Tomorrow I have to get an Xray. I have been charged by the Xray givers not to wear deodorant, antiperspirant, or powder the day of the Xray-giving.
The A/C in my car, as you may know, does not work.
The temps have been in the mid 90s.
Apologies in advance to the Xray tech and my cow-orkers.
Unless I start getting weird subject lines in another mailbox.
Percival
Courtier,
What were you waiting for?
the stolen eavesdrop,
the schizophrenic grease,
the Ciceronian cankerworm?
Connie Sequin's lupine costume
She wants you to be freshman testicular
Or the chantilly glove muscle ---
Puritan Babylon,
Never go soft again!
Thou tyrannic Senegal!
All out of love,
Not this time
Myriad benign
Hardtack stolen acquiesce
Enzte is a ripoff despotic bike.
Brindle toastmaster Dolores Tyson
Continue demurring
Cauliflower anxiety inexcuseable
Stop and look around, cumbersome combinator.
Calisthenic bypass
Acadia trigonometry
When you look down sportswriting propriety
Marginalia pasture.
Voluminous Aunt Clytemnestra
That stodgy Confuscianism crackpot
Her collarbone the dainty wingspan
Bereft of swanlike karma
New mail from the dashboard.
Bothersome, important, incidental cavemen
Fallen dateline blizzard bumble
heed the caldron
Financial bawd monstrosity distributor
With inattentive jab Lethe Moses
Aren't you tired of these messages?
I have to find a new hobby.
I'm joking, of course; the SCA requires a lifetime commitment. But seriously, the event last weekend was insanely hot. I know I'm always bitching about the weather, but it was at least 97 actual degrees outside, so the "feels-like temperature" must have been 110 in the shade, as the old joke goes.
Not exactly the sort of weather where you want to be wearing costumes from days where a glimpse at a lady's ankle was grounds for witchcraft charges.
Fortunately, our new campsite has cabins. With air conditioning. We had a pajama party Saturday night and watched the hockey game. Sunday, nature once again demonstrated to me the fact that layers and loose clothing trap heat. I wore a Roman outfit, and spent most of the time with the fabric hiked up to expose as much leg as I could get away with when no-one was looking. I finished my errands and retreated to the cabin of cool, and decided that that was the end of my costume-wearing portion of the weekend. Ugh.
Monday proved just as hot, even in our house. You see, our parsimonious landlord has decided that this property does not deserve an a/c unit that was made after 1972. It was too hot to nap, even. So we did what Floridians have done for generations - we went to see a movie, Shrek 2. Great movie!
Now if only I could find a source for giant blocks of ice, I could replace the chair in front of my computer with one, just like they used to do in cartoons. And it's only June 1.
Thomas Kinkade has no soul. If he did, he wouldn't paint such souless works of schlock. Whenever I used to see "art" like that - those insipid, lifeless landscapes - I figured that a machine, or a very sad, repressed artist, was forced to paint that crappy kitsch artwork for sale in the K-Mart.
Turns out I was wrong. Kinkade is the Beanie Baby of the art world. Those things have blank, vague eyes that stare at you, yet they became insanely popular. Just like a typical Kinkade landscape.
Every time I walk past his store in the mall, I want to go in with a can of spray paint and go to town, to turn his "not-art" into "art" - for once add some passion to those bland images, even if it's only punk passion. It irritates me that people keep giving this guy, this talentless hack, money for his banal, mindless, trivial paintings.
And get this: they aren't even real paintings! I researched this rant carefully! And I discovered that he employs people called "highlighters" to "enhance images"! From the Master Hack Sham Artist's website, I quote: "Master Highlighters are hand-picked and have worked on Studio Proofs. They also have graduated from Thomas Kinkade 101, a class teaching the proper Master Highlighting Techniques as well as personal instructions by Thomas Kinkade." Just how freakin' difficult can it be to put a couple of specks of white paint onto a lithograph??? Any grandmother who's watched Bob Ross wield his 'mighty fan brush' on PBS could do that! Gawd, if I had to make my living slaving under the non-artistic lash of The Painter of Schlock, putting little dots of paint on fake canvas after fake canvas of kitsch, I couldn't look at myself in the mirror.
In fact, I think that Kinkade stole all of Bob Ross' formulaic moves! I think that if you were to visit the studio of the Painter of Schlock, you'd find Bob Ross books and videos there among the tubes of pink and purple paint. While Bob Ross' art sucked ass too, at least Bob Ross had a wacky white man's afro that implied a hint of personality! (And I seem to remember he made a promo spot for MTV, back when they actually played videos. But I digress.) Kinkade looks like the evil love child of Stacy Keach and Tom Selleck. He slaps the label of "Christian" on his artwork to try to gain moral high ground, just like a politician.
Now, don't get me wrong, I don't like post-modern crap that doesn't look like anything. My idea of good paintings includes Renaissance art, the work of the Pre-Raphaelites, and Salvador Dali, who acknowledged the Great Masters of the past. My main objection to the Painter of Schlock is the tepid, weak, spineless scenes of nothing. No soul = no art. The popularity of this hack just proves that marketing makes the world go 'round. Which is why I'm getting out of marketing, this frankly makes my stomach churn.
To commemorate a memorable line I spouted off in a recent anti-Kinkade rant (I rant every time I see that awful non-art), Godfrey created this illustration:
'Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?'
`That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,' said the Cat.`I don't much care where--' said Alice.
`Then it doesn't matter which way you go,' said the Cat.
`--so long as I get SOMEWHERE,' Alice added as an explanation.
`Oh, you're sure to do that,' said the Cat, `if you only walk long enough.'
Vive de Martin St. Louis!
Bring that cup to Tampa, baby! I'm tired of all the whining and complaining from Calgary fans! Look at all those Tampa fans watching the game OUTSIDE and tell me the area doesn't like hockey! Think about it, most people that live here moved from up north, bringing their culture and customs (such as hockey worship) with them. True, most people were more enthusiastic for the Bucs, but there are plenty of genuine Lightning fans here. W00t!
As for the Calgary coach's assertion that there's this vast, NHL conspiracy to keep the cup out of Canada - that's just nuts.
P.S. - memo to Barry Melrose - cut your mullet!
I am overwhelmed with all the things that have to get done before we move. (And yet I was incredibly non-productive Saturday - ate, shopped, slept, ate, watched hockey. Tsk tsk.) There are so many boxes in this house already! I hope I can be more productive this week. Sell stuff, box stuff up, pack, etc., etc. And I have a sore throat. Not sure if that's a psychosomatic reaction to my allergy doc telling me my lymph nodes had an issue, and asking me if I felt under the weather. Damn it.
Wow, the Lightning won the Stanley Cup! Who'd a thunk it? Not me, until possibly last year, when they made the playoffs.
Watching a hockey play-off game is draining - I can't imagine what it feels like to actually be in the game. My main beef with the announcers is that they kept verbally making out with Iginla - even when Calgary was losing! Shesh! I'd still be watching the post-game festivities, except that if I hear a player get asked, "So how did it feel to see Andreychuk lift the cup?" one more time, I'd probably lose it.
I'd like to add that I did my part for the lads by remaining at home to watch the last two games. Seems that they lost every game I watched away from the confines of my own living room.
Friday was my last day at the Citadel of Despair.
As with many offices, food was an important part of my send-off. The IMOCS (the Intrepid Men of Customer Service) took me to Mugs and Jugs for wings. (Our waitress wasn't too juggy, I hope the boys didn't feel slighted.) The GLOMs (Gorgeous Ladies of Marketing) took me to dinner Thursday at Bamboo Club. And Friday's bon voyage cake was the first many people knew that I was leaving. I prefer not to make a fuss when exiting. I have to wait to spill the beans here on the truth behind the Citadel of Despair, as they might hire me to do some freelance work.
So now I'm at home, but I am still working - packing, running errands, and getting ready to sell still more stuff on eBay. School starts at the end of this month.
Here we go!
Hooray for the collapse of the Soviet Union! Now we get their awesome hockey players! Capitalism works for the good of hockey! Witness Khabibulin (aka "Habby", aka "Twitchy"), at last able to relax after the Stanley Cup finals!
Apparently, the print edition of today's Tampa Tribune (aka the Tampa Fibune) features an editorial about the Lightning losing the Stanley Cup. Maybe if they actually employed proofreaders, that wouldn't have happened. Tools.
Using the handy free services of Salary.com, I have just learned that I was underpaid during my tenure at the Citadel of Despair.
I have always been underpaid, no matter what my job, since graduating college. For example, I found out I was paid $10,000 a year less than my male counterparts at one of my gigs - of course, that info came too late for me to do anything about it. Is it any wonder I resent working for other people when they don't pay what I'm worth and I know it? And now I'm embarking on a notoriously underpaid profession. What the hell's wrong with me?
As I am a Lady of Leisure, I went downtown to watch the parade in honor of the Stanley Cup-winning Lightning. Brad Richards waved at me! Great fun. Then Godfrey took me to the French restaurant for lunch. Yum. We have many pictures, but to see another example of lack of proofreading, see this entry over at Godfrey's place.
I am having lots of carpel tunnel-ish pain in my right arm. This will impede my computing ability quite a bit. In fact, it is cutting this entry short right now. Poopie.
Since I need to rest my hands/arms/wrists, no yard sale this weekend. I was so bored yesterday!
I LOVE the new Beastie Boys cd, To the 5 Boroughs. Who else but the B-Boys could pull off lyrics like "I've got billions and billions of rhymes to flex. 'Cause I've got more rhymes than Carl Sagan's got turtlenecks"? Brilliant. Lyrics on the liner notes are footnoted and contain wacky editor's notes. Also more shout-outs to Star Trek TOS - perhaps they are trying to win over Godfrey, who is forced to listen to the B-Boys because he lives with me.
Father's Day is hitting me harder than ususal this year. Probably because every single cashier and clerk (except for the ladies at Victoria's Secret, thankfully - they only pushed me to get a VS credit card, which I refused to, and I urge all of you to do the same, but I digress) keep prompting me to "remember to pick up a Father's Day gift". I've just been saying, "Oh, I don't have to do that," or, "He doesn't need a gift card where he is", but I think I may have to lay a guilt trip on the next person who reminds me about June 20. I've been sparing them to maintain my composure, more than anything else.
Still having issues with pain in my hands, I suspect that it may be the result of not visiting Renee the Massage Goddess (that is, the pain is coming from a tight back or pinched muscle or nerve, rather than a case of carpel tunnel). I have booked time with the goddess, who told me that my quest to enter grad school inspired her to apply to a local school of Asian medicine. How cool is that?
On a related note, I hate "taking it easy and not stressing my hands". It is so BORING. I wound up watching a movie, Now and Then...you know how it is, you start watching something and you feel like you've made an investment and if you turn it off you'll lose something? I should have cut my losses. I highly recommend that everyone avoid this movie. It's a ripoff of Stand by Me, with girls instead of boys. And the end of the flick -!?!?!? I mean, who could ever think that Christina Ricci would grow up to look like Rosie O'Donnell??????? The movie ended, and I knew that I was duped, and I would never ever get those two hours of my life back. Awful!
It's so hot that our A/C gets overpowered every day around 3 pm. To combat that on the weekends, we've been going to the movies. Saw Chronicles of Riddick - major plot holes but neat if you like sci-fi costumes and effects - and The Stepford Wives - also full of holes but if you like 1950's fashion you might enjoy it. I'm noticing a trend here...mmmmm, costumes...
School starts June 28.
I finally got around to fixing some blog links over there on the right, and I've added a couple of new ones you might enjoy. Note that even the Stanley Cup has a blog now! I've been very bad about not visiting those blogs, but I resolve to be a better blog neighbor in the future.
On a related note to No Pants Day - I present "World Naked Bike Ride"! Not work safe - actual naked people on bikes on that site. Wouldn't that cause chafing? There's just some activities that are better with clothes.
I seem to have acquired a new freckle.
It's a wee freckle, but it has little pointy edges to it. It's near the vein on my arm, you know, where the blood samples come from.
It used to be I wouldn't notice the arrival of a new freckle, as I have rather a lot of them already. But this year, my dermatologist found a "bad" freckle on my back. She asked me about it, but I'm afraid I wasn't much help as it was, well, on my back and I couldn't see it. She cut it off and sent it to the lab.
Isn't it weird to have a doctor who lists my moles and freckles? "I would have noted this if you had had this last time you were in," she said. She went on to describe it and why she thought it was "bad". And her instincts were right; they called me two weeks later and told me about it, but that since she took a big slice out of me, they weren't concerned. Just keep an eye on it to make sure it doesn't return, resurrected from the bad freckle graveyard.
So now I have this new freckle, and two weeks' worth of insurance left. I hate being an adult about my own health! Wah! I don't want to go to the dermatologist!
I have work to do - there's no time to watch the Terry Jones' Medieval Lives marathon on the History Channel! (Though mad props to the History Channel for breaking out of the WWII rut.) Hopefully this series is out on tape or DVD - it's really good stuff.
I may let myself do one more post before the end of this week. The Internet has become too attractive and is too tempting to a procrastinator such as myself. So I need to stay away from the attractive glowing box on my desk.
I have lots to do before summer school starts next week, and I fear that it won't all get done. In one burst of procrastination I tinkered with this old blog, updated some links, added some things, and you can see what I have in mind when time allows. Yes, I do have an eBay store now! Sorry for the less than dramatic announcement that the event deserves. I'll be selling fabrics and trims, not much in there right now, but I hope to have more in inventory by the end of next month. I'll let you know.
At any rate, do tune in to see how I fare in school after such a long time in "the real world" - if that's what you can call the working conditions I was subjected to until recently.
Grandpa Simpson gets into the elevator at the second floor of the two story office and asks the two employees already in there, "Are we going up or down?"
The other day, a periodic Google-ing (Googling?) turned up two interesting items. One, there are at least two people fairly big in academia who already have my name, or various components of my name, so I have been correct to style myself with my two last names - not only pretentious, it will also set me apart from these other people.
Two, and this is more disturbing, some geneologist has listed my name, along with the names of all my family members, on his family web site. We are apparently linked on my maternal grandfather's family. It just struck me as somewhat stalker-like, seeing all the names of my family just listed there, on this stranger's geneological list, my parents and my brother, aunts and uncles and cousins, like our names were some sort of butterfly collection to this person.
I'm only vaguely interested in the study of my family tree, one of my uncles has mapped out Mum's side of the family pretty well, but I'd be curious to find out more about dad's family. Not curious enough to pony up for a costly membership to one of theose money-making geneological web sites, however.
This name collection on-line was made even more creepy by the fact that he had only listed husband #1 next to my name. I suppose that's what wigged me out the most. Do you think Mr. Stalker Geneologist would just drop me entirely from his weird record obsession?
I was at the Citadel of Despair the other day (they doubled my hourly rate to do some business spamming freelancing before I start school - what could I say?) and, while working with the resident Good Old Boy, noticed that he had a can of Underwood Deviled Ham on his desk.
"Do you actually eat that, or was that a gag gift?" I asked. "I've been too frightened to try that stuff, because they sell it next to other questionable canned meat items like pork brains in milk gravy."
"No, that's good stuff! That's survival food! Here, try it!" And Good Old Boy opened it, and, quickly tossing the label before I could read it (N.B., deviled ham is wrapped in a paper wrapper, perhaps to give it a sense of style), popped open the can, stuck a spoon in it and urged me to try a bite.
"That looks like cat food!" observed Pumpkin Head*.
He was right. It looked like pink cat food, and smelled pretty bad. But I'm not one to pass up a dare, so, I tried a sample.
It tastes like ground bland meat - at first. Then it hits you: SALT! Your tongue is awash in salty saltiness! I tried another taste, with the same results.
I agreed with Good Old Boy's assessment that it was, indeed, survival food. "I would eat that in a bomb shelter," I said. Though I would hope for Spaghettio's without meatballs as my first choice. "Man, that's good stuff, I like to have that about 3 in the afternoon, on some crackers, when I'm sitting there in a deer blind," said Good Old Boy.
I retrieved the wrapper from the trash and found that the ingredients of deviled ham are salt, ground ham cured with salt and brown sugar, salt, and sodium.
My seceond taste sensation that day happened at home. I was getting in touch with my masculine side by taking a swig of milk straight from the container. Turns out, the milk had "gone funny" two days before its time. It wasn't chunky-style, but it was not good AT ALL. Yuck.
*One of the regional sales managers, he has a penchant for padding about the office in socks. One time Pumpkin Head was attempting to read the sales reports posted in the office, when it turned out he had been interpreting them wrong since - well, since the advent of the sales report, I guess. But the name is a term of endearment, and he's the only one who has stood up to Captain Insanity, so I like him.
"Call [my former employer] today to begin the end of your electrical engineering problematic situations."
Whaaa??? You know, as someone about to embark on a graduate program in English, I should have rewritten that sentence. But I didn't. Why? For a variety of reasons. One: I used to try to help them with sentences like that and I was told not to. Two: Frankly, I'm feeling a bit lazy, and my contract doesn't say anything about me creating decent English that other people can understand. Three: They deserve to look stupid to the outside world.
At last - after my quest began in September, her I am. now officially a graduate student. This morning I attended my first class. Fortunately for my ego it appears that I am not the oldest one there. Everyone's very nice so far, the weather is great - hot but not unbearable. Best of all, my books were free. Seems the freshman English program here is so massive that the textbook companies don't mind giving up some free books for good p.r. Sweet. Of course, that means lots of reading, not that there's anything wrong with that.
I'll be splitting my time between here and there as we gradually make the move. Maybe that's why I haven't been all wound up and nervous, since my stuff isn't here yet; or maybe it's because the ordeal of getting into grad school was such a pain that it wore me down. But I am excited about the next two years.
I appreciate all the support that my friends have given me. I know it's not easy to let someone go off and pursue some crazy dream. But, I gotta be me!
I came out about this blog today to one of my professors. He asked us to write our contact information on an index card, and if we had a web page, and had ever created a 'zine. So I wrote down the address to this old blog and proudly proclaimed that while I had no 'zine, I was a blogger.
Say it with me: I BLOG, THEREFORE I AM!
I like blogging so much that I wanted to do my graduate research on blogging as a teaching tool - and in a cruel twist of fate, the school that gave me the best offer is deleting its composition and rhetoric program, because death claimed two key faculty members within the last year. I talked to a Ph.D. candidate in comp/rhet here today, and he said I should have gone to Texas A&M (or some school in Texas) - who knew? But don't worry, I'll find a way to get what I want out of this place. Oh yes, I will.
In an unrelated note, someone stole the school's two national football championship trophies from their case this weekend.
Oh - "Welcome to the University's Enlgish Department". Heh.
It has come to my attention that some hockey fans up north hate the Tampa Bay Lightning, just because it's never cold here. They're mad because the Stanley Cup is now too close to the Equator. It's unnatural, they cry.
Guys, you're forgetting that lots of people that live here are transplanted northerners! We cling to our unique, northern customs, like decorating our landscaping for Christmas (the lights look so much better with snow), and ice skating. We just have to skate inside now.
And if that superbly-crafted paragraph doesn't win you over, how about this: most of the players are Canadian.
