July 31, 2002
White Man Tagging
Is blogging just reality TV for nerds? You know my celibacy status and the names of my friends. Who are you people, anyway? Blogging is the most banal graffiti ever and the only way to make it in any way interesting is to lie. Because here is a true fact: anyone who's actually leading an interesting life is too busy to sit down and log it.
I have long believed in the sanctity of journals, ever since I met my best friend Anais Nin. I started keeping a journal in 1999, the same year I dropped out of school, when my life started. But a journal, there's a romance to that, you can carry it in your pocket (if you have enormously large jeans) and scribble in it while your clandestine lovers are in the john, you can write in it on the subway at 4 a.m. on your way home from a secret stalking mission. This is...what, it's public, it's obvious, it's cheap gratification. Unless you lie. Then it's art.
So, as I fail to have an actual interesting life, from here on out it's lies lies lies. You've been warned.
Posted by didofoot at 10:31 AM | Comments (7)
July 30, 2002
Sixteen Days
cel·i·bate n.
One who abstains from sexual intercourse, especially by reason of religious vows.
One who is unmarried.
Usage Note: Historically, celibate means only “unmarried.” Its use to mean “abstaining from sexual intercourse” is a 20th-century development. But the new sense of the word seems to have displaced the old, and the use of celibate to mean “unmarried” is now almost sure to invite misinterpretation in other than narrowly ecclesiastical contexts. Sixty-eight percent of the Usage Panel rejected the older use in the sentence He remained celibate [unmarried], although he engaged in sexual intercourse.
Posted by didofoot at 09:04 AM | Comments (7)
July 29, 2002
1, 2, 3, EVERYBODY!
Trying to work through my listlessness enough to respond to Jacob's wicked cool fiction. Why so listless, though? The weather is also listless, and Maggie tells me I am more influenced by the weather than anyone she knows. I like having this distinction - any superlative is better than nothing. All I strive to be is extremely something.
After I read The Lad's account of his triumph over adversity by the use of his wits and street savvy, I too triumphed in my own way this weekend. In short:
1. Camping in Big Sur, alone for the nonce.
2. Broken tent pole.
3. Leeringly interested sci-fi-loving doughnut-eating neighbor-campers.
4. Used relative sex appeal and tbsp. of charm to convince neighbors to go buy me duct tape in the neighboring town.
5. Campers buy my tape, then fix my tent.
Intrepid? Nope. But at least I am the sleaziest.
Posted by didofoot at 03:50 PM | Comments (8)
July 24, 2002
1000 blank white cards.
Nobody goes to links and I understand that. But if you are my friend and cool, you should go here because I really think we should try this game sometime soon.
Now here's a nice quote from a random site which relates to Devil Bunny Wants a Ham, which I believe (without ever having played or seen it) to be the best game ever:
Alfred brought Devil Bunny Needs a Ham last week, but it didn't get played until this time. It is good fun! You've got to love a game where each player is a group of chefs trying to climb to the top of a skyscraper, while the Devil Bunny, who wants a ham and mistakenly believes that keeping the chefs from reaching the top will get him a ham, is knocking the chefs off the side of the building. The world needs more such games.
Interestingly, if you do a Google search on "Devil Bunny Wants a Ham," I am the third hit.
Zaaaang.
Posted by didofoot at 04:33 PM | Comments (10)
Nobody sees the grannies.
"Come here," said my coworker. "I want to see what size you are."
"Scooby Doo noise of inquiry," I said (mmmrrrruh?) as she grabbed my waist and spun me around so my back was to her. "Fievel squeak of outrage!" I said, as she pulled out the waistband of my skirt so she could peer down at the tag. I mean pulled out the waistband. I could feel the breeze. "Furious blushing," I said, feeling so thankful that I hadn't decided to go thonged or, gulp, commando this morning. One thing I cannot handle is flashing my ass at a coworker before noon. As it was she was treated to a stunning display of my hot pink raggedy-elastic grannywear. Something no one sees, ever, even the Sicilian after seven months of basically living together and all the weird little intimacies that entails. Nobody sees the grannies. It is a cardinal rule.
It's not like this was the dreaded Sexual Harassment. It was more like being a five year old and being manhandled for your own good, like when my aunt used to have to check every morning to make sure my cousin had put on underwear for school. Apparently he had issues with his underwear.
Speaking of, whatever happened to the Michele and Erica plan of starting an underwear company?
Posted by didofoot at 11:07 AM | Comments (28)
July 23, 2002
Here, smell this nail.
Yesterday I saw a pregnant woman walking across campus. I looked at the small, quiet bulge of her stomach and thought about the tiny little fetus floating around in there who was examining her insides with bulging frog eyes and then I thought PARASITE! PARASITE! Eugh.
So I guess that fantasy is over with. Now I'm back to wanting to be the Millers.
I was thinking about changing my site's tagline from Mangio Quello Che Uccido to One Whore's Journey. But as soon as I started thinking that, I stopped dating anyone. I don't miss them but I don't regret them either. Frank played flamenco guitar for me and Manmeat had a very poetic moment where he tried to explain why construction equipment smells good. I've gotten something interesting from everyone I've dated; not always good, but interesting. For example, Melissa gave me one of her paintings, whereas Robert gave me my first yeast infection.
Posted by didofoot at 04:00 PM | Comments (5)
July 22, 2002
Trolls for Freedom, Freedom for Trolls
"Hi," said Frank this morning. "Your hair is dirty."
"Hi," I said, "yes. Thank you."
KA-POW! Shrapnel.
"I'll put it up then," I said. "You've made me nervous about it now."
"Don't be so nervous all the time," he said, "it's fucking annoying." As if I were some squirrelly creature he was constantly having to tame. Though not a Berkeley squirrel, since they are bold as brass.
On Saturday I went to the lovable Millers' house and ogled their animal print hand towels. I had a weird discussion with some people about blogging, but to write about it in detail in my blog would be way too meta.
MATT HOLOHAN, sorry you had to read all of this twice.
And if you are the boy with the fascinating pants from the party, you know, works with Ian? Go here for your props.
Posted by didofoot at 11:56 AM | Comments (6)
July 19, 2002
"Throw her in. Throw her in."
This morning I had three eggs for breakfast, and an english muffin. Then I went to Brewed and had a large coffee. When I got to work, I was hungry again.
"How can this be?" I asked.
"Your coffee ate your breakfast," said Carol. "Happens all the time."
Urgh. I don't like when my food eats my other food.
Later, I was browsing around online, reading various Ain't He Cute stories about parenting and feeling good about my impending pregnancy, when I came across this one. Suddenly I felt so queasy that my coffee puked my breakfast back up into my stomach where it belongs. Hey, at least I have my breakfast back. But now I'm worried. What if I, too, try to throw my child in a hole? If these witty, charming bloggers are bad parents then what chance do I have? I don't even have a college degree! I can't even play piano! I only have three pairs of socks!
I think I should practice on a fake baby (a.k.a. a baby belonging to someone else) before I get started on my real baby (a.k.a. baby belonging to me). So if you have a baby you don't like very much, can you please let me know and I will take it for a few hours and practice not throwing it away? Thank you.
Apologies to Michele, who had to hear and subdue this ranting twice.
Posted by didofoot at 04:15 PM | Comments (2)
July 18, 2002
Toontown
"So," said Kevin Toon, leaning over the remains of his lunch and my barely touched salad, "are you a thong girl or do you just skip underwear all together?"
". . . " I said, watching the spinach dancing in his teeth.
"Tell me, how long does it take you to put your clothes back on?"
"Do you begin all your first dates this way?" I said.
- Fiasco, 1998
Posted by didofoot at 04:53 PM | Comments (1)
Blah blah blah retard.
Last night after baseball, seven of us on the large spinny thing in the playground after dark, laughing hysterically. All I can remember of the conversation, unfortunately, is "Blah blah blah retard! HA HA HA HA! Retard! HA HA! Blah retard blah blah! HOO LORD!" And then Jason, turning to Erica and quietly saying "We are the meanest people to work with retards ever."
And in other newsings...
In his travel term paper, Allen mentioned that there's no good English word to describe someone who you're kind of with, but not, you know, WITH with, but you're sort of...well...
I think he's wrong though. While Ash and Robyn have long favored the vulgar "This is my dick, Ash/This is my cunt, Robyn" approach, I propose something a little mellower: "This is my vibrator, Mallard." And for guys?
Posted by didofoot at 09:11 AM | Comments (13)
July 17, 2002
"American girls are feathers and cream, Coming to bed so edible..."
I took a foot day yesterday and stayed home from work, partly to allow my poor abused heels time to, well, heal (wince), and partly to catch up on my Vanity Fair reading.
So according to Vanity Fair, Oprah Winfrey is one of the 50 most eligible women in the world and Chelsea Clinton is a sex symbol.
It's okay, take some time with this one.
You know, I have a lot of respect for Chelsea just for managing not to take a hot iron to her face during her adolescence. I know there was a "policy" in the "media" not to "comment" on her (those quote marks were annoying, huh?) but was there anyone who didn't hear a "Chelsea is a dog" joke on SNL or Leno? I shudder to think what would have happened if America had gotten a gander at me when I was thirteen. Probably would have grown up to shave my head and pierce my tongue. And stayed like that.
However, no matter how much I respect her - she was at the table during the Israeli peace talks in Camp David, c'mon! What did you ever do? - I still am not to the stage where I plaster my room with posters of her and take quizzes in Seventeen to discover whether I'm her type. Marilyn Monroe, okay, that was a sex symbol. Brad Pitt, like it or not, a sex symbol. And for some of us, so is Anthony Stewart Head.
Am I wrong though? Is America really so grownup that they no longer require their sex symbols to have sex appeal? Are we really just looking for a hot cup of chamomile and a bunion massage? Let's go to the phones...
Posted by didofoot at 04:27 PM | Comments (4)
July 16, 2002
And little imaginary diapers...
Saturday we went and shivered at the beach for awhile: me, Michele, Jason, Erica. Later, we met up with Clinton Jarvis whose name has a funny story behind it, and we went for ice cream. The strange-eyed baby in the booth behind us kept turning around to give us a toothless, gooey grin, until I finally said "I want a baby!" The baby's mother heard me and tightened her lips and her grip on the kid, I suppose because you never know who will turn out to be a snatcher, and my crew looked at me with identically horrified expressions. (Except Clinton Jarvis, who calmly continued eating his ice cream and only scooted his chair a little away from me.)
Well I can't help it. Ever since the family rugrat visited it's all I can think about. All day long I have the imaginary weight of a one year old on my hip. My hair is coated in little imaginary strands of drool, my ears ache from imaginary tantrums, my head hurts from imaginary sleepless nights. Tiny imaginary hands tug on my earrings and little imaginary feet go toddling towards the edge of the pool and I am, in imagination, totally blissed out.
In other non-psychotic-related news, Dan left for the monastery yesterday and The Lad leaves Europe tomorrow. Good luck, guys.
Posted by didofoot at 03:14 PM | Comments (2)
July 15, 2002
In Which I Am Slightly Humiliated
Yesterday I fell. I was climbing around on some rocks as I am wont to do and I ran out of handholds as I am not wont to do (and did not want to do) and I fell, which I never ever do. It was downright embarrassing.
As soon as I had nowhere to put my hand I thought, well, no getting around it, so I pushed a little clear of the rock face and landed pretty well. Mostly on my pride, unfortunately, but my heels also took a good beating. Now, today, they're all swollen and I am playing it up like no tomorrow.
Tomorrow I'm going to see "Insomnia" at the Parkway. Pizza, beer, and Robin Williams beating his wife to death. Last night I saw his uncensored standup routine on HBO and he kept saying "bitches" instead of "women." It's a surreal thing to hear from him, once you've seen "Jumanji."
When asked yesterday what is my heart's desire I chewed thoughtfully for awhile and then said "I'd like my friends to come home."
You hear that?
Posted by didofoot at 01:01 PM | Comments (8)
July 12, 2002
I'm so tired of cowards who say they want...
I'm reading Bee Season. Is that an Oprah book, does anyone know? It's certainly popular enough.
Anyway, the point is it's sucking me in as no book has in a long time. I read for an hour before work this morning and when I finished, my brain had that pleasantly satiated feeling your body gets after a workout. But this is not a hard book. I think it's just the effect of putting all my concentration into one thing; it's an addictive feeling. Maybe I should start concentrating intensely on everything I do. Don't be surprised if, next time you talk to me, I am gazing at you with the single-minded stare of a serial killer.
Yesterday I was talking to that boy MATT HOLOHAN about how Berkeley has become for both of us a minefield of ex-romances. Well last night I stepped on a mine, so if I'm looking a little shrapnel-ish, now you know why. The worst conversation in the history of chat is the "Why why why" conversation. Mind you when it's me getting the boot, I am the master of this talk, and in fact managed to make it last for three months with the Sicilian. Bjork says "If you forget my name, you will go astray like a killer whale choked in a bay." Well, he will never forget me at least. I will live on in his nightmares.
My minefield is laid out like this:
Avoid Brewed Awakening after 9:30 on weekdays.
Avoid the couches at Brewed Awakening every morning.
Avoid Nefeli during the day, and in the evenings on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Avoid Jupiter like the plague.
Avoid Thelassa except on Tuesday and Wednesday nights.
Avoid I-House in the evenings.
Mainly I just cower in my house like a crabbit (props if you get the reference), and frankly that seems to be working out for me. Except for tomorrow when I'm going to Stinson and I'll see you there.
Posted by didofoot at 10:56 AM | Comments (5)
July 11, 2002
Why I Failed Physics
Here's how it went:
Kristen: So you're reading the L'Engle books, eh?
Michele: Yep. I'm up to the ones where Meg and Calvin are grown up and have kids. Seven of them. Holy God.
K: Yeah, later on Meg's mother explains it by saying she thinks Meg didn't want to compete with her on a science level so she had a bunch of kids as a copout.
M: But Meg's mother had four kids, and she won a Nobel prize for discovering farandolae at the same time. You know, those small, friendly creatures who live inside your mitochondria?
K: Right, but Meg's mom was in a pretty stable environment. See, Meg had to be with Calvin on all these remote islands and stuff while he did his science experiments, so she had to home-school the kids a lot.
M: Well couldn't she just live somewhere civilized and wait for him?
K: See I think she had separation anxiety after all those years she spent waiting for her father to come home from that other planet.
M: Oh, yeah. So what happened to Charles Wallace?
K: Oh, he does top-secret missions for the government. Wait, no, that's Denny. Or was it Sandy? Oh yeah, they all do work for the government.
M: Cool.
K: Yeah. Did you get to the part yet where they regrow that girl's arm using research on the regenerative abilities of starfish?
M: Wow, science is so keen.
K: Yeah, and just think: none of it would be possible without the man upstairs.
M&K: Thank you, God!
M: Wanna try and fold space in half so we can go see other planets?
K: Neat!
Posted by didofoot at 02:43 PM | Comments (21)
July 10, 2002
Squeak-squeak-squeak!
The nightmares are back.
There was a hiatus there of several months when they hardly showed up and my dreams were wan, tepid little scenes from my daily life. I found that despite the unpleasantness of waking up in fear all the time, I actually missed them. My nightmares are usually intense productions with plots, characters and vivid sensory details. They generally feature rape, molestation and pursuit by nefarious men; stabbing, hand fighting and war; and sometimes all of those together.
Last night they returned in a tsunami of scary stuff and the theme this time was ghosts, which was a new one. All night I kept waking up and falling back into dreams of ghost infestations in various houses which I had to fight off. These were the scary, Sixth Sense-type ghosts too. The worst was when one of them came up and put his hands on my chest to copp a feel. I don't know why but this made me absolutely frantic with fear. I woke up about to scream, but luckily turned it into a mellow squeak-squeak-squeak! instead.
Don't worry, this won't become a catalog of nightmares. I would never try to compete with the doyenne of dream journals.
Baseball tonight! And the temperature looks to be spiking at 104 degrees again. Man, does the fun ever quit?
Posted by didofoot at 01:30 PM | Comments (14)
July 09, 2002
We screamed all over Italy.
Last night I dreamt I was driving a red convertible through Italy. I was driving along perilous cliffs overlooking Tuscan villages and the Mediterranean. These landscapes are jumbled in my mind due to the long (long, long, long) day and night I spent driving across Italy with my parents last April, the night there was no room at the Inn. We managed to be in Italy during their version of Memorial Day, and every hotel room in every city was booked. Seriously. We went through every major city and tiny township in the country, and everywhere we heard the same thing: Completo! At one point we were all so zooey that my parents actually let me drive. Unfortunately, I was zooey too, and started hallucinating strange road signs where there were none. We finally wound up sleeping in the car on a side street in Pisa.
Later, in Alassio, a charming seaside resort town where we were served fresh tirimisu every morning, I told my new friends about the night we were driving around Italy. "Abbiamo gridato dappertutto l'Italia," I said. They - a group of high school boys, smack my wrist - all stopped in the middle of the pier and turned to me incredulously. "Che?"
"Abbiamo gridato dappertutto l'Italia," I said, making little "turning the steering wheel" motions.
"Ohhh," they said. "Guidato. 'Abbiamo gridato' means 'We screamed.'"
Other linguistic gems from that trip included asking for the tree instead of the hotel and the map instead of the bill.
Posted by didofoot at 02:08 PM | Comments (4)
July 08, 2002
Okay, okay...
I will add comments. But as soon as I get a life that doesn't involve staring at a screen 35 hours a week, they are coming down.
* * * * *
The map above my desk displays the Barbarian Migrations circa 300 A.D. The barbarians were divided into Goths, Vandals and Franks, all of whom I have dated at one time or another. (Goths: Kenny, Vandals: Robert, Franks: well, Frank.) I call it the map of the Boyfriend Migrations. Just thought y'all would enjoy that.
Posted by didofoot at 11:40 AM | Comments (13)
July 07, 2002
Little feet make my womb go squish...
Welcome my little olives and peanuts! Welcome to the new, improved Carthage. Let us take a moment to be very, very grateful to The Lad for delivering us from the horror and inanity which is MS Word's HTML template.
Speaking of inanity, isn't it time I updated?
This holiday weekend was spent currying favor with the extendo family. Mainly I ran around after my nearly-two year old cousin Nolan, trying to keep him from falling in the pool, tumbling off stairs or biting the dog. (Gentle dog; wicked child.) I love this kid. It makes me want one, except of course there's no guarantee that mine would turn out quite so well. To that end, I'm willing to purchase one if he has all his papers and is toilet trained, with an option to sell once the kid hits thirteen.
Saturday morning we all gathered in front of the waterfall at Joaquin Miller park in Oakland for formal pictures. An hour and a half later, my face was frozen into a perma-grin with every last one of my lovely teeth on display. I look like the Joker. All my descendants will ask why Grandma kept snarling in pictures.
And now that I've spent nearly two hours indoors on a lovely day like today, I'm going to go outside and turn myself into a tomato. See y'all soon. Not you, Allen.
Posted by didofoot at 01:59 PM
July 03, 2002
I miss Maggie.
Last night I dreamt about the pool my babysitter used to take us to in the summers. One summer we - all twelve kids - discovered a very welcome surprise there: a little girl from another (rival) babysitter who actually wanted to hang out with us. In other words, a torture victim. We spent what seems in memory the entire summer hanging out in the grassy picnic area behind the pool, out of sight of adults, tormenting this poor child. One day we told her we all had evil twins. Then we left, and came back as our twins, and talked trash about our other selves. Left again, came back, demanded to know what the evil twins had said. Then, when she had betrayed the confidence of each and every evil twin, we revealed the startling truth - no twins at all! Just us all the time! Mwah ha ha ha ha! Another time we performed a ritual using her doll. Just give it to us, urged Wendy, later known as Wendy the Wicked. We won't hurt it. During the sacrifice the doll was accidentally broken. Um, said Wendy the Wicked, thinking fast, Okay, close your eyes and count to twenty and when you open them your doll will be magically fixed. As soon as she closed her eyes, we all booked it out of there of course.
Look, I'm not proud of it.
Come on, like you were a perfect child?
Oh, shut up.
Posted by didofoot at 12:00 PM | Comments (0)
July 01, 2002
I miss i-s-s-i-p-p-i.
Welcome to July! I’ll be your blogger today, unless you get bored halfway through and click on one of my fabulous links. Our specials for today include hundred degree weather for those of you sitting in the East Bay, and for those of you seated abroad we have a fantastic California Nostalgia plate that’s sure to knock your socks off. The heat will replenish itself automatically but for free refills on the nostalgia you’re going to have to call me, The Lad.
Here’s my weekend: Michele and I went to a dive bar in Oakland to hear Ian’s band play. For more detail check out Michele’s site. I will just say: nice going, Miller. Also, why is it called a dive bar? People always say that like there are a set of criteria that everyone knows. Big points to anyone who can list these criteria for me. Is it criterium? Whatever. No points at all to anyone who corrects my Latin.
Is it Latin? Aw shit.
Saturday I saw Minority Report. I’m with Jacob on the “mixed bag” review, if by “mixed bag” you mean “riddled with plotholes and idiocies to rival a James Cameron film.” I will refrain from my rant however, because the only thing that will rectify the fact that I spent $8-fucking-.75 to see it is the rest of you following suit.
Also faltered in my heretofore steadfast resolve and called the Sicilian on his birthday. See previous entry re: bag of hammers. Luckily he wasn’t home, unluckily I left a message, luckily he didn’t call back, unluckily I think he reads this. And if he does: Sorry about that, please ignore it, although the Happy Birthday part stands.
I’m tired of blogging. I’m also curious how many people actually read this. Eight points and five dollars* to anyone who sends me an amusing Fourth of July anecdote I can post.
*Except the five dollars. Sucker.
Posted by didofoot at 12:00 PM | Comments (0)
