That's My Bix!

I was going to write an entry full of links, but you know what? It just never really does it justice. I could write and write and write and you still won’t capture all the laughter and all of the hugs and all of the stupidity and wacky hijinx (Left Siiiide represent!) You still will never have any idea how wonderful it is when this particular group of friends gets together to play in the snow. So I’m not going to write an entry right now. I think for once I’m going to be selfish and savor everything, keeping it to myself for just a little bit longer.

But I will tell you this: I love my friends. Love them. Very much. Good times never seemed so good.

So, as of the last entry, I had pneumonia, a ton of Minicon stuff to comprehend and a cazy amount of science fiction to read. Since then, I had double the amount of science fiction to read (Our professor needed to change the schedule around so we had two Philip K. Dick books in one week on top of the critical theory… must resist urge to–oh my god, I can’t! Dick! DICK! It was deep Dicking all weekend long! I was double Dicked! Ha! Ha. Oh I’m so sorry. Please forgive me) and still have pneumonia, and maybe have a couple of bruised ribs on top of it. Which, as you can imagine, is awesome. Pity poor Esteban, who has completed his dog watching duties and now gets to sleep through a symphony of wheezes and death rattles, a harmony of very tiny banshees stuffed inside my pillow. Pity the man, despite the fact that the house is about to be enveloped by laundry and garbage, since when I try to carry a laundry basket through the house, I wheeze for twenty minutes straight and like God in Genesis, if I am at rest, the rest of the world shall follow my example.

Ok, so lack of sleep is making me cranky. And my codeine has almost been used up for legitimate medical reasons. Leaving none to horde for future migraines or hellacious cramps. The mega dose of antibiotics was actually working, but they were also requiring too much of my flutter tummy and by midday Friday, I was running to the bathroom and leaning over the toilet while breathing through my mouth and praying that no one would hear so that I didn’t have to deal with rumors of morning sickness for the next couple of months. It’s always touchy when speculating about fat girls getting pregnant.

So after a whiny e-mail to my doctor, she called in a Z-pack. I took all five pills religiously but any progress I made with the megabiotics has been eradicated. The bacteria in my lungs clearly enjoy a brisk attack of Zithromax. They find the quaint five day treatment envigorating. My doctor called in another Z-pack, which of course, makes sense, because why not just try the same inneffective thing again? I’m sure my lung bacteria are gearing up for a caged Deathmatch. Perhaps you’ll catch it on Pay-Per-View.

As for school, I missed class last week, due to the whole “deathly ill” thing, which is fine because I hated the Dick book for that week anyway. Yesterday, I made it down, packing some expectorant in my school bag, along with a wad of the diaphonous UWM toilet paper in case I had an unfortunate sputum incident.

(It is times like this that I have a difficult time maintaining the illusion that I am but a delicate fucking flower. Especially when I’m hacking like a four-pack-a-day lifer and when I’m asleep, apparently I sound a bit like a Mr. Coffee percolator that someone has filled with sludge. Or so I would assume, because when I wake up, it’s like I’m breathing through Silly Putty.)

But I made my way back to school this week, although it required an elevator ride both up to the third floor (normally I take the stairs if the elevator is more than a floor away because I despise waiting) and back down again (which just makes me feel like a lazy ass), but it was either that or expire dramatically in the stairwell. And I somehow doubt that I could pull off a convincing Satine, especially when instead of a bejeweled corset, I have a $3 Old Navy sweatshirt and instead of Nicole Kidman, I am–decidedly not Nicole Kidman.

Class was, as always, a treat, punctuated by the fact that one of the people I didn’t know in the program had apparently been discussing me with someone else I didn’t know in the program and I am apparently the departmental enigma, as she didn’t know how it was possible that there was someone in our very small creative writing program that she didn’t even know existed. Those were the words she used. “I had no idea that you even existed!” she exclaimed. I felt the need turn to the one person in class I had met before, Birkenstock Guy, to prove that I have been around for awhile. And he nodded with great validation that yes, really, he’s been in classes with me before. So, in other words, I had to have a guy who only wears Birkenstocks without socks all year long to vouch for the fact that I actually existed.

Now, I have made a specific attempt to be part of every class discussion since the beginning of the semester, because as I have mentioned before, science fiction is not my strong point and I haven’t been in a literature class since I was an undergrad, so I need to take special care to fight my urge to sit back and let everyone else do the talking. But honestly, the class has been incredibly interesting and I have learned so much that it’s been a great experience and I’m always fully engaged in the discussions and find something to add, hopefully without showing my ass, so to speak. So this week, when we talked about the Dick Valis trilogy, I posited that the third book wasn’t even science fiction but rather something foisted upon us by the publisher after Dick’s death. Later, the professor made a comment about “what Michelle was saying earlier” and the three girls in the class each looked at each other as though to say “Is your name Michelle? I didn’t think your name was Michelle. But maybe Michelle is the other girl who dropped the class?”.

Later, I asked the professor to explain what made the third book scifi since his posit could also be applied to The DaVinci Code. To which he spoke for ten minutes and finally admitted that yes, using that definition, The DaVinci Code WOULD be considered science fiction. To which I raised my eyebrow in victory and then he talked for another ten minutes, finally mentioning some theorist’s argument that refutes Michelle’s suggestion about The DaVinci Code. Four people did a double take, looked at me, then at the professor and said in unison “Weetabix?” The professor got flustered and apologized and I said that it was probably the single most frequent name that I am mistakenly called and perhaps it is my name in an alternate universe.

Or perhaps I really don’t exist.

This weekend, I have grand hopes for catching up on some sleep, as this whole not-being-able-to-breathe thing leaves me completely exhausted, but really, I’m going to be devoting the entire time to figuring out details for next weekend, the greatest weekend in all of 2007, that weekend, the one with the temperature gauge down there, the mighty Threetacon thingy. Which is, by the way, making me giddy in anticipation. Seriously. And supposedly there’s going to be a blizzard this weekend, which means that I’m going to shut myself in our little bungalow, put on a pair of thermal socks and demand that Esteban ferry laundry up and down the stairs while I stuff CD liners into jewel cases and finish making name tags. I can think of no other way to make myself well.

(Unless it’s the fact that I no longer have to stay up late trying desperately to finish off the Dick.)

(That was the last time. I promise. I am a very bad person.)

I’m going to talk about The OC, so if you don’t care (or don’t want to be spoiled, Australians et al.), skip to the line break.

I really had a lot of hope for the show after they killed off Marissa. I sort of hated Marissa and now realize that her soulless character just was incongruent amidst the rest of the carefully crafted personalities on the show. I think the fault lies with Mischa Barton, honestly. She could have done more with it, but she just doesn’t have the acting chops to pull it off. It’s really difficult to believe that Marissa contains 50% of dynamic Julie Cooper Nickel’s DNA. It’s not the writers, because Kirsten is entirely believable as a mother and a woman and a (insert descriptor here) and Sandy Cohen is probably one of my favorite characters ever on a fluffy television drama. Adam Brody can turn even the lack of dialogue into a comedic moment and we need not even mention the acting chops of Rachel Bilson. I suspect that this is one instance where the actor was so good that the writers changed the direction of the character completely (as evidenced by the fact that she was only considered a guest star until the second season). And I bought the transition because Summer Roberts? I love, nay ADORE Summer Roberts.

(Bit of trivia: I was almost named Summer. Thank god for an unfortunate alliteration with my last name.)

I feel bad that the show is ending, though. It could have gone somewhere. It could have been something more than a vehicle for discovering great indie music. But once it resolved its outsider storyline and driving tension, it didn’t introduce enough ever present conflict of anything else to carry it through. Ryan was accepted in Newport and we didn’t have anything but tired soap opera storylines left and it didn’t matter how many inexplicable lesbian Marissa plots you threw at it. And when they offed Marissa, they buried the one remainder of a motivation for Ryan and with it, the possibility of a fifth season. It’s a shame, really. It had potential.

But perhaps the curse was there from the start. While we could relate to Ryan’s feeling of being an outsider, we could never really relate to the paper doll that was Marissa. And in order to feel something for a love story, don’t you have to relate to one of the characters and sort of fall in love with the other one? Isn’t that why all of those Meg Ryan movies are quintessential chick flicks? Perhaps the reason why My Best Friend’s Wedding doesn’t resonate with the chick flick zeitgeist is because Julie Roberts and her terrifying yawp played what was, in essence, a fucking bitch? Who wants to root for that? And likewise, who could see themselves as Marissa? Not me.

And that’s what makes me sad about the ending of The OC, as we’re going to be robbed of a new storyline. The Ryan/Taylor thing seems awkwardly written in, but actually, it’s a brilliant pairing, She’s had a rough childhood and is another outsider, but she’s grown up in the lap of luxury while following all rules to the letter, the yin to Ryan’s yang. And unfortunately, this story is one that can’t develop slowly for the simple fact of a ticking clock. We gave three entire seasons to molding the Ryan/Marissa and Seth/Summer arcs and now we get eight episodes with Ryan and Taylor. It’s annoying, is what.

I think I’m just irritated because I realized that I finally do identify with someone on the show, finally after four seasons. And that person is Taylor Townsend. I am Taylor. Annoying, existing primarily in my brain, socially awkward half of the time, all organizy and obsessive, and accidentally dork out on subjects that interest me, only in my case, it’s not obscure French poetry, but rather something else, something like feminist dystopian literature or, you know, OPI nail polish. I am not proud to admit this, but I have spent at least a few hours engaged in stalking boys during my lifetime. Ok, a few hundred.

So yeah. That’s me. Not willowy shallow Marissa Cooper. Not adorable feisty Summer Roberts. Not even the crazy eyebrow-wielding Sandy Cohen. I am fucking Taylor Townsend. That is all you need to know about me. That is it.

Also, I totally would have made out with the Dean without even blinking. Eric Mabius is HOT!

It’s crazy-making cold here right now. You know how I complained about the lack of winter about a month ago, how I was walking around on January 6th in just a short-sleeved t-shirt, whining about how we were robbed of our New York experience?

I keep my car in the attached garage, where it never really gets below 40, and as such, the temperature gauge that sits somewhere inside the Chrysler’s magical window usually takes a mile or two after leaving the garage before it can drift down to the real temperature. And this morning, when I started the car, it said that the temperature inside the garage was 21. During the course of driving a mere seven blocks, it drifted down to zero. Even though the car was running, the heat wasn’t coming on fast enough and it was getting colder inside the car. I couldn’t bear to watch it at that point, as I knew that I had a long walk from the parking lot to the building, and last week, when it was negative five, the wind blowing on my forehead actually gave me an ice cream headache. One should not have to endure an ice cream headache without actually getting some damned ice cream in one’s gullet. This should be the law.

As I type this, the sun has been up for awhile and it is currently negative 11 degrees F. For those of you who have a hard time comprehending this, it means that it is 22 degrees colder than 11 degrees F. Which is already not very many degrees. It is fewer degrees than is probably in your freezer, and yet, there it is. What I’m saying is that what we have here is a degree deficit.

Also, there is a wicked wind blowing, which gives us a bastard of a wind chill. Southerners, here’s a wind chill lesson for you: you know how when you’re about to take a bit of something and it’s too hot, so you blow on it to cool it off faster? That’s wind chill. Currently, with the wind chill in effect, it feels like it is negative 35 F. Which honestly, just feels like something you’d read in a Jack London story. I mean, my brain logically understands that there are degrees of cold and that it has been this cold before and it will likely be this cold again and that negative 35 isn’t by all means the coldest it could possibly be, but holy mother of God, fuck fuck fuck it is cold. Not only did I employ my politically incorrect floofy ear muffs for the walk in from the parking lot, but I also used the jaunty hood on my coat for the first time ever, and then held it down so that I could not see anything but the 18 inches of pavement I was about to walk over. I have to take that red hooded school girl coat to the cleaners, because I spilled a soy chai down the side of it, but screw that. The idea of going without Big Red in this bullshit is just unbearable. I’m just going to pretend that it’s an Issey Miyake original.

When the wind isn’t blowing, however, it’s sort of incredible. There is no slush, no slipping, no sliding. The snow makes screech scritch sounds when you walk. Everything is freeze-dried and the pavement is all bone white. We are living on a terrain of blank canvas, right now. The air is alien. We are all just puppets skittering stiffly offstage, white clouds blooming from our mouths. As fucking fucker cold as it is, you still have to sit back and just be amazed by it all.

I ended up sticking with the science fiction class and dropping the post-colonial women writers class, mostly because the post-colonialism wasn’t the American colonies, but rather the colonization of India. The science fiction class had the Atwood going for it, plus it was on a good day and got out an hour earlier than the other class, so I stuck with that. And now I have to read 15,000 pages in the next fifteen weeks. I am not making that up. It’s sort of insane. I’m actually wearing my reading glasses during the day and while reading because my eyes get so tired. Already, I was behind after the first class, as I finished the fiction but couldn’t get completely through the pages upon pages of dense theory and criticism. Luckily, the rest of the class was equally without comment on the readings, so I think I wasn’t the only one. Every weekend until May (except one) is going to be spent with my ass on the couch and my nose in a book. I’m actually looking forward to spring break because I might have a chance to get ahead and take some of the pressure off. I guess this is what I get for putting off the lit requirements in order to take a fun writing workshop.

So far, though, the class is fascinating. I have had almost zero exposure to science fiction and I’m enjoying what I’ve read so far. Even though already in the second week, we have robots. Excuse me, androids. The discussion in class, however, is fascinating, and I’m taking notes for the first time in years. Normally, I’m an absorber, but in this class, there is so much going on that is so new to me that I can only sit there and scribble scribble scribble. The professor is entertaining and absolutely brilliant and when he mentioned that he had “screened” both of the Jackass movies over the weekend, he assured that my track record of having a bit of a crush on my male professors will remain intact. I’m just shy of gushing “He’s ever so dreamy!” I mean, he did his doctoral dissertation on cannibalism. Like, um, HOT?!

Today begins the first official day of my new Big Hairy Project at work. You see, I did so well at the last one that they wanted me to do another one, which has now morphed into working with new people on the skinny part of the org chart yet still does not provide me with a corporate jet or anything cool like that. During the planning meeting, here is a multiple choice of potential sound bytes:

A)&AAk-I want 100 percent penetration on this. Deep.
B)&AAk-Anal is good. I like anal. I want anal.
C)&AAk-She is definitely hard core. Use her however you want.
D) Suck it, slut.

Answer: all but one, of course. Two different people said A and C, although one was directed at and the other was referring to me. And then when B came out of my mouth, I almost burst out laughing and spent the rest of the meeting blushing furiously.

This is why I’ve been cherry picked for my leadership potential. Right there.

So that’s my spring in a nutshell. Big death project from hell and a stack of sci-fi to read. I have no free will. My time is not my own. I’m not studying dystopias, I’m living in one.

In other news, a note to the 3taconners: I’m sure that it will warm up by then, guys. I mean, the weather always cooperates and stages the perfect winter weekend for us, so it wouldn’t dare to go against tradition.

(knock on wood)

I had forgotten how bad the Bad Bar used to be. Sure, it was still bad, even after the new owners took over, even after Hot Jason and Hot Nancy evacuated the premises, maybe even after they took down all the boobie stickers. Perhaps the Badness had soaked into the bricks of the Magical Wall of Support, so there was always little residual badness floating around. Or maybe it was just the nostalgia of the place, the fact that we WANTED it to be bad, even after things had clearly changed. Even after all the regulars went away, spurred by rumors of a new bar created by the creators of the Bad Bar.

E-mail correspondence with Hot Jason gave more information, but when Mo and I checked out the new venture a few weeks after they opened, we weren’t impressed. It seemed as though it hadn’t quite figured itself out yet. The crowd had an off-vibe, as though they were maybe patrons left over from the establishment that had previously occupied that space, a notoriously sketchy Broadway hangout. Mo and I noted that it was almost all 50-somethings wearing black leather jackets, as though they were legit now, but wanted to pretend that they weren’t, lots of wrinkled bar flies waiting out the witching hour when they would magically be fuckable. The bartenders were the old hotness, but the people on the other side of the bar? Seemed confused. Seemed as though they were all trying to organize and bring the old sketchy vibe back, but couldn’t quite figure out how to explain it to the pirate girl standing on the bar pouring Pucker into the gaping mouths of horny middle managers. Also, the music was strange. We were stymied, Mo and I, so instead we went to karaoke up the street and got really really drunk and then made Esteban come and fetch us and then seranaded him with songs from Wicked on the drive home. Because we are that way.

And so, when a week later, everyone descended upon Green Bay for our silly Minicon, we went back to the original Bad Bar, on the thought that it was a known quantity and anyway, with our group of crazy party critters, we would have fun no matter where we went. And so it was. For one night, the Bad Bar was exactly as bad as it ever had been. And it was good.

But then in May when we took Foo to the Bad Bar, we were disturbed to see the place was mostly empty at 10 pm on a Wednesday night. That’s insanity! The Bad Bar used to be standing room only at that time of the night, even during the week! And here we walked in and immediately scored the prized spots along the Wall of Support, right beneath the Groovy Disco Baby neon sign. Clearly, the winds of change had blown. Pour some Malibu on the ground in honor of our homies.

Then Pie left and Penny settled into married life and Carissa moved in with her beau and my life got sort of crazy and suddenly, we weren’t really going out to bars anymore. Suddenly, it has been months and months since I’ve been out drinking with my collection of boys. Months and months and months.

As with all things Minicon, there is a lot of weird prepwork that must be done. It was pretty clear that there was no going back to the Bad Bar, but the new Bad Bar, now that was a possibility. It was way bigger and it had an actual dance floor in the window, not a scary drunk-killer window ledge. It was even closer to the host hotel than Harry’s had been. Eric reported that it was definitely reminiscient of the old place, and according to the weekly updates from the owner in my e-mail box, the Bad had Risen Again. Also, there were photos and as you know, they do not lie.

This weekend, Esteban and I stopped down to talk to the owner about bringing in our group of farflung revelers and to have a few drinks, just to make sure this new bar would rise to the challenge. After all, I have high standards for my shindigs and if it wasn’t going to be good enough, then I needed to have time to get another game plan. The boy collective (Eric, Jason and Scotty) was called to join us out for a few drinks, too. I was happy to see that when we arrived at 8 pm, the place was already hopping. In fact, we only scored a table because a group of six got up just as we walked in. By the time Eric arrived, it was standing room only. Jason followed and by the time Scotty got there, he had to weave through folks to get to us. By that time, it was only 9 p.m.

The music is a little different than the old Bad Bar, a little more laid back and tinged with sea shanties (fitting their weird fish theme), but there are also still some quintessential original Bad Bar favorites. Which is a good thing, because if I don’t hear “Sunshine Day” again for the rest of my life, I will have no regret. The new bar is really unique, in that the walls move to make more room when it gets crowded, and it’s much more architecturally interesting than the old place (a fact they tried to hide with purple paint). The predicted vibrator races were held (Miss Wisconsin won) and the bartenders seem to have crafted a large poking device so that they can deliver a shot of booze to someone far into the crowd. Whether they want it or not. And there is also a creative group shot delivery system crafted out of a water ski. The magic is definitely back.

The best part is that I talked to the owner and while the Hots normally work on Saturday nights, they agreed to change their schedule to be behind the bar for our group. And that right there is why Hot Nancy and Hot Jason are hot beyond understanding. Not only are they both completely gorgeous but they are just awesome people even without the sexiness factor. Also, they will have vibrator races and some other fun things in store for our group.

The bar was celebrating its one year anniversary, so cans of Schlitz were a buck. Esteban just happened to be wearing his Schlitz t-shirt, which was a funny coincidence. The boys made regular runs for rounds of Schlitz plus one Malibu and Diet for me (the bottom of the glass absolutely clear with rum) and then it starts to get a little foggy. I know that rousing games of Drink, Bitch was played and Scotty scorched me by pegging “Dancing Queen” by ABBA before I could even realize what was happening, so not only did that sting but also the realization that Penny and Carissa were not there, so we could not do our improved choreography like the ABBA dorks that we are. We repeated the “It’s Elvis you fucker!” moment and I defied logic by zapping out Steeler’s Wheels in the first two notes, but I doubt anything could make up for the Dancing Queen debacle. Burn. Serious burn, man.

I got a little plowed and Esteban also got a little plowed, then announced that he was ready to go home. I had lost a bet while we were eating sushi on Friday night (I bet him that he couldn’t pound his leftover bowl of hard core wasabi like a shot) so I had no choice but to follow by the terms mandated by the wasabi bet. It was probably a good thing because I really didn’t need yet another glass of Dub-T Princess cocktail.

Regardless, the heir apparent has definitely earned its title. Long live the King.

(All photos courtesy of Eric’s camera phone)

If you’re planning to attend the Minicon, don’t forget that registrations must be in by tonight in order to guarantee a spot on the bus. I need to send in the contract tomorrow and we want to make sure that you can drink Doctor with us at the sleigh ride!

PS. We’re Weetapidoling again.

Esteban was aghast when I mentioned that I had written about our neighbor’s racist comments, and asked if I had also mentioned that he snowblows the sidewalk for the entire block. Basically, Esteban just wants you to know that the neighbor is a very nice racist. He probably only cleans off our walks because we’re all white, but you know, there it is.

Somethings grossly wrong with Notifylist.com. Diaryland does support an RSS feeder thingy if you know how to do that kind of thing. Also, I can do my own notifies on my new server, but I just haven’t set it up yet. It’s on the list of things to do. I was waiting for Esteban to volunteer to do it for me but then I mentioned how many e-mail addresses receive the notify. Shot myself in the foot there. I should know better.

Anyway, options: RSS thingy, checking in occasionally, and also the new notify thing that I’m going to get moving this week.

Also, in case you haven’t noticed the button and the countdown on the bottom of the page, there’s another Green Bay Minicon in the works. It’s looking like another doozy and this year, Esteban promises not to get thrown into the hospital and have to miss it all. So that should be nice.

This year, we’ve added a run up the Door so that folks can visit our favorite cheese factory (home of my favorite 5-year cheddar ever) to buy cheese curds so fresh that they were milk three hours earlier, as well as stop at some of the wineries for some tasting and shopping. And also, we’ll be making the requisite stop for High Maintenance Hamburgers on the way up, and the local favorite frozen custard on the way back. Green Bay Minicons: fucking over your New Year’s Resolutions since 2005.

Now, maybe you’ve always read about the Minicons and wanted to go but were afraid, because you don’t know anyone and you’ve never met someone from the internet before and my god, what if we steal your kidneys and leave you in a snowbank or something? Well, let me tell you this: the Minicon veterans are some of the most welcoming friendly people I have ever met. While there is definitely some frivolity and silliness, at the base of our get togethers, there is the simple reality of new and old friends getting together in person. Every single one of us remembers going to our first internet meet up and being terrified and feeling left out. You can call me a snobby whore all you want, but they are most definitely not. I am honored that these folks consider me a friend and that they travel to godforsaken Green Bay to hang out for a weekend. And that’s why I do my damnedest not to disappoint them. Or you, if you decide to get on board, come out and make some new friends and see how it can be 8 degrees outside and yet Green Bay can be the warmest place on earth.

In case you still need convincing, take a look at this.