June 28, 2004
Believe...in the magic in the stars
At the Pride Parade on Sunday the woman next to us was smoking all over me. Normally I would just move away from her, but suddenly twenty-four years of speaking quietly and smiling politely and squeezing myself into a tiny space on MUNI so that the guy next to me can sprawl out came bubbling up and I said No! Not today! Today I will fight for my right to breathe the clean, sewer-scented air of this glorious city! Now are you going to move or am I going to have to move you?
Except what I actually did was tap her on the shoulder and ask politely if she would move. Which it turned out she would not. So I sighed and graciously accepted her gift of lung cancer and bad-smelling hair.
A lot of my friends smoke, and I myself have been a smoker from time to time, or anyway I've smoked from time to time, so up until now I have always subscribed to the idea that people have a right to pollute their immediate environment even as people have a right to not pollute it. But why is that true? We don't walk around shitting on the sidewalk (except in this city) so why are we allowed to blow noxious fumes into the air? I'm going to take a stand and say that I'm against it. But due to the magical power of hypocrisy, none of that will stop me from smoking cloves until I'm sick the next time I am drinking.
Posted by didofoot at 11:27 AM | Comments (18)
June 21, 2004
Annual Report: Barbecue with Dan Rather
Watching Clinton on 60 Minutes last night was a lot like seeing an old boyfriend years after you've broken up. Seeing his face glisten with intelligence and honest Arkansas sweat I was overwhelmed by nostalgia, and suddenly I didn't care that he'd been bombing Iraq behind my back for our entire relationship. I just wanted him back.
Like many meetings with exes, the conversation was sort of disappointing. I wanted to hear him talk about the good times we'd had together, like the time he facilitated peace talks between Israel and Palestine, but he just kept on bringing up those tired old sex issues. Monica, Paula, Jennifer, Hilary -- where was America's name on that list, Bill? Don't you care anymore? Don't you miss me like I miss you? You eat barbecue with Dan Rather as if you're just another guy, but I know better. You were the first president I ever had a crush on, even though I knew from the start that our relationship was doomed to end, and you are anything but average.
At the end of the hour, I was a little bit older and a little bit wiser. I know there will be other presidents, but never again will I let myself fall as hard as I did for that squashed-nose, just-folks charmer known as Bill Clinton*.
*and sometimes Bubba.
Posted by didofoot at 10:09 AM | Comments (4)
June 18, 2004
The Girl Was Curiously Bare, or How I Slept With David Foster Wallace
After David Foster Wallace's official talk was over last night, Sean began a humorous deconstruction of Mr. Wallace's performance which would have been the subject of today's blog had I not given him and the Lad the slip and circled back to the book-signing. As Mr. Wallace signed my chest with a magic marker, I asked if he wanted to come back to my apartment for ginger tea. He agreed, so after he was done with the signing I borrowed his coat and took him home with me.
Though I was initially disappointed by his physical thickness, I had fallen in love with him all over again over the course of the lecture because of the barely-concealed hostility he directed toward his fans during the question and answer section, as if his mammoth intelligence was too great for politeness. All that hostility and vocabulary left me with a need to impress him, so as we walked home I groped desperately for something witty to say. "That dog looks like a rat with legs!" I finally said brightly, pointing to a huffing little terrier.
"Rats do have legs," he said, and I maintained a miserable silence for the rest of the walk.
We got back to my studio, where I had taken the precaution of hiding all the pictures of the Lad which are normally crammed onto every shelf and papering the walls. I put the kettle and a shirt on while he examined my bookshelves. "Bottom shelf," I said, "it's alphabetical." He relaxed once he found a few of his own books next to my long line of Edith Wharton.
We drank tea and he told me a great deal about his sexual history. I heard every detail about every woman he's ever slept with, including all the factors in his life which led up to him meeting and seducing these women, all the factors in their lives which led to them meeting and seducing him, and sometimes for a half hour he would talk about someone apparently unrelated to himself or to these women whose story was nevertheless painstakingly recreated for me. He gave me hours and hours of information which I patiently sifted through, trying to find some kind of unifying theory, to draw some satisfying conclusion. Then we had sex but the ending was abrupt and frankly disappointing and I still have no real idea what the point of that conversation was.
I don't know if it's legal slander to say DFW is bad in bed, so let's be clear that the above story is a LIE. After Sean's ridiculous experience I am taking no chances.
Posted by didofoot at 08:57 AM | Comments (2)
June 16, 2004
"Okay," I said, "I will."
"I kind of had this idea you were going to ask me to move in with you when you got back from your trip," I said.
"I am going to ask you," he said.
"Oh," I said, and then I grinned until my face fell off.
Posted by didofoot at 11:30 AM | Comments (11)
June 14, 2004
Infinite Breast
David Foster Wallace is speaking at the Swedish American Hall on Thursday. This is my big chance to seduce him and my planned line is, "Can I be a supposedly fun thing you'll never do again?" I'm counting on Sean to also have some campaign for the attention of David Foster Wallace, as he has experience with these literary celebrities (1, 2), so in addition to this very good line I plan to be topless. I can't let myself get beat by Sean after all.
Posted by didofoot at 12:10 PM | Comments (22)
June 11, 2004
Back to work, back to grants, back to boss, back to boredom: you can't live in the Wood
The Lad came back as planned on Sunday, so now I can shut up about that problem. He is very beardy and I have decided to like it because what are my options, really. And he was so nice about it that time I shaved my head so I feel I owe him a weird hair experiment of his very own.
My professor boss asked me this morning when I am getting married. Up until now I wasn't sure he was aware I had a personal life, or a last name, so this was mildly alarming, but I rallied pretty quickly and said as soon as he cuts himself free of this Jane character I'm ready to go.
NOTE: I have no plans for marriage at this time. In case that was unclear.
Posted by didofoot at 12:47 PM | Comments (12)
June 04, 2004
'Cause she mixes it with love fraud and makes the world taste good
Who can take the sunshine two hundred sixty-five thousand dollar debt
Sprinkle it with dew
Cover it in chocolate and a miracle or two turn it into a positive balance of twenty-two thousand dollars?
The Grants Administrator can.
Posted by didofoot at 01:19 PM | Comments (6)
Two days to go and feeling the strain a little
"I have to go to Munich on Saturday to meet with the guys from that lab," said my professor boss.
"Are you taking Jane?" I asked politely.
"No," he said.
"You guys are all alike!" I said. "You go haring off to Munich and leave your girlfriends waiting in the wings! Well we won't wait forever, you know!"
Pause and raised eyebrows.
"Sorry," I said. "My stuff."
Posted by didofoot at 09:20 AM | Comments (0)
June 02, 2004
Rolled-up newspaper across my toes
The Lad comes home in four days -- almost three days now -- and while from the ankles up I am calm as a toad, my feet cannot be controlled and are flapping excitedly every chance they get. My feet are the untrained puppies of my body.
I'm worried about the readjustment process when he comes back. I know he's been out picking up all kinds of trivia; I'm a little nervous about the geyser of facts heading my way. And I sleep diagonal now; will he want a whole side of the bed to himself? Also, this sex thing -- what is it? Will I like it? I hear it's fun but sticky, like a sushi party at Michele's. Does it involve wasabi? I just don't know.
Posted by didofoot at 03:52 PM | Comments (1)
