June 30, 2003
King of the river
"Ooh, a rope swing," said Allen, "can we stop?" I immediately caved before his toddlerish enthusiam and we beached our canoe in front of the swing.
First Allen swung. Then a fourteen year old girl swung. Then a six year old girl swung. How hard could it be, I wondered?
Not hard at all, as it turned out. Each time I swung I was able to execute a flawless double backflip or triple gainer into the water, landing with barely a splash. It was truly a triumph. I wish you could have been there.
Posted by didofoot at 03:26 PM | Comments (4)
June 27, 2003
Bolstered by a coffee
I woke up in a great mood this morning. Then I got to work, sat down at my desk, and immediately went to pieces. Went and cried in the stairwell for a while. Washed my face, came back to my desk, immediately went to pieces again. Left again, dripped and sniffled in Nefeli for half an hour. Bolstered by a coffee, I have returned for the third time.
All day, I sit in a corner facing a windowless wall. The carpet is brown and the walls are beige. There's no air conditioning and no air flow and no privacy. My job is to fill out various forms and submit them to various people. If I make a mistake on any of these forms, the entire packet is canceled and returned to me, and I fill out a new packet with the correction. I file copies of these forms in a binder and a folder, and keep three separate records of them online. When I need a break from these forms, I can turn to my office mates for vicious gossip about other Berkeley employees. When I run out of forms to fill out or correct, I check the same three websites obsessively until it's time to leave.
I simply cannot imagine why I can't stop crying.
Posted by didofoot at 10:28 AM | Comments (3)
June 26, 2003
Pedaling through spaghetti
The Man got me down today. Usually I slide through his malarky like a steak knife through salmon, but today, I admit it, friends: I got down.
I have to keep in mind that these people here at Berkeley aren't thwarting me out of some deep-seated need to thwart. They're just people, with puppies and gardens and back pain. If this thing doesn't get done by Monday, sure, I might get in trouble, but I, too, have puppies and gardens and back pain and must remember that Berkeley is just a bad dream that I wake up from every day at 5:00 (or thereabouts).
So today, after hours of misery, I had a choice between helping and being a bureaucratic pain in the ass, and I chose to be helpful. And that made me realize something: I realized that I am a FUCKING SAINT and I do NOT know what is FUCKING wrong with these goddamn people over in the temp office, they can all SUCK IT with their stupid dalmation puppies and dead gardens and hopefully excruciating back pain.
Posted by didofoot at 03:41 PM | Comments (1)
June 24, 2003
FY02-03
It seems silly to care about someone and then never see them again just because you happened to break up, and one of you happened to get your heart broken, and you happen to not be able to see them on the street without bursting into noisy tears.
To this end, I have implemented the annual report program. Under this program, I will make contact with all important ex-boyfriends (the ones I am not currently dating) once a year, in order to present each other with our time expenditure reports, as well as projections for future expenditures.
The link will hopefully lead you to the pie chart which I created for my report. Possibly I messed up and the formatting or data are off. We shall see I guess. For the upcoming fiscal year I predict a lot more time spent with the Lad and some additional daydreaming hours devoted to all the good volunteer work which I could be doing yet amn't.
Posted by didofoot at 04:31 PM | Comments (3)
June 19, 2003
Het up and raucous
If you get too het up and raucous at the racetrack, the chaplain takes your boots until you calm down.
Lord, I think I was born angry. I get hot under the collar about the darndest things. Someone better just take my boots away before I get too far.
Posted by didofoot at 10:29 AM | Comments (5)
June 17, 2003
Spitting Mammals
“I’m really looking forward to being in Spokane with my ex-girlfriend,” said the Lad to me on the tellyphone. “She is taking me to a party on Friday night, and on Saturday we’re going to a pig roast.”
A pig roast, eh? Well, now I am worried. I know how romantic a pig roast can be. The polka music…the star-spangled halter-tops baring skin that is slippery with pig grease…the seductive smell of hog. Why didn’t I ever have the forethought to take him to a party which featured a mammal on a spit? Oh, curse me for a vegetarian fool!
Posted by didofoot at 01:29 PM | Comments (6)
June 13, 2003
Quite a lot of Chinese booze
My cowboy boss told us this story at our staff meeting this morning:
Once there were three Chinese men who were having dinner together and drinking quite a lot of Chinese booze, since that is what happens at a Chinese business dinner. As he was eating and carousing, one of the men thought he saw a frog hiding in the plate of vegetables. However, he assumed he was drunk and ignored it.
Some time later, the same man saw the same frog, only now it was crawling towards him. Before he knew it, the frog had crawled up his spine and was sitting on top of his head! At that moment, the booze overwhelmed the man and he passed out.
When he woke up the next morning, he stumbled to the mirror and looked at himself. To his surprise, he saw a lump on top of his head, with two goggly frog eyes blinking out of the lump.
The man went to a magician, who assured him that he had seen the frog-in-head problem many times before. The magician cast a spell and the frog jumped out of the man's head and hopped away.
Although the man was free of his frog, forever after this his head had a small hollow on the top, which was suitable for holding dipping sauce for his potstickers.
Can anyone tell me, what is the moral of this story?
Posted by didofoot at 11:30 AM | Comments (5)
June 12, 2003
Tardball Rules, if you care
If I've gotten any of these wrong, let me know. From new to old:
1. The Tricky Mark Rule: Mark may switch teams at will. He is not required to announce his allegiance at any point.
2. The Double-Bat Rule: One outfielder may wield a second bat. If the outfielder hits a ball (not necessarily on the fly), the runner must reverse direction. The runner can return to home and bat again when his or her turn comes up, or may continue on to third base. This means there will sometimes be two runners on a base who have come from opposite directions.
3. The Double-Ball Rule: After the batter hits a ball, the pitcher may throw a second ball anywhere to get a runner out. This obviously is not allowed when pitching to your own team.
4. The Tagball Rule: If you throw the ball at the runner and the runner is hit, that runner is OUT.
5. The Bum-Rush Rule: The pitcher can body-block a runner who is running from 3rd to home, in an attempt to prevent the runner from reaching home before being tagged out.
6. THE MOST IMPORTANT RULE: Play tardball, not hardball.
Posted by didofoot at 02:29 PM | Comments (2)
Living alone
Sometimes, I get out of the shower midway through and walk around dripping on things. Just to see what's going on in the rest of the apartment.
You heard it here first.
Posted by didofoot at 12:14 PM | Comments (11)
June 10, 2003
Summer fling or the real thing?
1. When you were out with your crush last night, you got really drunk and blacked out. What most likely happened?
A. Your crush took you to your house, snuck you past your parents, put a basin next to the bed and went home.
B. Your crush made out with you until you vomited on him/her.
C. Your crush took compromising pictures of you and gave them out as party favors at the end of the night.
D. Your crush sold you into white slavery. (Or asian, black, half-black, Indian, or any other kind of slavery. )
2. It's time to plan the most important date of your life: your one-month anniversary with your crush. What best describes this evening?
A. Drinks, dinner, dancing, demure goodnight kiss.
B. Drinks, X-Men II, consensual oral sex.
C. Drinks, drinks, drinks, date rape.
D. Date rape is no joke, you heartless bitch.
3. When you and your crush go back to school in the fall, you know you'll be:
A. Walking each other to every class.
B. Hooking up under the bleachers after all the important basketball games.
C. Glaring at each other across the cafeteria.
D. Changing your phone number.
4. Your crush once told you that you had:
A. the eyes of an angel and the ass of Jennifer Lopez.
B. his/her shirt, and (s)he'd like it back.
C. more than enough money to pay for dinner so quit whining.
D. better shut up before he/she GAVE you something to cry about.
5. My crush most resembles:
A. Didofoot.
B. Didofoot, but not as beautiful.
C. Didofoot, but not as smart.
D. Didofoot, but on opposite day.
RESULTS:
IF you answered:
MOSTLY A's:
You are a fourteen year old girl who still thinks she'll have an orgasm when she loses her virginity. Your crush probably won't stick around past the summer, because whatever WB show you saw him/her on just got canceled. Better luck next time.
MOSTLY B's:
You are a realist. You will remain with this crush for years to come as you both vainly scout around for someone better and finally settle for marrying each other in order to share health care benefits.
MOSTLY C's:
Your crush is probably sleeping with your sibling. Keep him/her as long as you want but get tested regularly.
MOSTLY D's:
If you're dating this person then it's probably because there's no one better in your hometown population of 30. For god's sake hang on to this meal ticket until you can catch a ride to the big city.
Posted by didofoot at 04:15 PM | Comments (3)
June 03, 2003
Bleating in Everyone's Face (A Blogger's Story)
I've been messing up all day. I keep saying the wrong thing and offending people inadvertently.
I know why this is happening. Recently I did something that was, for me, quite pushy and insistent. In fact it was the most forward and least ladylike thing I've ever done and I was and am horrified at myself. I know this will mark my slow change into one of those brash, horse faced women who brays like a mule when she laughs and takes up too much space and makes priest-and-altar-boy jokes. This hoof-in-mouth disease is only the beginning. Ever since I sprouted to this ungainly height (in sixth grade) I've expended an enormous amount of concentration on projecting a graceful, ladylike, decorous image. I determined then that even though I take up acres of physical space, I would endeavor to convince those around me that I was Princess Grace. Up until now I think it was almost working, even though most of the time I feel like a pregnant sheep stumbling around blindly and bleating in everyone's face. But reports from the front assure me that I am being received as silent and mysterious and that my walk, though not exactly Audrey Hepburn in Roman Holiday (my ideal), is nevertheless more sway than bray.
All of that is changing now, though. Now everything I say will be misconstrued. I will begin knocking over table lamps and stepping backwards onto small children. I tell you this now, so that you can be sure to stay well clear of my windmilling arms as I trip over my own bare feet.
Posted by didofoot at 04:12 PM | Comments (4)
