Queen Mediocretia of Suburbia

Marcia Moves

Marcia (see here) has finally moved into the spacious, gracious condo she has struggled to bring into the world. I stopped by ("just for a minute") and discovered an addled, shaking shell of a friend that only vaguely resembled Marcia. Marcia immediately reminded me she had not invited me over and what was I doing there? Unloading a few boxes in the hopes of seeing her porn, I answered.

I never found the secret porn stash. What I un-boxed were dozens (literally dozens) of candle holders and candles and candle accessories. I began by asking Marcia where she wanted the candles, or her dog's supplies, or the Tupperware...but sadly Marcia just stared at me blankly and then would murmur something like "In the, um, there by the thing there." Then she would try really hard to make a sentence. So cute. She'd start out fine. "Put it in ... oh, photos...See? See me. I was a baby." 

At first she was the walking dead, moaning in agony about her feet and general exhaustion, then I turned around and there she was in the middle of the kitchen sitting on a cooler and looking at me as if to say "Do I know you? Why are you in my kitchen?" I had been working my way down the kitchen counter making executive decisions about where things should go and demanding she pitch valuable family heirlooms. I was getting more and more concerned that she might be permanently confused, so I tried to make her focus by being more animated myself, so we would not lose her. I grabbed things and tossed them about. I grabbed a cunning little white candle that was inside a cut-glass tumbler.

"Oh look! ANOTHER candle" I whooped, tossing my arms apart expressively. I was almost ready to pound on her chest a la ER. ( "Stay with us Marcia! Damn it, don't you leave yet.")

"Milk" she said distractedly.

She had been saying random words, so I just thought this was another rambling, until I noticed there was considerably less white candle in the cunning cut-glass tumbler.

So I got a dishcloth and wiped up the milk as she laughed at me. "Oh!" she said with a scary spacey giggle, "Oh, I am so going to blog this."

Yeah, well girl, you don't have a DSL connection, and you won't until Friday. So HA. 

Because "Pathetically Competitive" just isn't a good hitman name

Smuggler People Iced: Thirteen Car Bombs Planted: Sixteen Favorite Weapon PVC Pipes Arms Broken: Seventeen Eyes Gouged: Twenty Four Tongues Cut Off: Twelve Biggest Enemy: The Impailer Get Your HITMAN Name

Yeah, bitches - specifically The Black Angel.  Seventeen arms broken, twenty-four eyes gouged out (I'm a two handed gouger so I always get the even numbers) and twelve tongues cut off.  "The Impailer" [sic] and other poor spellers should watch out. Nobody generates random profiles like me!

Perfection

If only they had Makeup Application as an Olympic Sport.

Sasha Cohen? Gold medal.

Sasha Cohen

10 Technical, 10 Artistic

Gary and I were watching the Women's Short Ice Skating program when he went behind me into the kitchen to get some toast. A few minutes later, the toast popped up (and out on to the wood floor, because that's how we indirectly get toast crumbs to the dogs) and I  heard:

thump  thump thump Thump THump THUMP THUMP THUMPTHUMP

- Gary whooshed past me and sock-skidded up to the tv, where he did a little ice pirouette.

A Day in Which I Work With My Hands

Ear-Hand coordination failed me today, but Eye-Hand coordination stepped in.

I played "Maggie May" TWENTY-ONE times today according to iTunes. Sounded great while the microphone was not on. Mic on - not a single good take.  Also, I need to stop listening to rock. It's just too damn fast.  You damn kids! (Shakes imaginary cane in air.)

Then I switched to Mr. Tambourine Man. Easy. I can play this with great poignancy on my own. The Byrds, however, play it peppy. (Damn Byrds. Shakes cane at imaginary Byrds.) Then, genius hit me. Bob Dylan did Mr. Tambourine Man! Buy that on iTunes! Kick Bob Dylan's druggie ass!  Sadly, he covered it during his lively articulate phase, not his slow stoned mumbling phase.  I tried to think of other slow ponderous yet rocking musicians and could not.

Then I switched to taking apart Mom's crippled Roomba, which according to the description on the Web had a broken O-Ring (really).  Gutted it. Looked at the O-Rings. Both healthy. Put it all back together and tried it again. Even more spastic than before. Then I noticed a piece of masking tape on the side, peeled it off, tried again and the Roomba had a miraculous recovery. Straight as an arrow.

Clearly my destiny is spelled out for me. Slow Country (shudder) guitarist and Roomba repairwomen. This is sad, because I did enjoy being a computer programmer.

Someday this Will be a Rarities Track

Okay - this is me, picking. Trying oh SO hard to rock my way into Day Tripper. I get it right, finally, but then I blow it again.

Download finally.mp3

Soon - clean, without distortion, keeping up with a song. And then perhaps some power chords.

Listen with pity. Remember its been less than two months.

Big House 2/14

Gary reported a Big House Dream this morning. He reported it because it was still haunting him. Doug, Mac, Gary and I were in the Big House, and the Big House in this particular dream had many rooms and doors that connected, and each room had a window that showed the adjacent rooms as well as doors. Gary said Mac and I were there but we were not in danger, but he was. Doug was not himself in danger but he was walking all through the hallways and starirways of the big dark empty house, in a ghostly fashion, as Gary grew increasingly sure something was stalking him. So Gary started locking all the doors, to escape the vague thing that was after him and no one else. He reported the creepiest thing was the way Doug kept emerging in the hallways and Gary could see Doug, but that Doug was oblivious to the horror in the house.

What happened on this day to provoke this dream? Well, it was Valentine's Day. Gary called his Mom, and she couldn't believe we had spent 23 Valentine's Days together. Plus, one of the higher-ups at work was fired for the failure of a project that Gary was going to be responsible for. He said all he had at work now was responsibility.

Gary fears something that the dogs and I cannot be harmed by. Monogamy? Age? Responsibility? Or perhaps illness, since Doug is our sickly dog.

The Refined Tastes of My Husband

I went to Ken's birthday party this past weekend. He is now eighty-one.  We got him a cane. Very high-tech. Very Top-of-the-Line.  Surprisingly, he accepted it and promised to use it, instead of using his preferred method of coping with balance problems: "Tuck and Roll."

We were a little concerned when we walked in because Mr. and Mrs. Wonderful had brought in an enormous gift bag crammed full of a big gift.  Ken reached in to the gift bag and pulled out:  Charmin Ultra Bathroom Tissue. This is also Gary's preferred tissue. Knowing the S________ standard of gift buying I piped up "Oh, is that on sale?" And No, it Was Not On Sale. This toilet paper is so good they bought it FULL PRICE.

Gary is very particular about his bathroom tissue. He is a connoisseur of toilet paper. I discovered the refined tastes of my husband's rectum about five years ago. (I am strongly considering re-wording that last sentence.) I made the horrible mistake of bringing home Angel Soft tissue, since it was on sale. Shock and disgust. Paper not good enough to wipe his ass, literally. He had me dance the toilet paper-purchasing dance, in which I bought a variety of tissues that he tried and dismissed as "Sandpaper!" and "Flimsy" and "Two Ply! I need Two Ply!" Finally we hit on Northern, and that was the preferred paper, until we were seduced by the promises of Charmin Ultra. Charmin Ultra with Lanolin, Vitamin E, and Aloe.  You could eat this paper. They should put a nutritional information label on this paper. I was in particular seduced by the Charmin Ultra Mega Roll. Four Rolls in One! Change the paper 75% less often. This is key because: 1) Gary doesn't ever put the new paper on the holder and 2) Gary's mom taught him very strange bathroom habits.

I'm not complaining too bitterly because she taught him to take tissue and wipe down the vicinity of the toilet after he urinates. This is great. And he puts the seat down. Fabulous. Great job with Number One. But she also instilled in him a great fear of  the Number Two. It must be flushed as soon as possible. Any molecule that comes out must be tided up immediately with a giant protective mitten of tissue, then flushed before it can, I don't know, climb back. This makes Gary flush, oh, about 20 times per visit. People comment.  When I've pointed out to Gary that his behavior is odd, he claims my behavior is odd. He protests, "Yeah, well, you let them sit there. You NAME yours. You wave goodbye when you flush." This is an exaggeration.

At any rate, it's so curious that the legendarily cheap Ken got the top-of-the-line tissue. I'll be watching to see if that tissue is still in the bathroom after a few months.

The Lethargy of the Penguins

Let me begin by relating a tale Gary told me after he returned from his parent's yesterday. It seems the garbage disposer is not disposing of garbage at the in-laws. It runs, but doesn't chop. Gary had a banana peel he wanted to dispose of, and his mom stopped him before he put it in the sink.

"Oh, I'm sorry," he said " I forgot. I'll just throw it away."

Wilma said, "No, don't throw it away. Here's how we do." Then she threw the banana peel in the sink into a basket covering the garbage disposer, then she took the basket and emptied it into the trash. Then she ran the water, then she turned ON THE garbage disposer. When Gary pointed out all the obvious flaws in this process, she just shook her head and said, "That's how we do it."

Granted, she is almost eighty, and when a family has been disposing of the garbage a certain way for at least thirty years it might be hard to adjust. I thought of Wilma and the ritualistic processing of the intangible banana peel when I watched March of the Penguins last night.

We watched the penguins (nowhere near as cute as pandas) mate, lay eggs, mourn frozen eggs, march seventy miles, march back, and trade off baby penguins (still nowhere near as cute as baby pandas) and we were supposed to be awed by the resilience of the penguin spirit. And, by extensions, I guess, of the human spirit.

"Huh." I said at the end. "That got an Academy Award nomination?"

I thought Gary had been caught up in the movie because he would bay like a mourning penguin over dead chicks. Instead Gary said "Yeah. Haven't these people ever watched Nova?"

Then we started questioning why we didn't fall in love with this movie. I pointed out that I knew that for every cute baby penguin flapping its wings in a triumphant victory wave there were 50 hours of unused footage of baby penguins being pooped on by Mr. Penguin. And we do think it's sweet that Mr. and Mrs. Penguin make a heart shape with their heads because they are in love. But really, couldn't that just be from a mutual desire to eat the babies?

We decided if we were penguins, we would wave goodbye to the other birds waddling seventy miles inland to Ice Station Penguin. "You go guys" we would call. "Have fun up there. We'll hold down the fort here where the food is."

"But don't you want to lay eggs and protect them from predators and starve for three months?" they would honk.

"No" we'd honk back. "Have some extra eggs for us." Then if they pressured us to go, we'd "accidentally" let the eggs roll off our feet, bellow, and sigh, "well, so much for this year. Time to head back to the food. Later." We might show some affection for niece penguins.

Get those penguins some birth control. Maybe after a few generations the march urge would fade. Or would it be like Wilma: for generations, will S_____s still be disposing of food that is not really in an empty garbage disposer? I am so glad I am not stuck in a black-and-white penguin pattern.