Thursday, February 28, 2008

Beijing National Stadium


This here is the stadium China built for the upcoming Olympics that they're going to be hosting in Beijing. TELL me the architect didn't get his inspiration from a packet of raman noodles.


I can totally picture it: it's the night before the design is due, and he has yet to come up with an idea for the Olympic committee. He heats up water in his hotpot, and as he's about to drop in the dried brick of raman, he looks at it and thinks, eureka! or, because he's Chinese, 尤里卡!











Jars of Unnecessary Exposition

I'm reading this book right now called Illuminated by Matt Bronleewe. He was one of the dudes from Jars of Clay. I didn't pick up the book because I'm a Jars of Clay fan (what with me being a soul-sucking godless freak destined to spend eternity frying in hell - I also use this excuse for my dislike of The Dave Matthew's Band). I picked this particular book because of the extensive praise it received.

"...this rare breed of suspense thriller combines mysterious hidden clues, secret societies, buried treasure, double agents, and the Knights Templar...if you turned National Treasure into international treasure, traded Da Vinci codes for Gutenberg Bibles, married it to Indiana Jones, and added the pacing of 24 you'd be in the neighborhood of Illuminated...on a scale of one to 10, this one goes to 11."
- Aspiring Retail Magazine

Well, that's pretty much what happened. The main character's family is held hostage so that the main character, August Adams (wife's name is April Adams - creepy month people) can decode three different pictures in each of three different Gutenberg bibles. The woman holding August hostage on an airplane gives him a one hour time limit (even though the ride is several hours long), and despite this limitation, he and his captor still take time out to have lengthy intellectual conversations - exposition.

Meanwhile, at the homestead, April is on the run from maniacal FBI agents who are actually part of a secret organization called The Order of the Dragons. She also has a Gutenberg. While creeping along an underground tunnel to escape, she and her fellow fugitive take moments out to discuss deep issues. The history behind the presence of said underground tunnels, for instance.

All this decoding, running, time limiting and expositioning all to uncover the lost secret of The Order of the Dragons, who are competing with a rival cult, The Orphans, for the same secrety which COULD CHANGE THE WORLD.

Dun dun dun.

As much as I hate to say this, even Da Vinci Code was more original than this. Or better yet, Dan Brown's other piece, Angels and Demons. I am not a Dan Brown fan, nor is adventure my primary genre.

But come on, Matt Bronleewe!

Furthermore, the plot is eerily similar to one of Johnny Depp's lesser known movies, The Ninth Gate, which was, I must say, quite entertaining, albeit anticlimactic. Depp's character has been charged with comparing the illustrations in different copies of a book entitled The Ninth Gate in order to discover a secret.

Sound familiar?

Again, at the risk of soundin redundant, come on, Matt Bronleewe!

I've got a feva'

While I can appreciate a good cowbell sketch as much as the next girl, I still think Rowlf and the Swedish Chef kicked ass. I crack up every time.


This also makes me laugh. Who doesn't laugh at the B-52's? It was a dog fish...chased by a cat fish, followed by a sea robin...la la la la la la la



And I love the fact that I can play all this shit for my sister, and since she didn't grow up in the eighties, she doesn't get it. Strangely, that doesn't make me feel old, it makes me feel superior.

Word to your motha.

Sunday, February 24, 2008

karma update II


I think I need to clarify an earlier post. I know what karma is. I know it's what you do and how you handle situations. I don't think that finding a sparkly diamond ring on the train is an act of karma, but rather, when things like this happen to me, it's because my karma has been on the right track, and I'm being rewarded. Similarly, if something bad happens to me, it's because I haven't been trying hard enough to be a good person, and doing all that I can, so bad things happen.

If it makes you feel any better, the diamond ring is a bit too small, so I'm either going to have to get it resized, or sell it.

Actually, the good karma thing to do would be to post a notice saying that it was found, and see if the owner comes to claim it.

Damn. And just when I thought I was getting ahead of the game, I realize this is actually a test.

In the face of devestation...


Arnold finds a toy to play with. The real reason he ran for office?

Jazz hands!

Karma update

My fiance found a diamond ring (real!!) on the train as we were traveling upstate for the weekend. It's soooo sparkly.

Sweet.

Greetings from deep within the abyss

Greetings , fellow night dwellers. Recall, if you can, from deep within time's memory, a simpler time, a time when we took ourselves far too seriously, a time of black eye shadow, black lipstick, victorian clothing and screams of torment. A time when a woman named Siouxsie was the only one who understood us, and our desire to wear crevats.

Join us in revelry as we recall our hero in dalmation fur. Banshee with us, for Siouxsie.

Friday, February 22, 2008

How could I not be cool with this?


I am so going to wear this when I go to my 14 year-old sister's high school to visit. Her friends will all think I'm awesome!

Playground, after school! You're dead!

In third grade, a girl named Ismari told me to meet her in the playground after school so she could beat me up. She didn't like me. Apparently, my hair and clothes grossly offended her. Anyhoo, that was pretty much the last time anyone threatened to harm me.

Until today.

After lunch, I felt like my kidneys were trying to climb out up through my throat, so I decided to take advantage of our staff bathroom, which, I must say, is quite lovely. It has flowers on the counter. That's what you get for working with thirty other women.

I go to the bathroom, knock on the door.

"Someone's in here," come an unfamiliar voice from inside. All right, I think, it's either a temp or it's a patient. Either way, I'll go back to my desk and wait for her to get out.

As I'm walking away, I hear her say, "Um, what was I saying? Oh yeah..."

I couldn't believe it. Some bitch was in there, using the bathroom, the only staff bathroom, as an office for a phone call.

I went back to my desk, stopping on the way to ask my manager if she thought it was out of line if, when I go back to see if she's still in there, to say that if she's not using the bathroom for evacuative purposes, she should vacate so that others may use it for which it was intended. My manager said I was absolutely within my right to say this, so, ten minutes later, when I still hadn't seen the stranger come out, I went over and knocked on the door again.

"Someone's in here," she said again.

"If you're not using the bathroom to go to the bathroom, you should vacate so that those who need it can use it," I inform her.

"Do you know what I'm doing in here?"

"Yeah, I heard you on your cell phone earlier."

"I'm using the bathroom to make an important phone call."

Okey dokey. I went back to my desk and sat down to wait.

Ten minutes later, I hear the bathroom door open and one of the temps from one of the other doctor's offices comes walking by. It's the temp from one of the other doctors. She stops at my desk and stares at me.

"Was that you knocking on the door?" she demanded.

"Yes, it was," I reply.

"You were really rude," she informed me.

"Thank you,"I respond, smiling.

"If you wanna take this outside of work, I'll take this outside of work," she states, neck swaying with divaliciousness, side to side.

Message delivered, she sauntered back to her office down the hallway.

My manager, who happened to be standing right there, turned to me and asked, "What did she just say to you?"

I repeated the temp's statement.

"I'm going to say something," my manager reassures me, and commences to speak with several people, all of whom ask me to repeat what transpired.

Within twenty minutes, the temp's assignment has been terminated.

Now, I firmly believe in kharma. Somewhat hypocritically, since I have a difficult time believing in God, but I see nothing wrong in trying to do the right thing. I've been wondering since this transpired, is this going to count for, or against my kharma.

Oh, drama.

Thursday, February 21, 2008

Stupidest dog accessory evr

I live in a city full of people who don't know what to do with either their money or their time, so they spend both taking their tiny little doggies to doggy spa's, doggy restaurants, doggy-sitters, doggy vacations, etc.

I found this on asylum.com. It made my eye twitch.



The JooZoo Doggie MP3 Player

The JooZoo uses mp3s to soothe your pet, who had a taxing day lying around farting. It comes with 18k gold and diamonds to prove once and for all that your excessive money problem is nothing a solid coke habit wouldn't solve. Available in Korea for only $2,000 suggested retail.

Mr. Rogers

**I didn't write this. I got it from the mental_floss.com, the best website for smart people. I wanted to share it, because it made me cry.


15 Reasons Mister Rogers Was the Best Neighbor Ever by Mangesh - May 23, 2007 - 1:52 PM
Back when I was in 7th grade I stood up in front of my English class and delivered a tongue-in-cheek, poorly researched presentation on why I thought Mister Rogers should be the next President. I ate up the first few minutes zipping up my cardigan, and putting on some sneakers, and then I proceeded to mock him roundly. It was a riotous success. Fourteen years later, I’m using this post to repent. The following are 15 things everyone should know about Fred Rogers:

1. Even Koko the Gorilla loved himMost people have heard of Koko, the Stanford-educated gorilla who could speak about 1000 words in American Sign Language, and understand about 2000 in English. What most people don’t know, however, is that Koko was an avid Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood fan. As Esquire reported, when Fred Rogers took a trip out to meet Koko for his show, not only did she immediately wrap her arms around him and embrace him, she did what she’d always seen him do onscreen: she proceeded to take his shoes off!

2. He Made Thieves Think TwiceAccording to a TV Guide piece on him, Fred Rogers drove a plain old Impala for years. One day, however, the car was stolen from the street near the TV station. When Rogers filed a police report, the story was picked up by every newspaper, radio and media outlet around town. Amazingly, within 48 hours the car was left in the exact spot where it was taken from, with an apology on the dashboard. It read, “If we’d known it was yours, we never would have taken it.”

3. He Watched His Figure to the Pound! In covering Rogers’ daily routine (waking up at 5; praying for a few hours for all of his friends and family; studying; writing, making calls and reaching out to every fan who took the time to write him; going for a morning swim; getting on a scale; then really starting his day), writer Tom Junod explained that Mr. Rogers weighed in at exactly 143 pounds every day for the last 30 years of his life. He didn’t smoke, didn’t drink, didn’t eat the flesh of any animals, and was extremely disciplined in his daily routine. And while I’m not sure if any of that was because he’d mostly grown up a chubby, single child, Junod points out that Rogers found beauty in the number 143. According to the piece, Rogers came “to see that number as a gift… because, as he says, “the number 143 means ‘I love you.’ It takes one letter to say ‘I’ and four letters to say ‘love’ and three letters to say ‘you.’ One hundred and forty-three.”

4. He Saved Both Public Television and the VCRStrange but true. When the government wanted to cut Public Television funds in 1969, the relatively unknown Mister Rogers went to Washington. Almost straight out of a Capra film, his 5-6 minute testimony on how TV had the potential to give kids hope and create more productive citizens was so simple but passionate that even the most gruff politicians were charmed. While the budget should have been cut, the funding instead jumped from $9 to $22 million. Rogers also spoke to Congress, and swayed senators into voting to allow VCR’s to record television shows from the home. It was a cantankerous debate at the time, but his argument was that recording a program like his allowed working parents to sit down with their children and watch shows as a family.

5. He Might Have Been the Most Tolerant American EverMister Rogers seems to have been almost exactly the same off-screen as he was onscreen. As an ordained Presbyterian minister, and a man of tremendous faith, Mister Rogers preached tolerance first. Whenever he was asked to castigate non-Christians or gays for their differing beliefs, he would instead face them and say, with sincerity, “God loves you just the way you are.” Often this provoked ire from fundamentalists.

6. He Was Genuinely Curious about OthersMister Rogers was known as one of the toughest interviews because he’d often befriend reporters, asking them tons of questions, taking pictures of them, compiling an album for them at the end of their time together, and calling them after to check in on them and hear about their families. He wasn’t concerned with himself, and genuinely loved hearing the life stories of others. Amazingly, it wasn’t just with reporters. Once, on a fancy trip up to a PBS exec’s house, he heard the limo driver was going to wait outside for 2 hours, so he insisted the driver come in and join them (which flustered the host). On the way back, Rogers sat up front, and when he learned that they were passing the driver’s home on the way, he asked if they could stop in to meet his family. According to the driver, it was one of the best nights of his life—the house supposedly lit up when Rogers arrived, and he played jazz piano and bantered with them late into the night. Further, like with the reporters, Rogers sent him notes and kept in touch with the driver for the rest of his life.

7. He was Color-blindLiterally. He couldn’t see the color blue. Of course, he was also figuratively color-blind, as you probably guessed. As were his parents who took in a black foster child when Rogers was growing up.

8. He Could Make a Subway Car full of Strangers SingOnce while rushing to a New York meeting, there were no cabs available, so Rogers and one of his colleagues hopped on the subway. Esquire reported that the car was filled with people, and they assumed they wouldn’t be noticed. But when the crowd spotted Rogers, they all simultaneously burst into song, chanting “It’s a wonderful day in the neighborhood.” The result made Rogers smile wide.
A few other things:


9. He got into TV because he hated TV. The first time he turned one on, he saw people angrily throwing pies in each other’s faces. He immediately vowed to use the medium for better than that. Over the years he covered topics as varied as why kids shouldn’t be scared of a haircut, or the bathroom drain (because you won’t fit!), to divorce and war.

10. He was an Ivy League Dropout. Rogers moved from Dartmouth to Rollins College to pursue his studies in music.

11. He composed all the songs on the show, and over 200 tunes.

12. He was a perfectionist, and disliked ad libbing. He felt he owed it to children to make sure every word on his show was thought out.

13. Michael Keaton got his start on the show as an assistant– helping puppeteer and operate the trolley.

14. Several characters on the show are named for his family. Queen Sara is named after Rogers’ wife, and the postman Mr. McFeely is named for his maternal grandfather who always talked to him like an adult, and reminded young Fred that he made every day special just by being himself. Sound familiar? It was the same way Mister Rogers closed every show.

15. The sweaters. Every one of the cardigans he wore on the show had been hand-knit by his mother.

I can’t sign off with out citing: Tom Junod’s wonderful profile of Fred Rogers and his obituary for him. They are two of the most lovely pieces I’ve (re)read in a very long time. Our researcher Kara Kovalchik also deserves credit for digging them up on an internet archive located here.

And on a lighter note...

Because I can appreciate the lighter side of my short-sighted ancestors...

Thank God! I was thinking I would have to start seriously consider taking ipecac.



Look at the expression on her face. I don't think ketchup was really what she was thinking about. Or, maybe she's a food fetishest.



And by Camel, they mean weed.


You can never get them too young.


Yesterday's Thorazine, today's Haldol. Drug 'em up good, Doc. Make 'em incompetant so I can get a judge to give me power of attorey. Reno, here I come!

The root of misogyny


This morning, as I was watching the news while I got dressed, a video came on of a woman who had been arrested in Shreveport, Louisiana. She was being held in an interview room by one male officer. There was a camera taping the episode.

The woman was getting combative, and the officer was manhandling her probably more than he needed to. Then, he walks towards the camera, and shuts it off.

Minutes later, the camera turns back on. The officer has a smirk on his face, and at first you don't see the woman. Then, slightly out of frame, on the bottom, is a pool of blood, and then you see the crumpled form of the woman.

Pictures were taken of the woman's face. Two black eyes, a bunch of broken teeth. The cop claims she fell. He was fired, but his union is backing him, saying it's entirely possible to sustain such extensive injuries in a fall.

Then I got to work, and I came across this article about the ads of yesteryear from asylum.com. The gross misogyny displayed in these ads just hammers home to me the disrespect that women face daily, even today. Recent reports even state that the KKK is backing Obama simply because they would never want a woman to be president.



I'm not trying to be all doom and gloom, or anything, and I, more than anyone, can appreciate a light view on today's world, because that's really the only defense we have against the unfairness that we face.

What can I say? No one wants to be useless. No one wants to think that they're replacable, or have no worth.



I have a fourteen year old sister who's growing up in the epitome of suburbia. It's bad enough that she's a teenager - teenage girls are notoriously cruel - but she's also dealing with the fact that she's Jewish in a predominantly Catholic community, where anti-semitism is rampant. Add to that a Muslim father, especially in today's patriot act world, and I am really concerned about her ability to be happy as she is.

When she was a kid - and I don't know if she remembers this, and Monkey, if you're reading this, just know that you're awesome - a kid in her class, just after 9/11, told her that they could no longer play together because my sister was Muslim. And now, as a freshman in high school, her ex-boyfriend (who turned out to be a man-whore, but that's a whole other story), his father and his best friend have formed a We Hate Jews club. As a kid, she has to deal with this religious bullshit, and when she grows up, she can always move to a more tolerant place like I did, but then she has to deal with misogyny. And don't give me any of that life's not fair bullshit. I remember when I was a freshman in high school, I was friends with this guy who lived down the block from me. He got all of our friends christmas presents, but not me, because he "didn't know what you buy a jew for christmas".

Anyhoo, I don't really know where I was going with this. Nowhere, I guess. Whatever. I guess I can just be satisfied with the fact that as a jew, we control hollywood, the governments and your money, sucka. So suck on that, beyotch.

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Love and peace, people!

As a teenager, I thought that with the onset of adulthood, I would be given a congratulations package that included maturity, wisdom, better skin and the ability to buy myself booze. I thought that appearances would take a back seat to personality and intellect, that the women who were popular in high school would hang out with the women who were band geeks. I guess, in a word, utopia. Ah, the naivety of childhood.
It seems that in my office, pregnancy has become an airborne illness, passing from one mid-twenties woman to another, so yesterday, we had what will be the first of many baby showers. We all sat, crammed into the conference room, our coworker proudly displaying one pink onesy after another, pretty dresses and adorable bows, all of the attending women awing and oohing appropriately (with the two resident gentleman sitting, holding their pink plates of cake uncomfortably, trying to maintain the last shred of masculinity they had), never mind the fact that the guest of honor really wanted a boy and was secretly sickened by the disturbing display of femininity. At one point, during a break in activity, I got up to throw away my plate, leaving my purse on my highly coveted chair (there being only five for all thirty women). From behind me, I hear the woman sitting in the chair next to me hiss at a friend of hers.
“Psst! Quick,” she said, “move her stuff on the floor. Take her seat before she comes back.”
Because, ladies and gentlemen, those who initiated me into adulthood and the workforce failed to include in the training manual that regardless of age, bitches will forever and always remain bitches.
I have come to realize, and plan on making an addendum to the adulthood manual attesting to the fact, that the workplace is just a high school lunch room where you talk on the phone a lot and have a computer to sit at. There are cliques, oh yes. My group, the rebels, who don’t give a fuck about administration. Most of the people in my group grew up in the ‘90’s, and are still firmly rooted in the grunge movement. Then there’s the bitch clique. The women who still feel the need to prove their superiority by buying $500 gold razr phones that say “Dolce and Gabanna” when it turns on, or have a house in Connecticut even though they hate it, but just because they can afford it, and if they can con their husbands into buying it. The kind of women who have sugar daddies and wear different outfits every day. The kind of women who look at the clothes the rest of us wear, the shoes the rest of us wear, our unmanicured nails and think “ew”. These women are my rivals for superiority of my department. And their leader, who I will heretofore refer to as AN, is my arch nemesis.
AN can spend a half hour waxing poetic about the toppings she had on her salad the previous night, or how she has a great house in the country, but her heart is in the city, or about how beautiful her daughter is, or about how dirty jews are. Yes, she is my arch nemesis, and there will come a day when I will take her down, oh yes, mark my words, the end s nigh for AN.
We recently hired a new tech, because when the techs turn out to be unmalleable and possessing morals, they get fired. Then new ones get hired and the cycle starts all over again. So, this new tech gets hired, and the other day, I walk behind her to the front waiting room, and I notice something shiny on the back of her scrubs. Walking closer, but not wanting to be obvious, I sneak a peak. What the hell?
It was the Baby Phat logo. Baby Phat has started making designer scrubs. Scrubs that the techs wear because they get bled on, puked on, peed on, shat on, coughed on. Basically, designer spew rags.
It’s things like this, these designer scrubs, that allows these women to be haughty in the work place, where everyone should really be cordial to one another. I can imagine the inception of this idea, Kimora Lee Simmons walking into her doctor’s office (on 5th Avenue, of course), and a technician taking her blood pressure.
“Ohmygooooooood,” Kimora would whine, “look at your outfit. That is like, so totally unattractive. I’m totally going to design something fabulous for you to wear. My blood shouldn’t have to touch such awful clothes.”
I see this, ladies and gentlemen, as definitive proof that Kimora Lee Simmons is either an evil genius, or the devil.

Monday, February 18, 2008

Chocolate Rain

I hate John Mayer (read here sanctimonious asshole) . But even I have to give him props for this.

I Wouldn't Last a Day on the Creek

Fine, for reasons best left unsaid, I was woken from slumber at around 5 am this morning. When I finally was able to haul my tired ass back to bed, of course I couldn't fall asleep, so I perused early morning television to try to find something boring enough to knock me out. Infomercials weren't doing the trick (good god, how I want that ice facial cream), so I surfed on until I came across Dawson's Creek. I never watched it growing up, because all of the actors seemed a bit weird looking to me, and I hate Paula Cole. Anyhoo, it's common knowledge that the characters on this show do not talk like your average teen or young adult, what with the big words and all*. Never mind their incessant use of the word "wigged" (i.e. "You're not wigged out by gay people"), but the blond chick who used to date Dawson told another blond chick who had been to rehab that Dr. Drew would be coming to campus to do a live Loveline, and the rehab chick's reaction was "Wha...wha...what?". Not "Wwwwhat?" Literally "Wha...wha...what?". Like a cartoon. I know I wasn't "hip" or "with it" when I was a teenager, but I know for a fact that none of my peers would ever be caught saying something like that.

Watching the rest of the program with a critical eye, I came to the conclusion that Dawson's Creek was not actually meant to be a teen drama, but a satire. A tongue-in-cheek interpretation of what the youngen's were doing around the aging writing staff that had them scratching their heads, making the characters as sophisticated as teenagers think they are. Watching the Creek with this in mind, that the entire script is actually a jab at 1990's pop culture and teen mentality, gave a whole new meaning to what I had originally seen as an unrealistic, contrived affectation, of grown men trying to relate to '90's youth.


* On a side note, a great drinking game is to watch Dawson's Creek with your friends, and each of you pick a character. Every time your character says something completely uncharacteristic for young adults, you take a shot. Guaranteed drunken hilarity.

Sunday, February 17, 2008

How to Handle a Roman with Tact

The following was taken from one of the best books in known history, written by Christopher Moore, not to be confused with Michael Moore, who is a total crackpot. The book is entitled Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal. In it, Biff, Christ's (aka Josh) best friend, Christ and Maggie (Mary Magdelene) are at the funeral for a roman soldier. I don't have permission to publish this, and I hope Mr. C. Moore doesn't hold it against me, because he writes the yummiest books ever, and I would hate to have to boycott them because he turned out to be a total douche.

...I dove into the mass and crawled under people's feet until I came upon a pair of hobnail boots which indicated the lower end of a Roman soldier. The other end, equally Roman, was scowling at me. I stood up.
"Semper fido," I said in my best Latin, followed by my most charming smile.
The soldier scowled further. Suddenly there was a smell of flowers in my nose and sweet, warm lips brushed my ear. "I think you just said 'always dog,'" Maggie whispered.
"That would be why he's looking so unpleasant then?" I said out the side of my charming smile.
In my other ear another familiar, if not so sweet whisper," Sing, Biff. Remember the plan," Joshua said.
"Right." And so I let loose with one of my famous dirges. "
La-la-la. Hey Roman guy, too bad about your getting stabbed. La-la-la. It's probably not a message from God or nothing. La-la-la. Telling you that maybe you should have gone home, la, la, la. Instead of oppressing the chosen people who God hisownself has said that he likes better than you. Fa, la, la, la."
The soldier didn't speak Aramaic, so the lyrics didn't move him as I had hoped. But I think the hypnotic toe-tappiness of the melody was starting to get to him. I plunged into my second verse.
"
La-la-la, didn't we tell you that you shouldn't eat pork, la-la. Although looking at wounds in your chest, a dietary change might not have made that big of a difference. Boom shaka-laka-laka-laka, boom shaka-laka-lak. Come on, you know the words!"

Friday, February 15, 2008

If it weren't for my horse...

Ever hear Lewis Black's monologue about the stupidest thing he's ever heard? Some chick in a cellphone store said "If it weren't for my horse," as in giddy up, giddy up let's go, "I would never have spent that year in college," which is a degree-granting institution. Don't think about that for more than a minute or blood will shoot out your nose...you think you're driving to work, but you're not driving to work, you're thinking "if it weren't for my horse, if it weren't for my horse" and you think you're drnking coffee, you're not drinking coffee, you're thinking "what does that mean? How did she get into college with a horse" and by the end of the week they find you dead in the bathroom.

Well, someone said the stupidest thing in the world to a friend of mine, and I felt the need to share it with the rest of you, so that when I croak from cerebral hemmorhage, I have others there with me to share in my ranting.

A patient called. Said he was experiencing pain. He was asked to describe the pain.

"Well," said the patient, "it starts like a circle, then turns into a square, and then...it's a porkchop."

Pause.

"It's shaped like a porkchop?" the patient is asked.

"No," responds said patient, "it's a porkchop."

Chew on that one, Lewis.

This dude knows how to get his romance on.

So romantic. So adorable. Who said romance is dead?

Thursday, February 14, 2008

Look who's in the room before you say something bone-headed

A Conversation Overheard


…and I swear to you, my baby came out looking like a Mexican. Flat face, and I said, oh hell no, this ain’t my child. And there was this fat, ugly Dominican woman there, and her baby was gorgeous, and I told the nurse, hey, that baby over there, I think it was switched with this baby. I think our babies were switched, ‘cause there’s no way this baby is mine and that one is hers…

At this point I walked out, concerned that her stupidity might be airborne, and I so didn’t feel like catching that particular bug.

On the topic of Valentine's Day

Today is valentine’s day. I am not, in any way, shape or form, sentimental, mooshy or lovey-dovey. I got my BF a card that, when you open it, manically expounds on the excellence of candy. I also got him a bag of truffles, and a 12 month xbox 360 live subscription. Because I rock.

So I get to work, incident-free, and everyone in the department is wearing pink or red, smiling, saying Happy Valentine’s Day! And I swear, cartoon hearts and sparrows are floating in the air. Then I get to my office, where everyone has taken great care to NOT wear happy, love colors. Black and brown are everywhere. It’s quite gloomy. Our office has collectively, unconsciously told Valentine’s Day that it’s an asshole, and that it can go bark up another tree.

It’s times like these that I love my co-workers. But it’s love completely lacking in cartoon hearts and sparrows. Maybe it has cartoon skulls and crossbones. Yeah, that seems more like it.

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

You should have thought about that before you ate my chocolates...

My nurse just left for a brief vacation. He vacations the way I eat brownies during PMS. So, now I’m here, alone, by myself. Ever notice that when you’re at work by yourself, it’s completely impossible to get anything done? Because really, who’s there to make sure you do stuff? I can just do it later. They’ll never know. On top of that, add the fact that the college just provided all of its employees with an instant messenger service, and I can feel productivity decreasing in leaps and bounds.

Thursday is Valentine’s Day. The BF called today to tell me he had eaten some of the chocolate he had found in the cabinet of my desk. I freaked, since I had been hiding the bag of gourmet chocolates I had bought him for Valentine’s Day in a cabinet in my desk.

“You ate the chocolates?!” I shrieked, my shrew persona immediately snagging the wheel of my brain and hauling ass towards the nearest mental tree.

“Yeah. I found them in your desk,” he replied, thinking he’s so goddamn clever, the little shit.

“The truffles?!?!?”

“Huh? The chocolate cherry ones. In the container.”

It took a moment to register. I busted out laughing. “Hun, how many of those did you have?”

“Like five.”

“Those are Viactiv. Vitamins for women.”

“Maybe I'll get nicer skin.” (FYI: there is nothing wrong with his skin)

“You’re gonna grow boobs or something.”

“So? Aren’t you a lesbian? You should be excited.”

Maybe this means I can wax his chest and paint his nails. Sweet.

I am an inconsiderate bitch, apparently. I'm sorry. Really.

It's early. Hella early. I am not a morning person. This morning, I walked down the stairs onto the subway platform and it was frickin' packed. Train came, and I got on, and shockingly, I found a seat. This is one of those subway cars where there are three seats, then two seats perpendicular to the three seats. I sat on the end seat of the three-seater, directly next to the two-seater. There was a chick with short, massively curly hair sitting on the outer of the two-seater, with herlegs crossed. Her foot was sticking out into the aisle. She was reading a calander of days in Hebrew.

All right, now that I've got the setting all decribed, time for the drama:

I cross my ankles.

"Hey!" says big-hair.

I look up, confused. "Yes?" I ask.

"Apologize! You just kicked me."

"I kicked you?"

"Yes! Say you're sorry."

"Are you in pain?"

"No, but you're being rude."

"Have you been permanently damaged?"

"No, but you need to say you're sorry. You kicked my foot! Hard! On purpose!"

"No, I didn't. I may have nudged your foot. However, I apologize for obviously traumatizing you so dramatically."

"No you don't. I can't believe you're lying right to my face."

"I'm not lyinng. I really am sorry my nudge caused you such angst."

"Don't talk to me."

"You spoke to me first."

Thinking the drama over, I pull out my book and start to read.

There was a man standing next to her. She looked up at him.

"Can you believe some people? They're mean to everyone else because they hate themselves."

"I know," replies the man. "Some people are bitches."

"I know. I'm reading this, "she holds up her hebrew book, "because it has good philosophy in it. Don't worry, I'm not jewish, this doesn't mean I'm jewish, it's written by some crazy people, but I like to forgive people right away, and apologize right away. I'm from a really small town with nowhere near this many people, but you would think I'm used to it now, since I've been living here for seven years. I've turned over a new leaf in my life, I go to university and I'm a nicer person."

The train gets to 125th street, and the man goes to get off.

"Where are you going?" the woman asks in desparation.

"This is my stop. I go to school here."

"University? At 125?"

The guy gets off. An older woman takes up the guy's position at the pole next to the woman.

"Ma'am, would you like to sit down?" the crazy asks.

"No, thank you," the nice older lady replies, "I'm getting off at the next stop."

"Oh, me, too, here, have my seat, I like to offer people my seat without being asked." (yes, she did say that).

"No thank you," the lady repeats.

The crazy goes back to her hebrew book of days, sporadically looking up at me and muttering "bitch", "whore" and "slut" under her breath.

We get to 59th street, and I put my book away, and the woman says "oh great, you're getting off here, too?"

Like what does she think, we're gonna be stuck together forever because we happen to get off at the same subway stop?

"Ma'am, I can see that I've caused you considerable stress. Can I supply you with the number for a therapist who specializes in post-traumatic stress disorder?" I ask her sweetly.

"Bitch!" came her intelligent reply.

Now I'm at work.

'Nuff said.

Friday, February 8, 2008

Lead me not to temptation, for I am a gluttonous whore

So, yesterday, everyone in my office called in sick. The nurse, the manager, the parttime secretary, everyone. So it was just the Dr. and I. I was feeling pretty shitty, since I had an overwhelming amount of crap to accomplish.

I went to the conference room where my fellow peons congregate to talk smack about one another to get some water and lo! a box of chocolates. Now, I am on a diet du jour, but figured, screw it, I'm having a crappy day. So, I snarf down eight pieces.

Fifteen minutes and about ten hiccups later, I'm sitting at my desk, have three patients on hold, am trying to transcribe a ten page long diatribe on the nature of sperm, and it occurs to me, hey mayhaps them tasty chocolates were so frickin' tasty 'cause they were full of BOOZE. I don't drink. I rarely drink. I hardly every drink. Anyhoo, needless to say that my tongue became possessed by the booze fairy and I basically talked non stop from about 1:30 until I left at 5:20. I don't particularly remember what I was saying...suffice to say I was a bit worried when I came into work today.

Last night, on our way out, my friend told me she was going to make me brownies. 'Cause I wanted brownies. And I'm a princess. I came in today, all excited about the imminent brownie goodness. Wouldn't you know, she didn't make the brownies?

She said she felt bad. I told her she should, because she had been promising me for days that she would make me brownies, and she's the best brownie maker in the world, and now that it's Friday, and since I leave the city on the weekends, I was going to have to suffer brownieless over the weekend, unless, of course, I go to Shop Rite and get one of their nasty, dry, crumbly and not at all chocolaty brownies. I need ooey gooey goodness, man. I need the hookup.

As a jewess, I felt the need to both guilt my friend and martyr myself simultaneously, but in the end, since she's mormon and can't handle the intensity of my jewish guilt because mormons are inherently nice, good people, I told her "honestly, the Christ-like response would be that you know I'm trying to diet, and you're being a helpful friend and not providing me with temptation. You're leading me not to temptation. See, Christ-like."

Furthermore, my mania is rearing its ugly head today, and I'm literally buzzing in my seat. Eh, maybe that means I'll get some work done today. Or maybe it means I'll get into a throwdown with someone.

I could sure go for a gooey, chocolately brownie right about now.