Thursday, October 23, 2008

Really Ugly Beds!

Y'all did not know this, (or more truthfully, y'all totally do not care) but my Friend is supposed to visit from Nashville for Halloween so I am making vague stabs at making the house look more like one college educated human being lives there and less like a large family of alcoholic badgers lives there or it has been ransacked by goons. (there must be a collective noun for a bunch of badgers, like an unkindness of ravens? Or a pride of lions? Look it up). Part of this involves- well, I have sheets and so forth on the bed I ordinarily sleep on but that bed is small so I want to buy sheets and make the other bed look- well, normal. Yes.

First of all, did y'all know how much sheets cost? A LOT. I had no idea! Like a nice suit? Each piece? Can cost less than a set of sheets and I'm thinking, now what exactly is there to a set of sheets. It's like, some fabric with some hemming. I'm used to paying $3 a yard for really fancy fabric so.
Let me list several things that cost less than a set of sheets, but I think should cost more.

Many electronic things cost less, despite being full of Magic. (O yah? How do YOU think a CD player works? Just ask Alex and see) Sheets do not have any Magic in and of themselves.

Kittens can be frequently obtained for FREE and I want to know what is more full of Magic and Adorableness than a kitten.

Books! You can get whole piles of books for less than a set of sheets.

Same thing with CDs or music, I think you could probably buy the entire Michael Jackson catalogue for the price of a set of sheets.

In a few weeks you might be able to buy a majority stake in GM or Ford for the price of a set of sheets.

You can probably buy a whole house in some parts of the country for less than the price of a set of sheets.

You can probably buy every bit of Joe Biden branded memorabilia for less than the price of a set of sheets.

You can probably buy Calista Flockhart for less than the price of a set of sheets.

A tire costs less than a set of sheets, and that's WITH mounting and balancing. Like seriously, y'all!

And y'all know about my parents (no wait, y'all know about the lady who insists she not get named in my blog) and like she has about 8 million sets? But I am thinking, that A) I want them to match- in the hope that gradually, bit by bit, my house will improve- fighting back, you know- and then eventually it will all be tasteful and reasonably attractive B) I want them to fit, because this certain lady has no concept of "size" or "fit" or "didn't come from the trash" and C) like, they shouldn't be spotted or stained or tacky or anything? And I realise that they will shortly become stained (hee) but I do not want previous stains?

Shut up! I am making vague stabs in the direction of being normal.

But anyway, so I have been trying to buy these things and look at the really, really ugly beds I found for you! There are a whole pile of these so if you are not busy you can find your personal favourites and think of snarky things to say (does not work for Alex.)

Y'all! I am NOT making these up and I did not find them in a JCPenney 1978 catalogue. Fine, if you think that I am, you can click on the title to see them for yourselves.



This was the first picture I saw and I was like, AAAAH! Just the thing for someone who craves waking up with their face in a deer's ass.

But suppose you don't want to wake up with your face in a deer's ass? Suppose you think, that's great, but I'd rather wake up with my head in a bear's ass, and can't find big fat hairy gay guys where I live? (then you're living in the wrong place, but still)



There's also this, and surprisingly, the painting of the dogs playing poker is not offered as a mandatory accessory. The fools!



This bed features the type of setting featured in "The Shining," or "The Blair Witch Project." Guaranteed nightmare-fodder.



This bed is called the "Glamour Bed." Before I saw this bed, when I imagine "Glamour," it was more Fanny Ardent? Now, after having seen this bed, when i imagine "Glamour," all I can imagine is so violently purple.



This was the bed on which Strawberry Shortcake had her first, and fatal orgasm. She immediately exploded.



This is the ideal bedding ensemble for someone with a severe explosive digestive problem, someone who poos the bed on a VERY regular bases. You should put it in the same room with the Strawberry Shortcake bed and see if the world ends.



This bedding ensemble is called the "Jive" Bed, and if you can figure out what connection it has with "Jive," please let me know.



This one is called the "Southwestern Bed." Somehow, when Dad and I went to visit the Southwest in '96, we missed the shades/tints of fuchsia parts of the Southwest.



The violent cabbages depicted here, in black and white, should star in a film noir. Please note the foreboding.



Someone who is - well, not entirely right in the head apparently lives here because they have apparently crammed all the furniture they could find into one corner of the room; else the furniture is huddling in the corner and trying to make itself invisible because the owner has an axe AAAH AAAAH AAAAAAH!

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

And Now, the Weather Report from Wrongland, Brought to you by Alex.

So Alex and I have been having some variety of Interesting discussions recently. Since we do not think he is actually retarded, the next best explanation is that he has a cable subscription to Wrongland satellite TV and has been getting his news and information directly from there.

Saturday I was driving between Saniel's house and (somewhere else) after having been to Macy's- with Sandi, who now says she does not want to go shopping with me for a whole nother year- because I did buy a lot- and all of a sudden I see: The Unmistakable Dismobile! So I ring Alex to see where he is going. He is very surprised. I then meet up with Amber and him at Manuel's.

I make sure I show Amber and him the outfit I purchased at Hot Topic for Robin. AAAAGH, he says, what I have seen cannot be unseen! AAAGH!

I promise to send him a picture text of this from Robin's phone. (ha ha, someday when he least expects it- he will open his phone and then aaah aaah aaah!)

Also Amber has apparently gotten him to speak with punctuation, which is an improvement. Although he continues to mumble.

This day Alex is wearing long johns on the outside of his clothing. I do not know why. I criticise this. "The underwear on the outside look? did not work for Madonna and it is definitely not working for you," I point out.
Alex disagrees. He still thinks it's 1993 and he should dress up like Kurt Cobain.

Then he declares his intention to wear flannels and overalls.

Great, our parents are going to be thrilled: I dress like a twink whore and Alex is going to dress like a pig farmer.

Alex claims that many people covet the Dismobile and frequently offer to buy it, "you're just never there when this happens." But by his own testimony, the people who want to buy it are Bob-Marley High and, as I observe, do not have the wherewithal to actually consummate the purchase, (or probably much else).

Alex objects to my use of the word Wherewithal.

Why do you have to use all those big lawyer words? he asks.

Sigh. Just because YOU don't know about something, I point out, doesn't mean that it doesn't exist or that other people don't know about it.

That is just one dimension of wrong! Here are some more dimensions of wrong he has been living in recently.

Alex is registered to vote in this election, which is- sort of good? And he is intending to vote for Bob Barr. Fine, I say. But this is a problem because he vehemently disagrees with Ayn Rand in his further attempts to Be as Unlike Me as Possible.

Mind you, we do not think he knows exactly what Ayn Rand thinks, but he does not like her because of above reason.

Now, you can't dislike Ayn Rand and also be a Libertarian. Ok? We all know this.

Alex disagrees. Now he's just making up beliefs for his candidate. "Like you can be an existentialist and not like Camus," he says.

For once, he has me there; I am sadly the French major and have never read any of Camus. So I can't disagree with him, because that is a subject I know nothing about.

Dad is present for this argument. For once, he says, (We object to this) I agree with Cruella, you can't like Bob Barr and not like Ayn Rand.

But Dad thinks that Libertarianism is going too far; I like that the meat and so forth is inspected, he says, they used to put all kinds of terrible things in it before USDA inspections.

I point out that the inspections haven't been going all that well so far. They've been letting in all that food with melamine!

But Alex does not believe in melamine. "I don't believe you," he insists. "I never heard of melamine."

Just because you haven't heard of it doesn't mean it's not true, I say. I go on to explain what melamine is.

"So what's wrong with that," he asks, "people eat coal."

Dude? WTF!? No, they don't.

They eat charcoal, he insists, like if you get poisoned, you eat coal.

No, I say, charcoal is to make you puke after you get poisoned, and coal is different from charcoal. I explain how charcoal is made. Alex insists that charcoal is made out of coal.

Now my LSAT class all wants to meet him because they have been hearing about him and want to see what he is like, (and is he deserving of my attempts to Intentionally Inflict Emotional Distress on him) so they wanted him to come to Los Loros tomorrow night after class for Margaritas.

heh he said, i dont know

O? I said, Why? All three of them are very anxious to meet you.

well he said, i might go do hot yoga tomorrow

Why? I asked, What is hot yoga, isn't yoga like, stretching?

hot yoga is like, and he started giggling- where they heat up the room to like 90 degrees- chortle- and then you do yoga.

I do not entirely understand yoga but I do know that MTM does it, so I do not think I want to, and also I think it is one of those liberal-hippie type things to do.

Why would you want to do that? I asked. Can't you just take the seats out of the minivan and park it in the sun in July and do yoga?

well he says, chortling, I heard it makes you sick so i want to see if im going to get sick doing it. dont you ever try to do something to see if it will make you sick?

Um, no. And as y'all know, one of my lifetime goals has been to persuade someone to eat an entire quart jar of mayonnaise. Thus far, (probably because I want him to do it) he has refused to do it. I still think this would be a life changing event, like you know how Ian begins all his sentences with, "when I was in Thailand?" You could begin all your sentences with, "When I ate the entire jar of mayonnaise, Before I ate the entire jar of mayonnaise, and After I ate the entire jar of mayonnaise." And he did drink the entire pint of Texas Pete, so why not? I demand an answer.

Sigh. I do not know what is wrong with him but I disclaim all responsibility.

He did go with me to pick out a Halloween costume (Robin and I are going to be a football player and cheerleader, sort of a la King and Queen? Don't dread this.) I I did not see anything sufficient. I almost got him to help me pick the sluttiest outfit. Anyway if you are reading this, you can come to my party! Just ask me.

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

You have unique (knees)

So I went to Nashville this weekend, and- it was absolutely wonderful. Sigh. I was told I had unique (knees) which I was previously unaware of.

Since a number of people have loudly objected to my descriptions, I'll say this:

Three different types of batteries were purchased for my trip.

Since y'all generally object to my other descriptions of what I did, I will now describe the food I cooked. I made: Salad with french fried onions, and bacon; gougeres for the first time which were delicious, and pork roast from one of those pork roast kits? It woulda been awful but I reseasoned it, and added a can of tomatoes and cream of mushroom soup and roasted it in the oven. And I made flourless chocolate cake and quiche.

And I made That Face. A lot.

Well, I guess we'll just see how things go. I can't move because I need to get a job after school and
A) the job market is probably better here than in Nashville; at least it's wider
B) law doesn't work like other university degrees; lawyers hire other lawyers based on the reputation of the school locally. Lotsa lawyers know GSU here, but not so much in Nashville, and we can't compete with Vandy grads. Also there are more federal agencies here, which is where I would really like to work after school. Like SEC! CDC! Fed Reserve!
C) I do NOT want to take more than one bar.

Anyway, I did check with the registrar today. I thought I would be able to finish early in Dec '09, which would save a pile o' bux, but no, it looks like May '10. I do not understand this: I took the 6 credit hours, two classes, during the Austria trip, and then 3 extra credit hours during this term with the externship, so isn't that like 3/4 of a term ahead? Apparently not; I require 90 credit hours to graduate, and at the end of this term will have 53 with 37 left to go. That would be 16 credit hours one term, (like now) 15 Fall '09 but require 6 credit hours of summer classes so no, I do not want to take summer classes.

Now the other day I got free tix to see a play at the Alliance. I heard "free tix to see play" before I thought of which play it was going to be, so I snapped them up- and then discovered it was "Managing Maxine," a play in which a 70 year old lady finds love "for the first time."

So I went with Dean. Let me say this: it was the theatrical equivalent of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese; a fairly acceptable, if bland, and entirely predictable form of entertainment and offering no surprises or really toothsome substance. You may extend the analogy as necessary. I frankly- well, it stirred up my bile. This was the World Premiere and I do not know if there will be a Secondaire but Dean seemed to think it would be headed for Tampa dinner theatre.

Anyway, it featured a fair number of contrived obstacles to the romance between a "feisty" 70 year old lady and a retired federal judge. We were treated to old lady boobs, just so you know.

Also more amusingly, this show offered much opportunity for people watching, as in, the audience was generally really old and frequently entertainingly attired? As in, one of the audience members was wearing a sort of plastic brace thing on his chest? Which completely stopped me in mid comment, I was so shocked.

Dean was equally astonished. WHAT is he wearing? he demanded.

Shhh! I said! It's his exoskeleton or carapace, he's an insectoid! He's half one of those wasps that - if you attract his attention, he'll lay his eggs in you and when they hatch into larvae they'll devour you from the inside out! Don't make eye contact or you'll anger him.

O and at least one audience member got rip-roaringly drunk and felt the need to shout at the performers on stage. I believe we were accosted by this lady after we left the theatre: we were driving alongside her when she, in the back seat still clutching and waving her drink, rolled down her window and shouted "yoo hoo! How y'all doing?"

We were riding in Moby Dick, so I shouted back, "We're having some Grey Poupon!"

This amused the lady. "My brother took us out!" she shouted back.

The unfortunate brother was driving, and objected. "I want to DIE," he observed.

So see, Alex, other people have siblings who publicly embarass them too, you are not alone.

Wednesday, October 08, 2008

Cruella Has Been Busy Making Liberals Cry

Ok, so it was only one liberal, I still get Ann Coulter points though. Which, could kinda be a bad thing? I'm not at all sure I want to be like Ann Coulter.

Anyway, this happened in the course of an argument -Dean and I had beend iscussing a variety of things, including Caribbean resorts and the morality of going there when they're full of poverty- which I am all for (going there, not the poverty) because seriously y'all, I am sorry they are poor and all? But not going there isn't going to help and it does make some people's lives better. Dean seems to think that Sarah Palin is pretty much Lester Maddox in a fetching skirt suit, and of course I disagree with this, and then were discussing alternative energy and he said that we should use more of it, so I pulled the Ayn Rand card and Questioned His Premises- as in, what alternative energies? And he used the line about well, we should spend more on research- and I pointed out that ExxonMobil etc had probably researched this stuff to death because if YOU think the oil is going to run out, then what do you think THEY think? And what would they do if the oil ran out? So it's BEEN researched, that's not the problem, the problem is that "alternative" energies are not economically viable- it's always going to take more energy to create a gallon of ethanol than is contained therein- and then he started crying because he realised he knew nothing. I do not want to make people cry but then you should not be all liberal around me either.

I went to Trackside because Ian encouraged me to on Friday. I was all busy having a bath, because Everyone (you know who you are) had declined my offers of pie and wine- (think about it, doesn’t that sound good? Wouldn’t you love a really nice warm berry pie- with ice cream, and flaky crust- and some wine? If you don’t, shut up.)

So I had gone to the Thrift Store and was busy eating Trashy food (hot dogs with that plasticky cheese) and reading a trashy book in the bathtub.

So, discoveries were made! Alex is now trying to shove his embarrassment on Joe, because I walked in and demanded of them, “Did y’all find me a nice man to have sex with yet?” And Alex tried to blame his immediate embarrassment on Joe, like when Heather (God rest her soul) tried to blame Trey for putting a hole in Freomi’s wall when Heather was kinda- sitting in the hole she had made in the wall with her big fat ass.

And then- did y’all know Ian has acquired the rather annoying habit of beginning every sentence with “When I was in Thailand?”

This aggravates me as it indicates an insufficient level of interest in ME. A shift, if you will, from the Rightful Centre of Attention. Also this strikes me as a rather Tennessee Williams esque allusion to Ruined Grandeur? Sort of?

I objected to this by finishing Ian's sentences. "When I was in Thailand" - - - I grew a horn in the middle of my head, the sun shone out of my behind, I could rub my tummy and pat my head at the same time.

I had too many drinks to discover anything else that I clearly remember. Ian and I did have a long politicoeconomic discussion about tariffs. I did object fiercely to chicken wings being very close to me, because Ian kept pawing my sleeve after eating said chicken wings, which could have been a problem because said sleeve was A) white and B) part of one of the few pieces of nice clothing that I own and drippy chicken wings + nice white jacket = :( At least for me.

Anyway, I have one political view, and my (class that I teach) students have another. They are very pro-nature.

I am very- well, I like nature, but in very limited doses. Nature is, for one thing, great for separating me from Other People. I have a fair amount of Nature around my house. I would have more were it possible.

Nature provides great backdrops for me to ride through in a car, or perhaps on a bus, and harass Suzanne (Didn’t We Almost Have it All) Wakefield to teach me to knit.

Nature has Frogs which you can threaten other law students with, and upset Mr. Peabody because you are harassing the frogs.

Nature is good for walking around in and looking at, provided that you got there in a climate controlled car and are going to your climate controlled home in a climate controlled car the same day to eat food that you bought at climate controlled Wal-Mart which was all nicely packaged for you and you don’t have to eat things like yamioc out of the dirt.

When I think of nature, it’s like, it’s nice to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live there, like- New York, or Paris. I think of Nature as- Scarlett grubbing the dirty turnip straight out of the ground and shouting “As God is my witness, I’ll never be hungry again!” So on the whole, I think it is a Good Thing that Man dominates Nature, particularly when the Actual Productive Acts of Dominating are Done by Other People, because Instead of Doing My Corporations Homework, I am Typing This Blog Entry, and You Can Get Away With That In Corporations Unless My Dad’s Angry Twin Calls On You But in Nature That is the Kind of Laziness that Leads to, oh, Say, the Dust Bowl.

Ok, I promise not to overcapitalise for the rest of this entry.

Granted, I think Man is particularly bad when he dominates nature by making it into boring things like baseball fields or football fields, places where a stunning amount of incredible boringness is contrived, even more than that on C-Span.

But Nature, outside the Box, is not so good, like it can make hurricanes! That want to kill you! Right?

In fact, generally, nature DOES want to kill you; trees, for example, could fall on you, if they were not stopped by the perhaps convenient medium of your house being between them and you, and I should know because this happened not too long ago.

Animals bite, trample, maul and devour and- wait, there goes that voice again. What’s that you say? O it’s the voice of my inner 13 year old girl, telling me a Pony would never do that.

Well little girl, let me tell you this: Ponies- grow up to be horses- and have you ever looked at the TEETH on a horse? Let me tell you- they could chomp the ever living crap out of you, horses just don’t think to do so. But they do kick, from what I understand. Anyway, I saw that movie about the man who went and messed with the bears until they ate him.

But another little voice says, but what about your personal experiences with nature? You don’t experience it, so how do you know?

Aha! I say, but I have! I have experienced it enough to realise:

Nature is ungrateful and stupid.

Sunday I was all like, I have to study! But it is nice outside! So I will sit outside and study.

This attracted the attention of a couple of solicitous yellow jackets. They developed a compelling interest in my feet.

I, sadly, failed to appreciate this interest. Interest by yellow jackets can frequently lead to unfortunate consequences for the interestee.

The solution to this would be go back inside, but I was not willing to do this and be defeated by Nature, so I thought of a compromise: I would come up with something that the yellow jackets could be interested in- indeed- benefit by- I would be generous- and leave my feet alone. Which were bare, mind you.

So I got some juice and put it in a tea light holder some small distance away. Did this lure the yellow jackets away from my unfruitful feet? (I had just taken a bath, so shut up. They did not smell like a dead opossum)

No it did not, stupid yellow jackets. There’s ungrateful and stupid for you: insects.

And how can you get more natural than insects? Dirt, by the way, is stupid and ungrateful also. And out of curiosity; how are yellow jackets sexed? Like most bees are not fertile but sterile female workers, and then there’s the queen, and then there are male drones to fertilise the queen, but have you ever heard of a queen wasp? Wait, I guess Teresa Heinz-Kerry would be kinda a Queen WASP. Hee.

Anyway, I like Nature, but you know, I am all aware of the fact that Nature does not always like us, it frequently involves elements of cold, damp, biting, stinging, that kind of thing.

There was some discussion of this in class, based on something we had read dealing with Nature and the need to control it or something. Nature when it is left alone is best or something along those Idiot Rousseauvian lines.

And I agree, pointed out one (the only actual, as far as I know) lady in the class.

This lady has the sort of appearance that- well, indicates a more than passing familiarity with straightening irons and moisturisers. Like, not going out for beaver buffet! Not the ballcap and sweats and faint mustache kind of “lady”. So I am thinking the lady and nature would, in reality, have more of an adversarial than cooperative relationship. She looks like she cannot go out of a 5 mile radius of an Elizabeth Arden. But she does work for TFA teaching 1st grade so she is pretty! And tough at the same time! I admire her.

But I point this out. Nature, I observe, is cold and damp and full of things that bite and sting.

So are we, she replied.

Although I do NOT invite you to personally verify this, I am NOT cold and damp! I tell lady. Nor do I bite or sting, unless you ask!

Really, people have complained that I got drunk and babbled, or – well, got drunk and ______ but no one to date has complained that I have ever been cold and damp.

All three of the class thought this was funny.

On leaving I made some offhand comment about “This is where the MAGIC happens.”

Another inappropriate comment! She said.

Y'all! Is that inappropriate? If “Magic” has some meaning I don’t know about, please let me know before I tell this to – ooo spose like, I said that to some professor, and he/she thought it was a come on? And then took me up on it? That would be bad. Imagine fending off the lustful advances of (irascible green elf professor) or (small angry bird professor) or (“interestingly” dressed professor) or (the professor who wore my suits). I could say, This is where the “magic” happens, and then wave a dead animal.

They can’t find that insulting, I daresay they would find fending off my advances equally horrid.

O and on a completely unrelated note: do y’all buy- like, the not actually Tupperware containers from Wal-Mart? In the big boxes that claim, 164 piece set only 19.99? Food Saver or whatever?

And what I want to know is, does that thing that take the other sock take half of the not-trademarked-as-Tupperware things? Like you always have a bunch of random lids, and then a bunch of random bowls. Perhaps other people (I know who you are) are more organised or whatever, but all I know, is; I pack my many course lunch in my not-trademarked-as-Tupperware containers, which start with both A lid and A bowl.

The Lid and The Bowl eventually get emptied and end up in the dishwasher. They get washed. They end up in a cabinet.

Then I do not know what happens. I think the Thing that takes the other sock and was stealing screwdrivers and scissors (and my engagement ring; I know where I put it and it is not there anymore, damn you) takes them. So then I clean out all the mismatched bits from under the cabinet and go buy another box.

But then have you noticed, like I bought a whole box of this stuff from IKEA? And like, half of the containers are exactly the size to hold, like, three olives, some toothpicks, or one baby carrot? Dudes! WTF are the Swedes eating that requires this sort of container?

Ya Sven, I packed yer lunch, orgy borgy.

du, Ilsa, orgy, did ja pack my borgy vun vienna sausage?

Ya Sven borgy borgy, I packed it, orgy, und I packed yer vun stick of celery
separate und tree olives und vun finger sandwich mit der herrings und lingonberry.

Yum!