/weird/awesome stories), Mothers and Other Monsters by Maureen F. McHugh.

5. If you need some adorable Frenchness to enliven your world, may I recommend the movie Romantics Anonymous? The recurring song throughout the whole thing is “I Have Confidence” from The Sound of Music (in French, of course!). Also there is chocolate.

In general, when I receive catalogs in the mail, I put them directly into the recycling pile. One reason is that the J.Crew catalog that arrives does not have clearance stuff that is also an additional 30% off in it, and that is the only way I buy things at J.Crew. (Sidenote: I did buy this perfect striped boatneck there a few years ago NOT on sale, and it was $30 or so, and I felt incredibly guilty for this extravagance, and then a few months into its life with me IT GOT A HOLE IN IT, so I will never do that again.) Same goes for Anthropologie — gorgeous catalogs, gorgeous stuff…that I will never buy.

However, I do love the Walter Drake catalog, filled with awesome things like unsupportive bras, bunion fixers, poorly personalized ceramic baby shoes, and containers that are specific to every fruit and vegetable. Did you not know that these exist? Well, I feel sorry for you keeping your half of an onion in a BAGGIE, you fool!

Anyway, I was looking at it this morning and saw a cap thingie you wear over your giant old lady hairdo at night and it reminded me that my grandmother used to wear a special silky kerchief thingie to keep her giant hair intact. She also had a special silky pillow that just went under her neck so as not to disturb the giant hair.

However, one time when she was visiting us she forgot her silky kerchief thing, and instead resorted to wearing her silky panties on her head.

This was also the trip where I found a postcard she was sending to a friend that said she had met a very handsome riverboat captain who had been taking her on dates to eat fried shrimp.

This is my heritage.

I Love You More Than All the Windows in New York City

The day turned into the city
and the city turned into the mind
and the moving trucks trumbled along
like loud worries speaking over
the bicycle’s idea
which wove between
the more armored vehicles of expression
and over planks left by the construction workers
on a holiday morning when no work was being done
because no matter the day, we tend towards
remaking parts of it — what we said
or did, or how we looked —
and the buildings were like faces
lining the banks of a parade
obstructing and highlighting each other
defining height and width for each other
offsetting grace and function
like Audrey Hepburn from
Jesse Owens, and the hearty pigeons collaborate
with wrought iron fences
and become recurring choruses of memory
reassembling around benches
we sat in once, while seagulls wheel
like immigrating thoughts, and never-leaving
chickadees hop bared hedges and low trees
like commas and semicolons, landing
where needed, separating
subjects from adjectives, stringing along
the long ideas, showing how the cage
has no door, and the lights changed
so the tide of sound ebbed and returned
like our own breath
and when I knew everything
was going to look the same as the mind
I stopped at a lively corner
where the signs themselves were like
perpendicular dialects in conversation and
I put both my feet on the ground
took the bag from the basket
so pleased it had not been crushed
by the mightiness of all else
that goes on and gave you the sentence inside.

–Jessica Greenbaum

1. At my workplace, we have someone who uses this word: overstand. He always underlines the over so there is no doubt to his intent. Sometimes he also says he needs some n/4 about a certain thing. This makes it difficult for everyone.

2. Spike is almost five! (Let me pause a moment to let that sink in.) Five is so grown, a real age. I hope he remembers things about this time, as he is crazy and hilarious. For instance, he knows that “butt” is a bad word and he shouldn’t say it (so he tries to say it as much as possible), but charmingly, he thinks butt is a bad word for stomach. So he’ll say “Oh, my butt is sticking out!” and it is very difficult not to crack up. He has also started drawing pictures of butts, which delights me to no end because I DID THE SAME THING AS A CHILD! Of course, he puts his in an envelope and delivers them to me whereas I hid mine for fear my mother would find them in the trash can, but still. He also told me the other day after peeing in the back yard that his teetee was sparkly. This kid! Gah.

Two more stories: lately he is interested in the concept of people dying, so I have been talking about my very hilarious/weird/deceased grandmother. She enjoyed a good scare, so hiding a plastic frog in her underwear drawer was always a big hit. I’ve told him this story a few times, and so when Larry got him a horrible plastic rat, I said, “Do you know who would like that?” He said, “That girl in heaven?” I said yes. Then he said, “Maybe when I die I’ll bring a backpack so I can take the rat and scare her with it!” Oh, and then I crushed his little sweet head in a giant hug.

A few weeks ago he was super mad at me because I made him eat a pea — ONE PEA, PEOPLE — and because of the hijinx regarding said pea ingestion (such as flicking food onto the table, etc) he lost access to his beloved, his one and only: dessert. So he was pissed, and told me all the things I wasn’t allowed to do anymore, such as hugging and kissing him, etc. Then he went into his room and closed the door, and I was thrilled. I heard him playing in there with his little Fisher-Price digital camera, beep beep boop boop. Then he said, “Mommy?” and I said yes. And he said, “I just CANCELLED all the pictures of you off my camera!” Again, I have a hard time not laughing in these situations. (This is why you’re supposed to have two parents around! So one can go lock themselves in the laundry room and laugh while the other one explains why this was Very Mean.)

I would like to point out that this punishment was devised by someone who is not yet five years old.

3. Sigh, Downton Abbey is over. I had such mixed feelings about this season, the main one being WHY YOU SHOW NO WEDDINGS, FELLOWES?, but I have to say, I admire a show that can manipulate me, and so the fact that I have warm feelings towards Thomas makes me think maybe it’s not so bad.

I recently watched the first two seasons of Homeland in a pretty short period of time, and man, I loved it. For some reason, it didn’t stress me out. This is significant because sitcoms routinely stress me out. My whole life I would have to leave the room 18 minutes into an episode of Three’s Company and then drift back in at minute 27 to see it resolve. But I watched Homeland not for the is-he-or-isn’t-he-a-terrorist thing, but for the fantastic character development. Also how easy it is to make fun of it.

4. I’m reading snippets of several books right now:
Iphigenia in Forest Hills (started last night)
Johannes Cabal the Necromancer
Diary of a Provincial Lady
Sweet Tooth

You can tell they are all very compelling. But I did just finish The Middlesteins and Le Grand Meaulnes and Below Stairs, so look! I can read!

5. There is a quote going around that I believe is supposed to inspire and uplift us, but just wears me out. Here ’tis:

“I have come to the frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element. It is my personal approach that creates the climate. It is my daily mood that makes the weather. I possess tremendous power to make life miserable or joyous. I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration, I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal. In all situations, it is my response that decides whether a crisis is escalated or de-escalated, and a person is humanized or de-humanized. If we treat people as they are, we make them worse. If we treat people as they ought to be, we help them become what they are capable of becoming.” — Haim Ginott

It is a lovely sentiment, but GOD, what pressure! I don’t want to be the decisive element sometimes. I want people to behave. I want the freedom to be a jerk and to be forgiven for it. Being the decisive element IS EXHAUSTING.

Ckuuuchuuupp. Downton Abbey. (That first word is the sound of my discontent.)

Since last I wrote/vented, we’ve seen several things happen on Downton Abbey: notably, we saw Edith’s wedding not happen (Downton Abbey: Don’t Ever Expect to Actually See a Wedding, ‘Cause It’s Never Going to Happen [Sybil Mary Edith]), which, I don’t know, I’ve pretty much forgiven Edith for her understandably terrible sisterly behavior in Season 1. Mary has come out on top, has married the heir, has kept her dumb giant mansion castle thing, is the prettiest, etc etc. Is Edith’s perpetual bad luck payback for past misdeeds? Or does Edith not deserve to be happy because she is — not cute? First: she was given an old dude with a dead arm. But oh! That was not enough. Have him be super influenced by the family over and over again! And then not cancel the damn thing the night before, the morning of, or ten minutes before Edith walks down the aisle. Instead, humiliate her. I just think it’s rude, and dumbly predictable. Edith’s motivations for her misdeeds were understandable, whereas someone like O’Brien, who is just an asshole all the time for no good reason, is never punished.

Speaking of punishing, the death of the only nice human being who lives upstairs. Again, how RUDE. Why not kill Edith off in such a way? She could’ve finally married, been knocked up by Old Dead Arm, then DIED. Killing off the nice one who loves her husband and has shunned her dumb giant mansion castle thing-loving family is RUDE. Also rude: how terrible her hair has been, and how extra-awful it looked while she was laboring. Was that a grease wig she was wearing? RIP GREASE WIG.

While I’m on my rant, why are we supposed to care about Ethel the prostitute house maid again? I almost cared when the plot was ORIGINALLY INTRODUCED; reintroducing a not-beloved character feels weird. Is it sloppy? Is it planned? Will Downton become a house of ill-repute (fingers crossed)?

Speaking of Downton/doing it, Mary is totally using some early 20th century birth control method on the sly. That scene where Matthew’s all “Doctor, it’s about my weiner. Is there a chonce it’s defective?” was awesome. I do have to wonder why a man in the 1920s would ask an obstetrician about his weiner but I guess it makes a kind of sense if you don’t think about it too much.

I can’t even bring myself to rant about the neverending Bates storyline.

I have, like, 17 other things to complain about (why the handling of the estate is such a touchy topic — Matthew isn’t proposing burning the whole thing down; Daisy turning mean; everything Lord Grantham touches turns to barf, and yet he still thinks he’s right all the time) but instead, let us just think about the new footman. And also how O’Brien’s Bangs have a Twitter feed.

Season 3 of Downton Abbey returned last Sunday. If you haven’t watched it yet, don’t read this!

1. Mary remains the prettiest and the worst. Matthew, give me your dead fiance’s dead father’s money NOW for my impossibly large house that no one else but me and maybe Carson cares about! Now I’m going to chastely kiss you, which I don’t understand because chaste kissing was, I thought, a product of old-timey moviemaking, not old-timey ACTUAL KISSING. Like, they didn’t invent tongues in 1965.

2. Sybil’s hair is awful. Tom is awful.

3. Clunky plot point: Oh ha ha ha, the Greys are coming! How fun! You remember the Greys, everyone, amirite? No? Well, they were merely created in order to slip Tom a mickey! Y’all, Thomas could’ve done that.

4. HIS MAJESTY HAS NO SHIRTS

5. Fingers crossed that Bates will get shivved next episode. Anna, you’re too good for him! And Anna, you are also too good for Earth. Are you REALLY telling me that you’ve seriously never doubted Bates’s innocence? Not once, while rinsing out Lady Edith’s impossibly complicated and antiquated underwear?

6. I sentence Matthew Crawley to life in prison, where he shall be cellmates with Bates, for the following crime:
Being Dull

7. Mrs. Hughes having cancer is not only a downer, but also boring. I care more about the following downstairs characters than Mrs. Hughes: Daisy, Mrs. Patmore, Carson, Thomas, O’Brien, McGillicuddy, Jamal, Pierre, Staci.

8. Shirley MacLaine is awful. Her hat is awful. She is no match for the Dowager Countess. It was silly to think she would be.

9. I’m glad Edith appears to be getting her man. He’s at least better than dying alone, or stealing that woman’s farmer husband.

10. And now, let’s discuss the wedding. From a practical standpoint, they put Mary in a dress, they had all that food in the kitchen, the village was decorated with bunting, for god’s sake they stuffed Tom into a morning coat against his will, they already have a church setting…so why didn’t we see the wedding? Mary walks down the aisle, and BAM. The end. Like, if it was a budget show, and they didn’t have enough funding to show the wedding, ok, maybe. But they had all the elements! Maybe they decided, “We COULD show the lavish wedding that is costing a million trillion dollars, but what the people REALLY want is more Bates with his lock of hair sweatily draped o’er his brow!”

There’s also this, which will sustain us until Edith’s wedding next week (oh, there better fucking be a wedding next week, Downton Abbey, you bastard).

PS: Hoping they introduce a Jewish character soon so the name of the show can be changed to Downton Rabbi.

A BRIEF YES/NO QUIZ

1. On Thanksgiving, while playing Apples to Apples with your 10-year old cousin and 87-year old grandmother, did you find yourself getting extremely competitive with both of them?

Yes.
No.

2. When your grandmother was trying to choose a card to match with the word sexy, did you giggle a lot?

Yes.
No.

3. Did you try to argue with a 10-year old that spontaneous combustion was much, much, MUCH more brilliant than a rainbow and that thus, you should’ve won that round?

Yes.
No.

4. During Thanksgiving dinner, hours after the game, did you keep bringing it up?

Yes.
No.

5. Did this make you feel bad in retrospect?

Not really.

I READ A BOOK AND WATCHED NO TV

It was The Chaperone. It wasn’t very good. Hey, this book is about silent film star Louise Brooks as a teenager! Wait wait no, it’s about an orphan named Clara whose husband is kinda weird but then she takes up with this janitor and wait what about Louise Brooks again dammit I accidentally read the whole thing.

In tv news, the absence of Couples Therapy is a dark hole in my heart. And no more Upstairs, Downstairs, and Downton Abbey doesn’t start until January, and I have eleventy billion episodes of Treme to watch but I don’t have the emotional energy to do so. I was thinking about watching an episode, but then I read the description and it said “Steve Zahn acts wacky, bugs his eyes out, sings/raps in an embarrassing way” and I decided not to.

AWKWARD TOWN

There is one particular Kroger that has a few tiny buggies that are perfect for a four-year old to push around the store calmly and without running down the aisles or launching the buggy down the aisle only to crash into a macaroni and cheese display, so we have been going there, even though the whole time I am hunched over the cart trying to get Spike to point it in the right direction. So the other day we were in the milk area, and Spike was telling an impassioned story about how wouldn’t it be funny if all the milk fell out of the cases and poured on our heads, and my back hurt from hunching, so when this lady said, “Oh, what a great helper you have!” I said something about haha, yes, this is fantastic, hunching over like this and becoming disfigured, ha ha. Then I looked at her and she had obviously been in an accident and had a cane in her buggy. (Click here.)

1. The past few weeks gave me the gift of not one, but TWO research emporium-related events, which usually means my weirdometer is stuck on WHOA ALERT A CAT SWEATER WITH A POCKET FOR AN ACTUAL CAT, but I have to say, either I wasn’t paying attention, or the research emporiumists are getting more stylish. (I probably wasn’t paying attention.) I mean, I saw a fanny pack and I just thought, “You know, it DOES free up the hands.” I saw some old school black Reeboks worn unironically and just thought, “I’ve heard those provide a lot of support.” However, I did take note of a few things.

a. There is a research emporiumist that I see around at various meetings who has beautiful hair. It is shiny, it is lustrous, it is full of volume. Sometimes I’ll see something glowing out of the corner of my eye and it’s the LIGHT BOUNCING OFF HER HAIR. So I asked her if she did anything special to it, and she said, “Well, I use Pantene for colored women.” And then I was sorry I asked, as we were in an echo-y restroom, and she is younger than me and just used “colored” as if that was an ok term, and then someone asked, “What do you use?” (because seriously, her hair is THAT shiny) and she repeated, louder, “PANTENE FOR COLORED WOMEN.” And then, the worst part: “IT COMES IN A BROWN BOTTLE.”

b. A weird lady confessed in a meeting that when she’s stressed out, she locks herself in the restroom and calls her mom to vent. “I wouldn’t admit that in public,” the lady next to me said. “Too many people conduct phone business in the bathroom. I have one friend who I swear, every time I call her, I’m like, ‘Whatcha doing?’ and she goes, ‘Playing Angry Birds on the pot.’” I may have giggled for a really long time over this. The lady who said it has a verrrrrrry thick Southern accent. So please, go back, and read the words “Angry Birds on the pot” like a big old hick. I was also awash in memory, as no one uses “on the pot” anymore. Nor should they, necessarily! But that phrsae was how my family indicated that someone was in the bathroom. “Where’s Dad?” “Oh, he’s on the pot.”

2. ANGRY BIRDS ON THE POT

3. In other news, I have started and abandoned roughly 500 books recently. Sarah Waters’ The Night Watch, Chabon’s Telegraph Avenue (which I LOVED, but I didn’t have time to savor before it was due back at the library), the first 10 pages of The Casual Vacancy, and now I’m about 50 pages into The Chaperone, which I find so dull and predictable it may get me out of my reading rut.

4. I am still in deep, committed love with the VH1 show Couples Therapy. It is possible that I cried during last week’s episode. Look, Alex and her mom!

5. And holy noun, are you people watching Upstairs, Downstairs? What I kind of considered the stepsister of Downton Abbey redeemed itself big time this week! Persie! Beryl! OH MY GOD PERSIE. I’m trying not to be all spoilery, but I did sort of laugh that Agnes was all dusting her hands off and saying “well, moving on” about the whole thing. Also I do not care about Pritchard. I do care about Hallam’s upper lip. I do not care about Caspar Landry’s nylon stockings. I do care about Spargo when he is not wearing a shirt.

6. In Spike news, he dressed as Super Cat Waldo Armstrong for Halloween. If you’d like to dress this way yourself, you will need:

– one (1) Where’s Waldo costume (red striped shirt, red hat, glasses)
– one (1) bow tie left over from that time your day care put on a Black History Month program and you were Louis Armstrong
– one (1) set of cat ears, headband variety
– one (1) superhero cape

And voila! You too can look crazy (and, admittedly, awesome).

I find myself annoyed by the world today. Take this brief quiz and see if these examples irritate you as well.

1. People are putting things into a display case at your workplace and are encountering some trouble.
Person 1: Oh, I don’t think this thing is going to fit.
You: That shelf is adjustable.
Person 1: It’s too bad it won’t fit.
You: That shelf is adjustable.
Person 2: I think I can squish it in there.
You: That shelf is adjustable.
Person 2: Nope, can’t squish it.
You: Do you want me to adjust that shelf for you?
Persons 1 & 2: Yes.

ARE YOU IRRITATED? Y / N

2. Person crossing the street while you’re waiting at a light is jauntily tossing her head from side to side as the wind whips through her hair.

ARE YOU IRRITATED? Y / N

3. You meet gorjus for lunch. He looks at your outfit, laughs, and says, “Aw, it’s mean to make fun of your friends.”

ARE YOU IRRITATED? Y / N

A few months ago, some folks I was eating dinner with were talking about their favorite New Orleans experiences. One lady’s grandmother lived there and she had essentially grown up there, but her favorite memory from childhood was this: she was playing outside, and a limousine drove up. The back window was rolled down, and inside was Truman Capote, smoking a little lavender cigarette. To me, this is a perfect story. Another lady at the table said, “I can do you one better! The first time I went to New Orleans, we saw a naked lady on Bourbon Street!” What? No. Limousine Truman Capote with a Lavender Cigarette trumps a naked lady on the street where one is pretty likely to see a naked lady.

It’s been gnawing at me (the story, not a naked lady…although that would be a better blog post, probably).

I think I’ve read zero books since I posted last. Started a few (Myla Goldberg’s The False Friend, whatever the second Discovery of Witches book is called, Wesley Stace’s Charles Jessold, Considered as a Murderer) but then let them languidly fall from my hand as I fell asleep. I haven’t really watched tv in months, although I DID have strep throat last week, during which time I watched all the tv. My new favorite show is Couples Therapy on VH1. This season (I regret that I missed last season, but I just looked online and I don’t know any of those people anyway) features Alex and Simon from the Real Housewives of New York! And Courtney Stodden and that guy! And besides the train wreck quotient, everyone (besides Courtney) seems to be actually, at least 35%, invested in making their relationships better. Think Rock of Love if Bret Michaels was all “tell me about the lowest point in your relationship” and “how did that make you feel?” and “he’s trying to open up to you here.” In other words, perfect reality tv.

What else has been going on? Let’s see, I took a few more work trips (in one, my suitcase got lost ON A DIRECT FLIGHT and I thought I was going to have to wear the same pair of underwear all weekend…but then I went to Urban Outfitters and bought some cute, but made-for-people-with-different-by-which-I-mean-smaller-butts underwear, as my butt just plain old FALLS OUT of this underwear), I got a divorce, I rearranged every piece of furniture in the house. You need your head to be in the southwest corner of the bedroom in order for love to come to you; don’t you people read feng shui books and assign random importance to the elements that make sense and that are easy to implement? Bowl of mandarin oranges in the foyer: no. Rearranging the bed: yes. So that happened, and lo, now it is over, and lo, now we can all figure out what normal is again. (Spike is doing very well so far; thanks for asking.)

Other thanks: several people wrote me long and awesome emails full of positive thoughts and jokes and offers to visit them at Lake Tahoe over the fourth of July…and I just could not respond. I apologize! Hopefully if you all are reading this you’ll be all “Aww, I TOTALLY forgive Sally” and not “So she could write a blog post but couldn’t write me back? It was TAHOE, hello.” Anyway, thank you for your kind words; words are high on my list and I continue to appreciate yours.

Also, seriously, in what universe does a naked lady trump Truman Capote?

Have you any interest in reading Sadie Jones’s The Uninvited Guests? Is this interest based on your love of all things British-1912-crumbly-country-estate-plus-a-few-ghosts? Well. I found it disappointing — not terrible, as it DID have the elements I enjoy in an airplane book — but basically I just wanted to tell you the best line, which can be found on the last page. Save yourself the hassle of reading the whole thing and enjoy this:

“The spring morning, a tolerably clean house, fresh clothes, love, and four pounds of bacon were to the Torrington-Swifts and their guests the very pinnacle of bliss.”

There! You can cross this book off your list.

It’s possible I’ve already exhausted this story via other social media — that is my biggest internet annoyance, the lack of original content across platforms — but alas, I wore a boa constrictor, and now you’re going to have to read about it.

I went to this superfantasticohmygodwhydidIevengettocometothis conference this week, wherein we were encouraged to think creatively and take risks and generally be washed in the awesomeness of research emporiumship. I had my doubts, but it didn’t take long for me to drink the Kool-Aid. (I had more trouble talking to other Kool-Aid drinkers, but look, this wasn’t a miracle working conference, ok?) Basically we all learned that it’s ok to have a weird idea that makes no sense, because even if you’re not going to go back to your emporium and start a dance troupe or start checking out jars of pickles or something, maybe the pickle idea will lead to another, more sane, more doable idea. So we did a lot of exercises where you think about the stuff that sucks about your workplace, and then you write down the opposite of that, and then you laugh because that is a silly solution, and then you think “hey wait maybe that’s not so funny” and then the world is awesome.

So then there was this portion of the day that was like the Amazing Race, and there were challenges and teamwork and when we dropped the marble in the marble race we didn’t scream at each other, we just screamed YES!!!!!!!! FAILURE!!!!!!!!! and started over and then there was a part where you have to be courageous and besides the boa there were worms, mice, and a tarantula, and then I wore the boa constrictor and it was disgusting and felt like a giant arm but in 90 seconds it was over and now I get to talk about it forever.

There was also a part with an inflatable obstacle course thingie, which was fine until I got to the top and the hose thing fell out, and the obstacle course lost its air, and it folded in on me and I was trapped inside, laughing hysterically. Then it dumped me on the ground, I scraped my elbow, I climbed back in that mofo and then when I came to the end I had to sit and pant for awhile.

In other words, I had a great time. I hope the story about the snake makes up for the fact that I took hardly any notes about my fellow conferencegoers, although I did meet a girl who got vajazzled for her 40th birthday AND a girl who once had a tarantula on her boob. Surely that’s enough for you people.

1. [requisite statement about lack of posting]

2. I am here to endorse a fast-food dessert that may or may not be available in your area. It is the fried lemon pie from Whataburger. At once, this $.99 pod of deliciousness hits several key gustatory high points:
–crunchiness (see also: fried)
–saltiness (crust is a bit buttery)
–creaminess (filling is gooey, not gelatinous)
–sweetness (duh, it’s a fried pie)

3. If you have one of those razors that has the little band of soothing gel or whatever on it, and you also live in an old house with the aggravating Window in the Shower (©1947), please take my advice and do not place your soothing gel razor on the windowsill. Because an extended family of ants will find a way in, and they will think soothing gel razors are delicious, and you will not have your glasses on and will not notice that they are hanging out inside your soothing gel razor until you use it on your armpit, and then you will have ANTS IN YOUR ARMPIT and will scream a little. (This will happen several times before you remember to put the soothing gel razor elsewhere.)

4. I recently read all three of Nora Ephron’s essay collections (Wallflower at the Orgy, Crazy Salad, and Scribble, Scribble) and while all are excellent, Crazy Salad: Some Things About Women had me pretty transfixed. It’s so incredibly modern, and yet the essays were all published between 72-75. There is the famous “A Few Words About Breasts,” which is famous for a reason, and there is a great essay about feminine deodorant spray (which is ridiculous, obviously, but was new then). The essay that really knocked my socks off (is there a dumber expression than that? I hesitated before typing it, but then thought “oh what the hell”) is the one about Deep Throat.

Nora Ephron aficionados know that she was married to Carl Bernstein, Watergate buster, and might think “oh I didn’t realize she wrote an essay about Deep Throat huh whatever,” except she is talking about the pornographic film. I thought it was fantastic that I learned about the plot of a famous porno from an essay written in February 1973. (Look, I like contemporary source material, ok?) All I knew what that there were a lot of blow jobs. What I didn’t know is that the whole conceit is that poor Linda has an unsatisfying sex life and goes to a doctor, who discovers that she’s aight, it’s cool, it’s just that her clitoris is in her throat. I think it is amazing that I lived 39 years on Earth, all concurrent with this movie existing, and did not know this.

5. The other night Spike drew a picture of some corn, like you do. Then he wanted to know how to spell corn. I told him, and he wrote the letters. “Do you want to write another word?” I asked. “Yes,” he said. “How do you spell bathroom?” Then he cracked up. In unrelated news, he calls question marks “mysteries.” I have no plans to correct him.

6. There are some weird and scary vines that have taken over my carport, and yesterday I had a window of time in which to chop them down, only I didn’t know where any garden shears were. Also I know nothing about plants and was concerned it was poison ivy. So I donned some yellow rubber gloves and, armed with some pinking shears, tore that shit UP.