I'm not dead yet.

But I'm still homeless. And posting from the library.

Today I came in to check my email and research granite counter top edge styles. Yes, styles with an s. You can get Full bullnose, demi bullnose, eased edge, Ogee, you name it.

Who knew? Gee, in my other kitchens this kind of decision was made for me. And I preferred it that way. Because I'm not so good at making decisions.

Like the other day. Remember annoying Personal Trainer lady? Well (first bad decision) I agreed to talk to her again about using up the 12 personal trainer sessions I paid for and haven't managed to use (second bad decision). Because of being busy and homeless and caught up in this whole granite edge decision-making process.

I mean, just typing the details in is wearing me right the hell out.

So anyway. Next thing you know, I've signed on for six months of personal training. (third bad decision) Because? I need (I guess) to partake in a sprint Triathlon (fourth and I hope final bad decision).

So. You see what I mean about me and making decisions.

WHAT THE HELL WAS I THINKING?

And now I know why people find it hard to depart from the state of homelessness. It's because it's far too easy to become overwhelmed. Because here I am in the public library blogging about my bad decisions, and you know what? A park bench and a bottle of cheap hooch is sounding PRETTY DAMNED GOOD.

Homelessness

You know, being homeless isn't all that bad, except for the personal trainers.

See, I'm spending a lot of time at the gym. A lot. Like two or three hours a day.

The other day I was approached by the chief personal trainer, who introduced herself and asked whether I had thought about using a personal trainer.

I told I had, and in fact, had used one.

Then she wanted to know whether I would be interested in having my workouts be more efficient and effective.

I told her no, I wasn't.

"I'm only here because I'm homeless. The work outs are OK, but they're not as important to me as the showers. And the toilets."

For some reason she left before I could tell all about how I'm living in my car.

Three More Stupid Things I Love

1. The Insidious Dr. Fu Manchu

This is the version I got--the books-on-CD edition. It features a reproduction of the original cover, complete with the classic White Slavery/Yellow Peril color scheme.

It's really marvelously stupid. I mean, check out this peerless prose:

"I want to hear that knocking!" he rapped.

In case you weren't in my fifth grade English class, that, my friends, is a Tom Swifty. Now, if that Tom Swifty had been included deliberately, it would be the lowest possible form of humor. But I don't think Rohmer knew he had come up with one. And that, of course, makes it much funnier.

So far I've only described the idiotic writing. It's very bad, but combine the writing with the completely over-the-top racial stereotypes, and I'm ... speechless. Gobsmacked. I'm amused, bemused and confused.

I can't decide whether it's more terrible or more hilarious, but it's unbelievably stupid. And then, when it's a book on CD read by someone not very good? It adds a whole new level of stupid.

In short, The Insidious Dr. Fu Manchu deserves a total Mystification (a la MST3K) ... but since I mostly listen to it at the gym, and lumbering along on a treadmill, wearing my iPod, making sarcastic quips and cracking myself up isn't the route to universal popularity (which is my goal, or I wouldn't try so hard to keep you amused, Internet) I'll skip it.

But it's definitely stupid cubed.

2. My gym

Yeah, it's one of those big-box joints that Badger abhors. And for a while it was full of women who looked like personal trainers on The Biggest Loser, so while I didn't abhor it, it kind of got on my nerves. I think I was the only person who went there who actually needed to work out.

But now, there are lots of chubbs there. I even see really fat people.

This morning, I walked out of the room full of toilet stalls to wash my hands (because I am a good, hygienic person, and if you don't believe me, come over and lick my keyboard) and heading into the room with the toilet stalls, there was a woman who looked exactly like Jabba the Hutt. If Jabba was stark naked.

Which left me feeling just like Carrie Fischer. When she was young and looked hot in a bikini.


I am not and do not. But yay, stupid gym for making me feel that I am and do.

2. My minivan



When the construction workers take over her house, a girl moves into her car. And lives there for seven weeks. And counting.

Luckily for me, my car has room for my gym bag, my overstuffed purse, my office-in-a-bag containing all the construction information, my iPod, my cell phone, my commuter cup of tea, a few umbrellas, snacks, hand wipers, my children, their backpacks, a cello, The Insidious Dr. Fu Manchu, etc., etc., etc.

In short, I love it.

(Even though it looks like Jabba the Hutt. And makes the Passat feel like Carrie Fisher.)

Stupid Things I Love

1. My iPod

Specifically, the fact that I can download music videos. You know how some of us install elaborate home theater systems so we can watch silent movies? Well, I'm using 21st century technology to catch up with all those 80s videos I never really watched all that much back then because I had a full time job.

Because nothing keeps me moving on the treadmill more than Madonna singing Express Yourself.

And don't laugh at me, because the guy with no shirt on? Who apparently sleeps in a bunk bed in the shower when he's not lifting weights? Looks great. He hasn't aged a bit.

2. InStyle Magazine--the U.K. Edition

First of all, it tries to get me to buy shit at places like Smythson's and the TopShop, so I save a lot of money. But I also love it because it's really big. And the fashion layouts actually look like a fashion magazine. And they feature celebrities I've barely heard of, instead of showing me Mary Kate Olson again. And the interior decorating section featured a spread on Sonia Rykiel's apartment in Paris, instead of some bimbo's Malibu beach house.

3. Diet Books

I've bought so many diet books lately that if I glued them together, I could use them instead of a chinning bar. The advice is all over the map, and very often contradictory, but I lap it all up like the food I'm no longer eating.

This one is my favorite:



It's actually a good book. And I followed its advice to buy lots of other diet books. Now the other ones I bought are really pretty stupid, and one of them totally deserves a place in this list. Unfortunately, I can't remember its title. And while I could--in fact, did--spend some time looking for it on Amazon by searching for books with the word "thin" in the title, I'm not stupid enough to wade through the 23,793 hits that came up.

Badger hasn't cornered the market on impulse purchases

Between cell phone calls to my contractor and various suppliers, and all the fun I have on the treadmill at the gym, I managed to snag the following:

at the Japanese food store:
Giant box of Pocky
Bag of instant miso soup w/tofu

at Bed, Bath, and Beyond:
set of blue striped sheets for the boy's room
set of pink solid sheets for the girl's room

at Border's:
How the Rich Get Thin
Joining the Thin Club
Never be Fat Again
Eat Smart, Walk Strong
English Vogue
English InStyle
Tatler
Lucky
look me in the eye: my life with asperger's

I love ...

... the sofas in the living room. I'm currently on the shmancy one that came with five pillows. Fabulous when you're feeling feeble. And I am.

... being propped up by pillows, especially when I feel like a tubercular soprano in the third act of the opera.

... wireless DSL. On the sofa. With my feet up.

... tea. My fifth mug today, but who's counting?

... flowers. I have yellow roses in a low bowl on the dining room table and two dozen long-stemmed red roses in a vase in the living room. It doesn't bother me at all that there's a certain hospital room flavor to all these roses.

... that I didn't actually hurl at this morning's spin class. Even though it felt like I was going to.

And now, the Weird Al Yankovic meme

Badger's complaining that thanks to her son, she can't get Weird Al's "White and Nerdy" out of her head.

Speaking as the proud owner of a talking Ed Grimley doll, a hardback copy of The Official Preppy Handbook, a 33 RPM recording by Helen Gurley Brown that I've never listened to, and a massive number of Modern Priscilla magazines, the most important song in Weird Al's oeuvre--his heartbreaking work of staggering genius, if you will--isn't "White and Nerdy." Although "White and Nerdy" is, of course, a classic.

No, the Weird Al song is this beauty:

A different book meme

Because I'm an original thinker. Even when I'm doing a meme.

I pilfered this a while ago from Babelbabe, who got it from 50 Books, where I lurk.

Except I can't really do this meme correctly, because it's supposed to be about books you've lied about reading, and mostly, when I was in school, I read the books I was supposed to read. I can't say that I was an especially hard-working student, but I was an English major; reading books was what I was there to do.

That is, except for a few in graduate school. Actually, a lot in graduate school. Bill Brown, I officially apologize for not reading a whole shitload of the books you assigned for that seminar on a justly obscure era in American literature; I blew off at least half of them.

But I blew them off so thoroughly that I can't remember what they were.

And now? People, I can't be bothered to fake anything, let alone something stupid like whether I've read a book. I've read Moby Dick. I've read Paradise Lost. About five times. I've read Dryden's Aeneid and Pope's Iliad and Odyssey and The Brothers Karamozov and Middlemarch and the Barchester Chronicles and Remembrance of Things Past, and basically, if some book club skank thinks I'm going to waste my time reading some middle-brow, wanh wanh, people-are-mean piece-of-shit best seller, she can kiss my fat white ass. Pretty much.

So instead of the books I've lied about reading, I'm going to list books in other categories.

I'm Amazed Nobody Ever Made Me Read
King Lear
The Red Badge of Courage
Anna Karenina
War and Peace
Anything by Steinbeck
Anything by Hemingway

I've Never Been Interested in Reading
The Color Purple
The Lovely Bones
Beloved
One Hundred Years of Solitude
My Antonia
Sophie's Choice
The DaVinci Code
the one about the Geisha

I Never Managed to Finish
The Lord of the Rings
Catch-22

Books I Finished and Liked Quite a Bit, Although Going Into It, I Felt Extremely Wary
Buddenbrooks
The Magic Mountain
The Remembrance of Things Past
Ulysses
Humphrey Clinker
Tristram Shandy

Books for which the quip "Kill me. Now." was invented
Pamela (Servant girl acts coy; marries master. Helen Gurley Brown would have done a better job.)

Rasselas (Samuel Johnson at his least sprightly.)

A Pilgrim's Progress (An allegory! Quick, where's my gun so I can shoot it!)

The Canterbury Tales (The earliest version in English of ideas that had become pretty shopworn by the time I was in college, 600 years later. That these ideas are expressed in Middle English doesn't help.)

The Romance of the Forest (So boring I forced myself to read it in 75 page chunks. I wouldn't let myself get up to pee until I'd finished reading a section. Picture me in a carrel in the library with my legs macramed together trying not to wet my pants, and you get the general idea. I can't remember a word of it. If asked what the book was about, I'd answer "Not peeing.")

Waverly (Again, this was a first. In this case, the first historical novel. When it was written, the whole idea of the fictional protagonist (Waverly) dealing with historical personages (Bonny Prince Charlie) was new! And fresh! And yet, somehow, underwhelming in the extreme.)

The Princess Casimassima It's the only full-length James novel I've managed to choke down.

Sons and Lovers "Hate" barely begins to describe my feelings for D. H. Lawrence.

That's funny--I don't look meme-ish

Stolen from Dr Howard, Dr Fine, Dr Howard, Dr Kilo Watt Hour.

1. Your rock star name
(first pet & current car)
Winkie Sienna

2.Your gangsta name
(fav ice cream flavor, favorite cookie)
Caramel Bordeaux

3. Your Fly Guy / Girl name
(first initial of first name, first three letters of your last name)
P-Bux

4. Your detective name
(favorite color, favorite animal)
Red Leopard

5. Your soap opera name
(middle name, city where you were born)
Stearns Boston

6. Your Star Wars name
(the first 3 letters of your last name, first 2 letters of your first)
Buxpo

7. Superhero name
(2nd favorite color, favorite drink put “The”)
Pink the Manhattan

8. Nascar name
(the first names of your grandfathers)
Dick Stacy

9. Stripper name
(the name of your favorite perfume/cologne, favorite candy)
Chanel Skittles

10.Witness protection name
(mother’s & father’s middle names )
Noland Alden

11. TV weather anchor name
(Your 5th grade teacher’s last name, a major city that starts with the same letter)
Pradell Peoria

12. Spy name
(your favorite season/holiday, flower)
Autumn Rose

13. Cartoon name
(favorite fruit, article of clothing you’re wearing right now + “ie” or “y”)
Pear Jeansie

14. Hippie name
(What you ate for breakfast, your favorite tree),
Bread Birch

15. Your rockstar tour name
(”The” + Your fave hobby/craft, fave weather element + “Tour”)
The Blogging Blizzard Tour

St. Francis 1/Angels 0

I spent a very long time in church today. The usual service, the usual rehearsal, and then the first Evensong of the season.

Today we celebrated St. Francis. But we haven't had a lot of time for extra rehearsals of Evensong music. So we sang a bunch of boring, not very difficult or interesting stuff. Which I didn't exactly have note perfect.

But it was OK, because we were being drowned out by a bunch of dogs barking. Because Evensong was also the Blessing of the Animals, where people bring their pets to church for a blessing.

So, it's hot. And humid. And I just spent a long time listening to dogs bark. One of them even pooped on the carpet covering the main aisle of the Cathedral.

(I'm sure there's some fancy ecclesiastical term for that location, like the way they always say "narthex" when they mean "entrance," and "undercroft" when they mean "basement," but honestly, people ... I've spent my entire adult life listening to church mice spout this terminology, and I've never been capable of learning it.)

But when I got home, the Red Sox were almost finished sweeping the Angels. So I watched that, which was enjoyable. Now I'm watching the Indians play the Yankees. So far things are going my way.

And That Stud Muffin I Married is cooking steak for dinner. And tomorrow? No school.

Which means, I guess, that a day that started out a dog is looking way, way up.

Water, water everywhere

Happy Columbus Day, Internet! Hey, Internet! I'm talking to you.

I know, but I've been too busy to post. For real. I'm not exaggerating. This is the first time I've been near a computer in a couple of days.

This is how bad it's been: for the first Friday in over a year, I didn't manage to come up with something for Mamarazzi. Susie Sunshine, Sarah O, and Kristin from Eva Las Vegas have put out a contract on me.

They've arranged to have me kidnapped and cooped up with incredibly grumpy people in less than pristine surroundings. With no running water. Or toilets.

Well, too bad, my would-be-punitive fellow Mamarazzi, because BEEN THERE/DONE THAT. And I escaped.

In other words, in addition to the usual thrills of my existence (driving, tile-picking-out, music lessons, rehearsals, laundry, teacher telephone calls, school paperwork, homework assistance, and cleaning) yesterday I also managed to fly with my family to New Hampshire. Where we arrived at our house at 1:00 in the morning. Only to discover that my brother-in-law had ripped out the downstairs bathroom. And that the water was turned off.

AND THE TOILETS WOULDN'T FLUSH.

And as if that weren't enough, I had been so smart. And listen to me, internet: you never want to be smart the way your Poppy can be smart. It doesn't pay.

See, what with the tile-picking-out and such, the laundry had started to pile up, and I had a genius idea. Genius! I decided I would pack all dirty clothes and launder them when I arrived.

So there we were, in the middle of the night, with a suitcase full of dirty clothes, in a house with no running water.

I did what any sensible woman would do. I brushed my teeth using a bottle of grape Dasani water from the refrigerator and went to bed. (Just so you know, Grape Dasani + Colgate = cough syrup, but not in an interesting getting-high way.) This morning I changed our airplane reservations. And this afternoon we flew back to Chicago. Where there are toilets and faucets and an ice maker and a whole laundry room simply brimming with washing machines and dryers.

It drives me crazy.

I am posting from my messy, under construction, dusty, plastic-sheet draped, malodorous house. Why?

Because my big ass laptop has lost the internet.

My husband fiddled with it and told me the HP Wireless program wouldn't run, the nanowidget wouldn't interface with the watchamacallitron, and somehow, the driver appears to be missing.

Frankly, that conversation reminded me of the Gary Larson cartoon where he shows you what is being said to the dog, and then what the dog understands.

Yes, I did just call myself a dog. Because I feel like one. Or maybe I just feel like a mother.

My big ass laptop is only 14 months old. A toddler.

And laptops are like babies, you know. They're so cute! And portable! You carry them around with you. You want to sleep with them in your bed, but you worry that they'll fall off. You count their ages in months.

And then, they shit on you.