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M – I – C See you real soon!

Sunday, November 10, 2002

So the mouse.

I was sitting here, in this very room, writing my entry just like I’m doing now, when Tilly walks past the doorway and stands there looking at me. With something in her mouth. She looked a bit distraught.

I leaned around my gigantic monitor to look at her and she started, as if to run away. What was freaking her out? Then I noticed that she had something in her mouth. Something black. Something’ nefarious somehow. I don’t remember what happened at that point, but I believe that she was acting so strangely, that I stood from my desk chair to check it out, causing her to drop whatever it was and then it seemingly rolled away, directly under my jacket lying on the floor. Tilly then went berserk trying to catch it. And that’s when I realized that the willy nilly scurrying was not just an errant pet toy and the forces of gravity. No, not even in Newton’s wildest dreams would there be enough gravity to cause the thing to switch directions and scamper like some wild mouse demon thing. No. It was alive. ALIVE!!!!!!!

I had a moment of panic. I looked around crazily for a mouse catching device. A jar candle and a very narrow Pier 1 vase were in the immediate vicinity. And the phone. I thought about throwing the phone at it, but the mouse is a very small target. But wait. Hey, the phone is a mouse catching device.

I called Esteban’s cell. I’m not proud of that.

While I was listening to the beginning of Esteban’s voice message and swearing, Tilly tried to dig it out from beneath my coat. Then it ran around the living room.

People, that’s when the shrieking began.

I’m not exactly proud of that either. I mean, I’m all about the Grrl Power! I’ve got the Gloria Steinem book. Until Sept 11 happened, I was going to buy a shirt that said ‘Ladies Sewing Circle and Terrorist Society’ because I thought it was a perfect representation of my brand of self-righteous bullshit. But man, a mouse changes all of that. Suddenly, I’m right back in the 50’s, wearing an apron and voting the way my husband tells me to vote.

Ok, to my defense, I wasn’t wearing shoes. Just socks, which as you all know are no match for some psychotic seed and berry forager who might just misinterpret my black cherry toenail polish as a rather succulent raspberry.

I understand now why women didn’t take the patriarchy and societal power in general away from the hands of the men. They probably were going to. They probably had all the stuff organized to take over the world, all the posters made. All the people of the world would be fed, all the wars would end, there would be enough everything for everyone and no one would ever be sad or upset again. They had t-shirts made up with empowering slogans. The napkins picked out for the victory banquet. And just as they were finalizing the final plans, perhaps they were coordinating their outfits for the victory banquet to make sure there would be no duplicates, someone said ‘Hey, what’s that???’ and everyone looked to watch as a little mouse scurried across the meeting room. And thus everyone realized that they could hardly take over the world when they were all screaming and standing on their chairs, so they just decided to call it a night and get their empowerment stuff from Dr. Phil and they all had a good laugh while they made quilts and swapped recipes calling for lots of cream cheese.

So the Tilly chased it into the computer room. Into a box that was laying there on its side. Here’s where a sane person would have calmly picked up the box and CLOSED THE FLAPS and then took it outside. But me? Well, that would have required some kind of self-possessed intelligence that I simply do not possess in times of crisis and vermin. Instead I called Esteban’s cell phone again. Tilly continued to try to dig it out of the box. I explained to him that there was a mouse in the house. He said he’d be right home. I’ll give Esteban credit. He’s really lousy at doing dishes and usually farts hideous horrible gas attacks at night, but in times of crisis, he is very level-headed and solid. Unlike his shrieking wife.

It was then that I thought to pick up the box. I was pretty sure that the mouse had scurried out and disappeared because Tilly was sitting there calmly licking herself, tired from all of this excitement. I mean, she was done, man. She was ready to rest upon her kitty laurels and soak up some praise. After all, she had proven that she could CAPTURE the mouse’. Now for some petting, a nice nap, a nibble of kibble, and then maybe we’d think about this mouse business again.

The box felt empty. Because apparently my hand is a scientific gauge able of discerning the difference between a 4 ounce box and a 4 ounce box with a 1 ounce mouse inside. I put the mouse back down. Then the craziness started again. The mouse ran from the box and under my desk. Then behind Esteban’s desk. Tilly routed around back there, then got disturbed when Esteban ran into the house, ready to save his wife from The Terror. He ran to the kitchen and retrieved a Gladware sandwich container in which to catch the mouse.

There was nothing we could do, shy of removing the 400 pound monitor and 400 pound steel desk from the back of the room. We figured that we’d let nature take its course. The mouse would come out. Tilly would get it.

We sat in the living room and watched television, each of us with one wary eye on the door to the computer room, Esteban’s hand resting on the shallow Glad container to be ready to strike.

Tilly figured it was a perfect time to collect her due praise. ‘No! No! Get the mouse!’ I pleaded. She just looked at me like I was the most infinitesimally stupid thing on the planet. She probably had seen the Booklist and probably has herself read both A Clockwork Orange AND Slaughterhouse Five AND knew who Ford Madox Ford was. Damn cat.

So we closed the door to the computer room and went to bed. I thought to myself ‘Hey, that room has two computers, but three mice. Heee!’ because sometimes I crack my own self up even when I haven’t been delving into the land of Malibu and Diet Cokes. The next morning, I got up and went down to our local strange retailer Fleet Farm, in which you can buy bovine inoculations, candy, garden implements, paneling for your rec room, clothing, toys, guns, ammunition, and everything else a good little farm girl would want. Most importantly, they carry the Tin Cat brand of live trap. This would allow me to catch the mouse and then drive to a distant wooded location, a mouse utopia so to speak, where then the mouse would live the rest of its days happy and contented and bewildered that it ever wanted to invade the little 50-year-old white four-bedroom bungalow in the suburbs when there was all of this rodential splendor to be had.

Even though the general consensus is that choosy mousers choose Jif, we were out, so I put a big gob of Honey Nut Skippy into the trap. A gob as big as my fist. I wanted it to be irrestible. I wanted it to sing the little mouse’s name, much like a canister of HobNobs will do to me. Then I placed it under the desk and proceeded to do all of my computing with my feet firmly mouse-protected in the bottom desk drawer.

Day by day, I kept checking the trap. Nothing. It had a clear viewing window on the top, so I could just look down into it. And then one morning, I regularly checked the trap (nothing) and then went to check my email. Then Tilly started nosing around the trap. Sniffing. Pawing. Huh?

I picked up the trap and noticed the tail. The mouse (although at this point, I wonder if it isn’t another type of rodent, perhaps a mole, because it was very very small) was hiding underneath the entrance to the trap, so you couldn’t see it via the window. Success.

I promptly forgot about the CD I had been burning, put on my shoes and drove the mouse to the wooded area about three blocks from our house, the place where I often see deer and pheasants. Then I let him go in a large grove of hickory trees and drove away imagining how he’d have to make friends with the locals and maybe he’d tell them the story of how he got to be in their Mouse Paradise. ‘No, you don’t understand, first there was the cat’s mouth but then’ I was in a car, man’. I was IN’A’CAR!!!!’ and they probably won’t believe him. Or they’d make him a mouse shaman. Especially strange because I’m pretty sure it was a mole. Although, as you all know, I’m pretty bad at identifying a mole, so don’t ask if I’d like to wager on that. It just might be a very small badger or something for all I know.

I’ve got pictures, but I haven’t yet installed the camera software on my new pc, so you’ll have to wait. I’ll bet that you’re very excited. Yes. You can probably hardly stand the anticipation. Mmmmhmmm.

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Thip. Fooooooth. Peeeeeerrrrrrrrp. Blup.

Thursday, November 7, 2002

I was having one of those mornings where you’re so busy that you’re actually trying to convince yourself that you really don’t need to go to the bathroom, it can wait just a little longer. Finally I could not stand it any longer and needed to escape my phone and inbox and fled to the women’s bathroom near our department.

I hate our bathroom. It was obviously thrown in as an afterthought. The stalls are all randomly sized. There is one stall that is actually so small that if you aren’t careful when you get up, your ass will knock the metal sanitary napkin dispenser off the wall. What is more, the sink vanity is long and narrow and the paper towels are at the end by the door. If there is more than one person in the general area, there will be awkward dancing around each other, as one tries to get around the wall to dry one’s hands and then out the door, the entire time, subtle thipping and poofing from the tiny walls of the tiny poo rooms.

When I entered the bathroom, I immediately noticed that two of the four stalls were occupied. And then the smell overtook me. I mean, I’ve been exposed to smells before. I spent a great deal of my childhood living on a farm. And you can’t share living quarters with a man like Esteban for 12 years without being exposed to some rather spectacular odors. The man has been known to clear outdoor camping areas, where there is not only a campfire but also a good stiff breeze.

And perhaps it wouldn’t have been so bad, but someone had grabbed the industrial air freshener, the one that has a picture of a vanilla ice cream cone on the can, and sprayed frantically, several long bursts, enough to leave gasping for breath an entire craft show full of women who decorate their homes with lace doilies and snowmen made from painted flowerpots and floral swags hanging on every vertical surface.

Even this was no match for the malodorous fog that hung in the women’s bathroom that day. The stench had taken up the vanilla, like an enemy’s dropped sword in battle, and used it against the innocent women of our building. It catalyzed with the vanilla, filling my mind with the image of a woman who could actually shit cupcakes with poop frosting, out of some fucked up Willy Wonka factory. I’ve got a Golden Ticket… to the seventh layer of hell.

What fool decided that a good air freshner for a bathroom would be VANILLA? Who the hell bakes in their bathroom? “Would you like one of my fresh gingerbread cookies? Why yes, it IS an usual shape. It’s a urinal. The round ones are supposed to be the the little hockey puck things.”

I held my breath. The other women were deadly silent. I think neither of them wanted to make a noise. Perhaps it was a strange game of ass chicken’ the first one who moved became the owner of The Horror. I raced into the closest stall, only then realizing that I was between the two occupied ones. It didn’t matter whose anus the fumes had escaped from’ I was a victim and could not escape. I started to get a little dizzy from not breathing so employed the TurtleNeck Strategy, pulling my shirt up over my mouth, thanking the good Lord for giving me the guilt about wearing a Torrid shirt on a Thursday and inspiring me to change into a nice responsible turtleneck and blazer. You never realize that the outfit you choose on any given day may just save your life.

Luckily, I only had a short tour of duty. I washed my hands and fled from the room, wiping my wet hands on my pants. The women never made a sound the entire time, and I realized then that neither of them would move. That’s how repressed our sociogeographic culture is. When there is anything other than gentle tinkling, avoid contact with any other person at all costs! If a small thip might escape, rustle toilet paper or flush the toilet, even if it means that you end up sounding like an inbred who just witnessed the miracle of indoor plumbing for the first time. One time when I accidentally knocked the sanitary napkin dispenser off the wall and it made a huge clatter as it hit the tile, the woman in the next stall assumed I was using subterfuge and offered me more toilet paper. Good Lutheran women do not make noise. Good Lutheran women do not lay pipe like some common truck driver. No. The Dignity must be maintained and it is very possible that those two women are still in that stall now, weaving little sleeping bags out of toilet paper, defying the other one to take the Walk of Shame.

I swear, sometimes an under-desk catheter sounds like a very good idea.

There’s a new Quoted up.

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100 Reasons Why Weetabix Is Dumb

Tuesday, November 5, 2002

So I’ve mentioned how I’m applying to some graduate programs in English, right? Well, I was surfing today and found a list of some publisher’s 100 essential modern novels. And now I’m reconsidering because man, I realize I went to a stoopid local liberal arts college and I realize that I skated by with a bunch of creative writing classes, but seriously. I am ashamed to call myself an English major. Let’s take a look, shall we?

1.&AAk-ULYSSES by James Joyce
 Heh heh, shows how much they know. I’m pretty sure that Ulysses was written by Homer or something. Some Greek dude. Heh heh. Look who’s stoopid now, huh Random House?

2. THE GREAT GATSBY by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Ok, this one I can get behind. I read this in 11th grade and loved it. I have the last two paragraphs memorized, just like Lily in The Hotel New Hampshire. And it’s become useful because I can quote it at snobby gatherings and sound really smart and stuff. It doesn’t even matter what the point is of the snobby gathering. Once you start with ‘the orgiastic future that year by year recedes before us’, people get really quiet and just look at you in awe. It fits almost every situation. Funerals, football games, Tupperware parties. Not that Tupperware parties are ever snobbish, but you know what I mean.

3. A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN by James Joyce
Joyce again. Gah. I’ve never read Joyce. I’m afraid to admit that lest the University of Wisconsin Board of Regents knock on my door and take my diploma away. I still owe the government $30,000 for that damn thing.

4. LOLITA by Vladimir Nabokov
I’ve never read this one either. I know that there was a movie, with Dominique Swain and I believe Jeremy Irons. Or possibly John Malkovich. I get those two confused sometimes. But at least I’ve heard of this one. Ok, it’s mostly because Sting sung about it in ‘Don’t Stand So Close To Me’.

5. BRAVE NEW WORLD by Aldous Huxley
Um, I’ve heard of it. I think it was a movie. I don’t know who was in it though.

6. THE SOUND AND THE FURY by William Faulkner
I’m starting to get a little uncomfortable with where this is going. Ok, I’ve READ Faulkner’ just not this one. I think they made a movie of this one too.

7. CATCH-22 by Joseph Heller
I know they made a movie of this one’ which I’ve never seen. But I’ve used the phrase ‘catch-22’ in conversation. And I know that one of the characters is named Major Major.

8. DARKNESS AT NOON by Arthur Koestler
Seriously, is that even a book? I think they made this up.

9. SONS AND LOVERS by D.H. Lawrence
D.H. Lawrence. I think I saw his grave in Westminster Abbey. And they probably made a movie about this too. But I haven’t seen it.

10. THE GRAPES OF WRATH by John Steinbeck
Dude, I SAW this movie in 11th grade English Lit! It had Henry Fonda in it. He played Tom Joad. That’s about all I remember though. I did read Steinbeck’s The Red Pony in 8th grade’ that counts for something, right?

11. UNDER THE VOLCANO by Malcolm Lowry
They made up this guy. They had to. I’ve never heard of him’ like ever? Have you ever heard of this guy? He’s the publisher’s brother, right?

12. THE WAY OF ALL FLESH by Samuel Butler
How did I get an English degree? Seriously? The only books I’ve read on this list so far were in high school. Or on my own. What is up with this?

13. 1984 by George Orwell
Oh, I read this one on my own accord. In 1984. I was in seventh grade. I thought it was boring. I liked Animal Farm better.

14. I, CLAUDIUS by Robert Graves
I don’t know who Robert Graves is. I only vaguely know who Claudius is. In high school, we had an exchange student named Claudio that my best friend had the hots for. Honestly, I never really understood what she saw in him. He was very zitty and had spiked hair and I’m old, but I’m not that old. It was 1989, after all. Spiked hair was so 1984.

15. TO THE LIGHTHOUSE by Virginia Woolf
I’m afraid. Of Virginia Woolf. Of Thomas Wolf. Of Tobias Wolf. Of all the authors I’ve never read. I think I might just be a vegetable and don’t yet realize it.

16. AN AMERICAN TRAGEDY by Theodore Dreiser
I don’t think they made a movie of this. If they did, I apparently was too busy watching it because I was studying the gunk between my toes or watching MTV. Want to know the lyrics to Purple Rain? I’m your girl. Want to know who Theodore Dreiser is? I’ll give you a blank stare.

17. THE HEART IS A LONELY HUNTER by Carson McCullers
Oooh, I read this one. On my own. I don’t remember it.

18. SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE by Kurt Vonnegut
You’d think I would have read this one. But I haven’t. I’ve heard the movie was good though. I gave Vonnegut a try last year with his latest book. Something about time shifting. I don’t care enough to go look up the title or dig through my bookshelves to find it. It was bizarre. I actually have this on my list of books to read, but it’s really far far down the list. After like, everything on my wishlist, anything new that comes out by T.C. Boyle, Margaret Atwood or John Irving, and the backs of some very interesting cereal boxes.

19. INVISIBLE MAN by Ralph Ellison
Finally a book I read in college. For a psychology class. Mofo English degree. Actually, this is an incredible book and I highly recommend it.

20.&AAk-NATIVE SON by Richard Wright
 Um’ next.

21. HENDERSON THE RAIN KING by Saul Bellow
I’ve never read Saul Bellow. I think I’m going to shoot myself.

22. APPOINTMENT IN SAMARRA by John O’Hara
I don’t even know where Samarra is. I think I that I saw some stuff from there at Pier One? And John O’Hara? That Scarlett’s brother?

23. U.S.A. (trilogy) by John Dos Passos
Seriously’ I make Anna Nicole Smith look intelligent.

24. WINESBURG, OHIO by Sherwood Anderson
I’ve read some Sherwood Anderson short stories’. In high school.

25. A PASSAGE TO INDIA by E.M. Forster
What was I doing in college? I remember books! I remember carrying large books around! Were they empty? Were they just for toning my muscles? Were they to impress boys? What gives?

26. THE WINGS OF THE DOVE by Henry James

27. THE AMBASSADORS by Henry James
I combined those because I’ve never read them, never even seen them. If someone made a movie of these books, I don’t think anyone ever watched it. But I do know that Henry James is dead. And I don’t think he liked women.

28. TENDER IS THE NIGHT by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Poor Francis. Did you know that the F. stood for Francis? Yeah, I don’t blame him for going with the initial. And then he married a psycho named Zelda, who was actually a rather good writer on her own. But the book? I think Rod Stieger was in the movie they made of this. And Jackson Browne wrote a song about it? I’ve heard the song. Darryl Hannah was in the video I believe.

29. THE STUDS LONIGAN TRILOGY by James T. Farrell
You already know what I’m going to say.

30. THE GOOD SOLDIER by Ford Madox Ford
Um’ dude’s got the name Ford Ford. What the fuck is that all about? I can’t bring myself to read something by someone with a redundant name. I have this feeling that the book would be like ‘This is a book about a good soldier. He was very very very very very very good at being a soldier. He was so very very good that all of the other soldiers stood around talking and said ‘Wow, that guy is a real good soldier’.’

31. ANIMAL FARM by George Orwell
Hey! I’ve read this one! On my own. In 7th grade.

32. THE GOLDEN BOWL by Henry James
Henry James again. Didn’t read it again. If I had to guess, I’d say it was about a college football game in January.

33. SISTER CARRIE by Theodore Dreiser
Unless this is a book about some psycho scary chick who kills everyone at her prom, I didn’t read it.

34. A HANDFUL OF DUST by Evelyn Waugh
I’m really coming off bad here. I should just pretend I’ve read them. Um’This is a book about my bookshelves.

35. AS I LAY DYING by William Faulkner
I’ve read this one. Hated it. ‘My Mother Is a Fish’ is one of the chapter titles and it’s all in first person, therefore the entire thing is written with colloquialisms and is very hard to read. I ended up sitting there sounding everything out and looked like a tard who moves her lips while she reads. Hate Faulkner. But not as much as Hemingway, whom I’m relieved to see hasn’t appeared on this list yet. Here’s hoping, anyway.

36. ALL THE KING’S MEN by Robert Penn Warren
Ooh, I haven’t read this, but I think it’s about Watergate? Am I right? And there was a movie? With Robert Redford in it? That I didn’t see? Getting warm?

37. THE BRIDGE OF SAN LUIS REY by Thornton Wilder
I can say with great pride that I have actually seen this movie. And I know that I like Thornton Wilder.

38. HOWARDS END by E.M. Forster
Oooh, I’ve seen this movie too. Two in a row! And this one had Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompsen. I rock.

39. GO TELL IT ON THE MOUNTAIN by James Baldwin
You know how I said I rocked up there? Forget it.

40. THE HEART OF THE MATTER by Graham Greene
I know that he’s Canadian’. I think.

41. LORD OF THE FLIES by William Golding
Hey’. I’ve read this one! In 9th grade. And I’ve seen the movie! Go me!

42. DELIVERANCE by James Dickey
I’ve seen this movie too, although it was the cut version on TNT and they completely chopped the scene where they make Ned Beatty squeal like a pig. Didn’t realize that it was a book first though.

43. A DANCE TO THE MUSIC OF TIME (series) by Anthony Powell
Oh man.

44. POINT COUNTER POINT by Aldous Huxley
Um’ he also wrote Brave New World. I don’t think they made a movie about this one.

45. THE SUN ALSO RISES by Ernest Hemingway
I knew the moratorium on Hemingway couldn’t last long. I’ve never read this. But I’ve seen the movie in 11th grade lit class (don’t ask). And I’ve been in Hemingway’s house’ that should count for something.

46. THE SECRET AGENT by Joseph Conrad

47. NOSTROMO by Joseph Conrad
Apparently, I don’t rock. I suck.

48. THE RAINBOW by D.H. Lawrence

49. WOMEN IN LOVE by D.H. Lawrence
I suck hard.

50. TROPIC OF CANCER by Henry Miller
Ok, now I’m confused. Maybe it was Henry Miller and not Henry James who didn’t like women. Gah. I think I’ve always thought they were the same person. This is quite a shock to me.

51. THE NAKED AND THE DEAD by Norman Mailer
Um’ I want to say that he produced ‘All In The Family’. This sounds like a book about Jeffrey Dahmer.

52. PORTNOY’S COMPLAINT by Philip Roth
Portnoy was a character in Bloom County. A groundhog, actually. I know that because I was reading all 12 collections of Bloom County instead of reading anything remotely productive.

53. PALE FIRE by Vladimir Nabokov
Ok, I was feeling a little smug about knowing that he wrote Lolita, but now’ I had thought he was a one hit wonder.

54. LIGHT IN AUGUST by William Faulkner
Fucking Faulkner. I hate the old white male alcoholic writer society.

55. ON THE ROAD by Jack Kerouac
Ooooh, except for Jack. I groove on Jack. And I’ve actually read this. Jack rocks. Dig it?

56. THE MALTESE FALCON by Dashiell Hammett
And I’m back to feeling stupid. Although I suspect he’s another member of the old white male alcoholic writer society. Who also hates women. And they made a movie of it.

57. PARADE’S END by Ford Madox Ford
‘The parade ended. It was the end of the parade. The parade was full of soldiers. Good soldiers. They were such good soldiers that they had a parade.’

58. THE AGE OF INNOCENCE by Edith Wharton
Hey! I’ve read that! Woot! And it was a movie! With Winona Ryder and Daniel Day Lewis! I didn’t see the movie and I don’t remember the book, but I seem to remember that as Winona Ryder’s character is being taken to prison for shoplifting, Newland Archer tells her to stay alive, no matter what occurs and that he will find her.

59. ZULEIKA DOBSON by Max Beerbohm
You know, I still haven’t gotten over finding out that Henry James and Henry Miller aren’t the same guy. I’m going to have vague unease about this’ the same way it was when I found out that Al Pacino and Robert DeNiro were in fact two separate people. The world is now a different place than when I woke up this morning and I am completely unsettled.

60. THE MOVIEGOER by Walker Percy
I think they’re making these up. Because otherwise I am completely retarded.

61. DEATH COMES FOR THE ARCHBISHOP by Willa Cather
I get points if I know who Willa Cather IS, right?

62. FROM HERE TO ETERNITY by James Jones
This book was about how Deborah Kerr and some hot man kissed for three minutes in the pounding surf.

63. THE WAPSHOT CHRONICLES by John Cheever
Poor John Cheever. I’m impressed that he’s on this list. No one reads the poor man anymore and he’s brilliant. Although honestly I’m basing that opinion upon his short stories, because I’ve never read this book.

64. THE CATCHER IN THE RYE by J.D. Salinger
Not only have I read this book, I actually own a first printing of it. I should get an extra point for that, right there.

65. A CLOCKWORK ORANGE by Anthony Burgess
Um’ they made a movie out of this but I’m afraid to watch it.

66. OF HUMAN BONDAGE by W. Somerset Maugham
The honorable old white male alcoholic writer society now is in session.

67. HEART OF DARKNESS by Joseph Conrad
This was definitely a movie. I definitely didn’t see it.

68. MAIN STREET by Sinclair Lewis
Um’ next.

69. THE HOUSE OF MIRTH by Edith Wharton
Yay! Read that. Read that in 11th grade. Don’t remember it though.

70. THE ALEXANDRIA QUARTET by Lawrence Durell

71. A HIGH WIND IN JAMAICA by Richard Hughes

72. A HOUSE FOR MR BISWAS by V.S. Naipaul

73. THE DAY OF THE LOCUST by Nathanael West
Did you say something? I wasn’t listening.

74. A FAREWELL TO ARMS by Ernest Hemingway
Hemingway had all of these six toed cats. They’re called Polydactyl cats, because they have the extra thumb like things on them. Supposedly it makes them good mousers. I know Tilly is not one of these cats because she let that mouse get away. I blame Hemingway for that.

75. SCOOP by Evelyn Waugh
Waugh Waugh Waugh. Sounds like the noise they played on the gameshows in the 70’s when the whammy showed up, huh?

76. THE PRIME OF MISS JEAN BRODIE by Muriel Spark
Oh my god, isn’t this list done yet????

77. FINNEGANS WAKE by James Joyce
I think I might have read this but the details are sketchy.

78. KIM by Rudyard Kipling
Does ‘The Jungle Book’ count? Well, watching ‘Disney’s Jungle Book’? Because I can sing ‘The Bear Necessities’ with the best of them.

79. A ROOM WITH A VIEW by E.M. Forster
This was a movie. That I never saw.

80. BRIDESHEAD REVISITED by Evelyn Waugh
Waugh Waugh Waugh. We’re sorry Weetabix, you’ve just lost $40K and five years of your life pursuing a worthless degree. We have some lovely parting gifts for you, from our friends at Rice A Roni, tell her about it Johnnie!

81. THE ADVENTURES OF AUGIE MARCH by Saul Bellow
Only 19 more! Woot!

82. ANGLE OF REPOSE by Wallace Stegner
If you rearrange the letters in this title, you might come up with a book I’ve read. Like ‘Horton Hears a Who’.

83. A BEND IN THE RIVER by V.S. Naipaul
The ridiculous thing is that I thought this would be an easy way to do an entry. It has turned into this maddening display of how completely illiterate I am.

84. THE DEATH OF THE HEART by Elizabeth Bowen
You think you’ve got it bad. I CAN’T READ!!!!

85. LORD JIM by Joseph Conrad
Oh, it’s painful. But it really speaks to how clever I am, how I’ve managed to get through 18 years of schooling, be a technology professional and also have written over 500 entries when I can’t even apparently read what I am writing right now. Good Lord, I have no idea if I’m typing something like ‘Dubya is a weenie’. It’s not my fault. BECAUSE I CAN’T READ!!!!!!

86. RAGTIME by E.L. Doctorow
This was a movie. With a good soundtrack. I think it’s about how when women are around each other, their cycles get all in sync and they get all grumpy at once. Or something. I’ve not seen the movie nor heard the soundtrack, but I’m pretty sure that’s what it’s about.

87. THE OLD WIVES’ TALE by Arnold Bennett
I find it ironic that the Old Wive’s Tale is written by a man, non? I find it even more ironic that an illiterate knows what the word ‘ironic’ means. The world is both a strange and beautiful place.

88. THE CALL OF THE WILD by Jack London
Hey! Read this in 5th grade. And saw the movie.

89. LOVING by Henry Green
Wakka Chicka Wakka Chicka’. Ok, I haven’t read this one but I’m TOTALLY going to! Who knew that Random House would put PORN on the list. Too bad it wasn’t number 69.

90. MIDNIGHT’S CHILDREN by Salman Rushdie
Um’ he was in Bridget Jones’s Diary! And he had a price put on his head by the’ um’ some group of angry people in the Middle East’ or something. Don’t hate me because I’m stupid.

91. TOBACCO ROAD by Erskine Caldwell
Just say no to cigarettes.

92. IRONWEED by William Kennedy
And dope. And Kennedys.

93. THE MAGUS by John Fowles
I think this is the touching tale of a short bald man who cannot see and continues to get into humorous and yet dangerous situations because of his handicap.

94. WIDE SARGASSO SEA by Jean Rhys
Is Jean a girl or a boy do you think?

95. UNDER THE NET by Iris Murdoch
I know this was written by the lady they made the movie Iris about. But that’s it.

96. SOPHIE’S CHOICE by William Styron
Ooh, I know this was a movie. With Meryl Streep. And I’ve read Styron’s non-fiction book on writing fiction. That counts, right?

97. THE SHELTERING SKY by Paul Bowles
Think this is what Camilla Parker Bowles husband is doing, now that his cash cow has left him?

98. THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE by James M. Cain
I think this had Jack Nicholson in it. Maybe.

99. THE GINGER MAN by J.P. Donleavy
Do you know the Muffin Man? The muffin man? The muffin man! HEEEE! Sorry’ we ignorants find our amusement when we can.

100. THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS by Booth Tarkington
Must not be that magnificent because I’ve totally never heard of them. It is truly magnificient that this list is done.

There was a list put together by readers too. I checked out the first 10 on the list and apparently the readers were all either Scientologists or relatives of Ayn Rand. I originally intended to put together my own list of novels that I really like, but now I’m worried that it will consist of a lot of ‘Get Fuzzy’ compilations and maybe online diaries. Gah. I’ve got to paper things more. My head feels all empty now.

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Entry Completed

Sunday, November 3, 2002

Part One of this entry can be found here

FYI: The mouse is still in the house. That’s going to be an entry in and of itself.

Where was I? Oh yes, I’d just completed the first point on the outline titled ‘Getting the Hell Out of Dodge’. Thank god for the outline.

Because none of us had eaten lunch, we formulated a simple plan to maximize our time. We’d head downtown to the Hootchie Mama store, then grab food at Ed Debevics, then off to the Mayfair Mall where we would revel in a consumer’s utopia. And get Krispy Kremes. I think Penny and Carissa began to lose faith in the Weetabix method of navigation (drive around in the vague direction of where you are going and correct as you go until you get there) to the Hootchie Mama store, but we did find it after one circle around the block that I thought it was on. We scored prime parking in front of the store because the meters were going to shut off in half an hour (at which time, it became illegal to park there’. Details, details). Penny and Carissa scurried with full arms to the dressing rooms, which were basically little cubbies with 24 inch doorways covered by 18 inches of fabric. Then we had a mini fashion montage. Or would have if someone had been piping in ‘I’m Too Sexy’ alternating with ‘Oh My God, Look At My Fat Ass’. (That one’s available on the soundtrack to my life, by the way. In stores soon.)

Penny ended up with a hot pleather skirt, a velvet top thingy with Stevie Nicks sleeves, a white lace up shirt that looks as though it were mated for life with the pleather skirt, and I think something else. I kept throwing many outfits at Carissa and essentially trying to dress her like me, and she ended up with a damn hot pair of SortaSuede pants and a brown peasant blouse, a matching pleather bracelet (for a DOLLAR!) and I think Penny bought her a shirt too. I ended up with nary even one cheap Hootchie Mama find, after several disappointing attempts and false starts decided to cut my losses and save my retail therapy for the greener pastures of Mayfair.

Oh, and we got a $30 parking ticket. Time apparently flies when there is cheap slutty clothing to be had.

Then went to Ed Debevics for lunch. If you’ve never been to an Ed’s, imagine Jack Rabbit Slim’s from Pulp Fiction, but not as nice. Our waiter, Nickels, reminded me of the Verizon Guy. Another waiter, who was gayer than Gaydonia, kept calling Carissa Lynda Carter. Then he acted like Penny was Donna Mills from Knots Landing. Then he turns to me and forever earned himself a place in hell. ‘Roseanne Barr! I hope you’re making a comeback, sweetie!’

I hate him. I hope he gets VD.

Our waiter, however, was hot. Carissa, because she is that way, convinced him to make the entire waitstaff dance on the tables. He played ‘Car Wash’ and oooohie, that boy could shake it. If he wasn’t adorable when we started, with the whole cutie Verizon Guy glasses and goofy grin, when he started dancing, you just wanted to lick chocolate syrup directly off his body. Even the hairy parts.

We then scurried off to Mayfair Mall, but found the freeway to be a veritable parking lot, as it was rush hour. I pulled off at our earliest exit and found ourselves deeply ensconced in Da Hood. Penny nonchalantly locked the doors. I pulled out the Bon Jovi and put in one of my mix CDs with ‘Ghetto Superstar’ on it. I kept reassuring them. ‘Look, they recycle. See, only good people care about the earth!’ But then I found the street I was looking for and trekked through town to the mall. By that time, it was 6:00. We were to be at The Bad Bar at 9ish. We were still 120 miles away from home. We pulled into the mall and then I realized that they didn’t have a Lane Bryant at that mall’ the one black spot on the utter perfection that is Mayfair. Carissa went with Penny to see if they have adequately sized bras at Victoria’s Secret while I hit the second floor to find Torrid. I was greeted like an old friend by the clerks, as I was wearing my red hoodie and Tinkerbell shirt from there. I quickly scored an Emily Strange t-shirt and a different Tink shirt. Then I blew over to Victoria’s Secret. There, Penny was scantily clad and Carissa had learned that Vickie’s Secret is that they only make stuff for skinny people. Like, if you need a bra, then you can’t shop there. I had her try a size down. At one point, I was standing in the dressing room and both of them had their bras off and it was a bonding moment. I lifted my own shirt and showed them my boobs too. Hot blonde, sassy brunette, and um’me’ topless. Something for every man.

We then hit the road in search of Krispy Kreme, with a little handdrawn map on a Torrid receipt (love those girls!). Carissa and Penny then got to taste the heaven that is a perfectly warm Krispy Kreme donut. I ate three and then felt sick for the next two hours. Gah. I always do that! By that time, we were completely pumped with adrenaline by our rush through Mayfair (which took all of 35 minutes). I threw in a Bad Bar mix cd and we proceeded to jam out to the Tricky song. Carissa then began flashing her breasts at fellow commuters, because we are sometimes wild and uncontrollable. Penny tried on her new bra and new lace up shirt thingy and almost blinded us with her hotness. And also flashed a trucker, who then tried extremely hard to catch up with us again, but I lost him in rush hour. Good times, good times.

I cut some minutes off the drive time (read: sped like a little banshee) and we whiled away the time talking about the only thing you can talk about after you’ve all seen each other’s boobies, and that is sex. We talked about penis size. We talked about our first times. We debated receiving oral sex (for the record, one of us is for, one of us is against, and one of us didn’t opt in with an opinion on the matter) and we managed to get Carissa home at 8:05 and me home by 8:24, just in time to get my sister Mo’s phone call wondering what time I was going to pick her up for the Bad Bar. Gah. I barked at her that I would be there in fifteen minutes and proceeded to do a complete change of outfit but still looked like I was wearing the same thing (instead of blue jeans, white socks, and sneakers, it was black jeans, black argyle socks and Docs; instead of navy Tink shirt and red hoodie, my retro black/grey v-neck t-shirt and hoodie. I accessorized with my choker collar necklace that says ‘Princess’.) and then floofed the hair and did a three minute makeover on the face. Result: not bad. I trucked out of the house, forgetting my digital camera in the process, and sped the four blocks to Mo’s house. She was wearing the F.C.U.K. t-shirt I bought her in San Francisco (the one that Chauffi thinks traumatized the sales clerk) and looked very hot. But not as hot as me. That’s not her fault, though. When I’m at the Bad Bar, I’m the hottest chick there. There’s just no competing.

We hooked up with a friend I’ll call Buttercup and her posse (I had to give her a pseudonym. She knows about the diary but I don’t think I’ve mentioned her here before and she wanted a pseudonym. What is worse, she wanted to PICK her pseudonym! What? No way, missy! My own sister is called Mo because she tailgates like a MoFo, do you think I’d let you pick your own pseudonym? I mean’ mine is a pressed wheat CEREAL for God’s sake. She wanted Sinead. SINEAD??? No, I insisted. It’s Buttercup. She lobbied to change my mind. ‘Yeah, doesn’t Sinead sound cool?’ Honestly, it sounds like a hooker. Or a stripper. A stripper who hooks as a side line but has a heart of gold. Sinead. Harrumph. Your name is Buttercup and you’ll like it, chica. Gah. Mofo people.) Jasmine showed up with Chris. Joel waltzed in, soon to be joined by our friend Eric and a large contingent of his work friends. Carissa and Penny showed up. Apparently, Penny had become afraid of the hotness of the lace up shirt paired with the pleather skirt and opted instead for the velvet top thingy. Don’t fear the sexy, Penny. It is your friend.

By the time Scotty Boom Boom showed up, I was well into my third Malibu and Diet Coke. There were shots. There were body shots. Eric and I danced. Then we danced some more. I was up and down off the damn windowsill more times than I can count. At one point, Carissa Penny and I were doing Greased Lightening up there, complete with authentic choreography. We were spectacular. Whenever we were up dancing, a bunch of people would then come up and dance, just to be near such hotness.

At one point, I was up there and a middle-aged man came up and started grinding back against me, pinning me up against the window, like some science project slide of the cross section of a liver. ‘Buttocks!’ I screamed, and then started laughing because that was quite possibly the funniest thing I’ve ever had come out of my mouth. And yet the onslaught of his man buttocks continued, prompting me to scream ‘Buttocks Buttocks Buttocksbuttocksbuttooocccccccccccccckkkkkkss!’ and then collapsing into a heap of giggles against Penny’s breasts. (Undoubtedly, I was the envy of every man in the place.) ‘What? Are you ok?’ said Penny. ‘Buttocks!’ I replied, because that is the answer to end all questions. Buttocks indeed.

I fled off the windowsill for it had become the Windowsill of Bad Memories. To cement the horror of the Windowsill into my brain, Mo flashed passersby on Broadway. I’m not certain if this was spurred on by Carissa and Penny or if there was an air of breasts exposure on the wind, an instinctive thing the way that birds will some how alight off a telephone wire at once or salmon know how to go back to the stream where they were spawned. My own breasts seemed to be trying to get free and flash with their unencumbered jiggly sisters, but I managed to keep my top on. I did however allow Scotty Boom Boom to check out the cleavage that the Dayam!Bra provided. I plead temporary exuberance. I was swept up as it were in the Senseless Acts of Titillation.

Ok, here’s where things get a little fuzzy. The bald bartender started comping my drinks again, right around the time that I started calling everyone ‘baby’. At one point, I was leaning on the wall, giggling. At one point, I grabbed Eric’s cigarette and took a puff and tried to look all cool to freak him out, but I suspect that I looked like a big booger. At one point, a strange guy came up and asked what I was drinking and I said ‘I’ve already got a drink, baby!’ and then he invited me to suck on his candy necklace. I bit off a few candies. You know, just to be polite and stuff. What? I’m a very polite girl. At one point, I said to Carissa ‘You know, if penises tasted like Krispy Kremes, I would be the most powerful woman in all the world.’ Which makes dubious sense to anyone sober but it rivaled the word ‘Buttocks’ in comedic genius. At another point, Mo reported that Joel was drunkenly dancing with the Lesser Pole of Uprightness. He claims that he did not, although admits that he might have been pretending that the pole was the girl on the bar who was dancing like a ho.

Esteban came to pick Mo and me up and we ended up taking Joel home also, even though he lives 15 miles in the complete other direction. The ride to Joel’s was strange and bizarre, mostly consisting of an argument between Mo and Joel about whether or not he did have inappropriate relations with the Lesser Pole of Uprightness.

‘I did not!’
‘You did!’
‘No, you’re hallucinating!’
‘No!’
‘I did not have sex with that woman!’
‘The pole! Joel! The Pole!’
‘Whatever!’

After dropping Joel off in his house out in the furthest point in the country from our own home, we endeavored toward our side of town, with a drunken Mo and a perfectly sober Esteban bantering back and forth. All I remember was Esteban saying that he wouldn’t be comfortable at the Bad Bar because it was a Cool Person Bar and he isn’t comfortable around the Pretty People, and then Mo replying ‘Well, you lucked out because Weetabix is cool and you’re ok around her.’ Which I’m assuming was her drunken way of complimenting me. Mo really wanted food from Taco Bell. I was ok with a run to the border originally, but by the time we got to our side of town, I could taste my own urine so demanded that they bring me home. Mo and I ran in the house to pee, Mo made disparaging comments about my toilet seat and the fact that I don’t have moldings up yet (because I’m replacing the floor and putting in slate, so I’m not going to put up moldings until then) and then went back to the car where Esteban brought her to Taco Bell. Then he came home, we ate Chilitos and Krispy Kremes and went to bed, where the room did funny little spins for about five minutes and then was silent. So it was all good.

Let’s check the outline. Hootchie Mama store’ check. The multiple flashings’ check. The Joel Pole dance’. The candy necklace’ check. There it is. Over 2000 more words. Gah. I don’t need to participate in that Write a Novel In November thingy’ I do it every damn month. I better end this entry before I declare myself the hardest working diarist in Diaryland and walk off stage with Carissa draping my back with a sequined cloak. Get uppah’ get on up’ I feel good! Thank you and good night! Be sure to tip your waitstaff!

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Entry Interupted

Sunday, November 3, 2002

Oh my goodness. This is going to be a long entry. Perhaps it will be concentrated, like a wordly demi glace? So many things happened in the last few days, I’ve actually made an outline so that I don’t forget anything. I hate doing that. I hate having to organize an entry. Usually, I just sort of glurp out everything onto the page and go with it. But an outline. That’s like a legitmate writerly thing to do. I didn’t do an outline for JournalCon’s entry, and because of that, I forgot to mention a bunch of things, like the way that Renee says ‘tired’ (tahired), or how damn right sexy MoPie was almost every minute, or how the leather chairs in the lobby sucked you into them like big butt eating machines or how compelling Pete’s karaoke version of ‘True Colors’ was or how Sasha flagged down a cab for me outside of Japantown. But then, sometimes you just need to save some things for the ‘Behind The Diarist: Weetabix’ episode or that poor narrator will have nothing to talk about other than the mysterious entries I’ve posted and then deleted. (Thirteen times? What was that about???)

See, there’s my problem right there. I just made the entry that much longer and I haven’t even begun to talk about everything that’s happened since the last entry. Gah. Sometimes I think I might have been a Russian novelist in a past life. Which also explains the presence of not one, not two, but five different vodkas in my liquor cabinet. (Save your interventions for the end of the entry. Thanks.)

Halloween was completely uneventful. Our office has one holiday event a year and it is strangely enough Halloween. There is the Mother of All Potlucks, coordinated by sector of the building. One part brings salads, one part brings beverages, plates and stuff like that, one area brings desserts. Because for any successful binge, there must be planning. We Midwesterners don’t mess around. You wouldn’t want to get ready to consume mass quantities with your coworkers and wear your elastic waisted pants and then find out there is a scarcity of jello salad and the potluck consists of 90 pans of brownies and a few bags of Doritos. We’re just not having that. It is taken very seriously. Our area was assigned salads this year. I brought baby carrots, if you must know. It meant that I didn’t have to cook. Just unzip the bag, and actually I didn’t even do that. Sweet.

There is also a huge costume parade and contest. These get quite elaborate. There are large group entries, which usually involve a chant or song of some kind. One year, my department was a pack of crayons. I was a white one. It made me feel like a KKK member, with that white pointy hat. Another year, our department was dalmation puppies. I declined that year, as the costume consisted of a white sweatshirt and sweatpants with black felt spots sewed on and to me it just screamed New Holstein cow. I got a ‘Does not play well with others’ reputation. The next year, I rebounded, as it was 1999 and we were heavy into the Y2K project. We were insects. Actually, we were Y2K Bugs. Our song was Princes ‘Party Like It’s 1999’. It allowed for creativity. You didn’t have to look like your fellow bug. I could get behind that. I was going to sit out the following year but Carissa and Penny decided to be a Gypsy and a Tramp and felt they needed a Thief. Because it involved only wearing black (something I do a lot anyway) and hauling around a pillow case and a crow bar, I was fine with that. I sat out last year. Carissa and Penny, on the other hand, have dressed up every year. Last year, they were Moulin Rouge girls. This year, their department reinacted various scenes from Grease. Carissa was Cha Cha, the best dancer at St. Bernadette’s (with the worst reputation). Penny pulled out a thistight outfit for which many little lycrans gave their lives and worked Sandy like nobody’s business. She was the one everyone wanted oooh oooh oooh. Unreal. It was a fun day. I have nothing really witty to say about it because it was just one of those ‘

Hmmm’. That was nice.’ kind of things, one of the parts of my life that I really don’t have a little goofy story about, just sort of a serial account that I usually ignore on this thing but Chauffi made me tell you, since he referenced it in one of his entries. Because Esteban’s lab was going to be without electricity due to construction on Halloween and strangely enough, it’s really hard to do the computer thing in Amish mode (although wouldn’t it have been funny if it wasn’t really construction and just some people dressed up like Doozers or something? Now THAT would have been funny), he worked at Maison D’Joel all day and I drove out there right after work. Joel made us a lovely dinner of chicken parmesan (sans Doritos) and I got to play our Xbox for the first time ever but on Joel’s enormous home theatre screen, which is something like 12×5 miles, I promptly got motion sick playing the Buffy game. Which is too bad, because I was a very good slayer. Perhaps I would have been Chosen if I hadn’t had the love of Twinkies slowing me down in my early years. Mofo Hostess.

Ok, that was almost 1000 words right there and I haven’t even gotten to the outline stuff yet. Mofo outline. This entry may just be my white whale. Call me Ishabix.

So Friday, Penny, Carissa and I took a half day to shop. Our original plan entailed going to Appleton to search for bras for Carissa. We then decided that we should go to the Bad Bar on Friday night as well. And then I suggested that instead of going to Appleton, we go to Milwaukee where we could go to the Hootchie Mama store and also my favorite mall in the world. And then I mentioned that they have a Krispy Kreme very close to that mall, which pretty much clinched the deal. Because Penny wasn’t interested in driving and her car is actually exactly like my car, only red and with a different spoiler on the back, she picked me up and asked if I wanted to drive. Sure, and as my first act as driver, I drove through Starbucks for three Venti Vanilla Mochas. This was Penny’s first Starbucks moment and I was pleased to have popped her Mocha cherry. We picked Carissa up on the way out of town (and she told us how much she loved us for having hot steamy delicious coffee waiting for her) and then we proceeded to rock out to a mix CD I made especially for the occasion.

We rocked out for the ride down. Carissa insisted that we listen to Bon Jovi. I countered with Michelle Branch. Penny remained impartial. Carissa didn’t like the Come On Down song, to which Penny and I are incredulous. Even Esteban likes that song! Sometimes I think Carissa’s ears are broke. Must be all the country (ouch, stop hitting me Carissa!).

Holy shit, there’s a mouse in the house. You’ll have to wait for the rest. Don’t worry. I have an outline.

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Yes, Goofy was his lover.

Wednesday, October 30, 2002

I realized yesterday while watching my TiVo’d reruns of Soap (funniest line ever: “There are lot of famous gay people…. Plato.” “Mickey Mouse’s dog was gay?” Ok, it’s so much funnier if you see it on the show. It doesn’t translate well, but I actually got a stitch in my side from laughing at that. But then, I almost stroked out yesterday over “Suspicious Smells”), that Jessica Tate is the embodiment of my Great Grandmother. Sort of ditzy and helpless but also the agent that brought everyone together and always maintained an even keel. Also, I wondered if I might be sort of a pedophile because I haven’t quite gotten over the crush I had on Jimmy Baio when I was twelve.

But I’ll bet he’s a hottie now.

Jimmy, er, um… James, if you’re reading, um… how YOU doing?

You’ll notice that when speaking of my Tivo, I did not address him by Ricky Fitts. That is because I’m upset with The Appliance and I don’t want to show any affection. I’m a harsh mistress. He’s been ignoring the Two Fat Ladies. I have it set as a season pass, and there are ample (ample…. heeee!) episodes forthcoming, but when Esteban checked the To Do list, there was nothing. He deleted it and readded it and there they were, which then spawned a period of Esteban acting all technologically superior. Damn Ricky Fitts. This behavior is not going unnoticed. I’m very wary now. I don’t trust it anymore. I’ll always wonder if he’s really recording Buffy or if it just looks like he is. It’s not the same. The magic is gone.

I had an Operation Hottie Crisis today. I went to a nearby convenience store on what has laughingly become my lunch hour (it was at 2:30 in the afternoon, yes it is funny. Ha ha funny and also just funny.) and purchased a Hostess Cherry Pie.

The ones that are made of lard and contain something like Four Bajillion Calories. The label says 470 or something, but I suspect that they use Hostess Cherry Pies to smuggle lard into the country. Perhaps it’s Cuban lard.

I talked myself down from the Hostess Cherry Pie ledge though. It’s still sitting on the front seat of my car, larding up the place. I hope to present it to Esteban, under the guise of a thoughtful and loving wife, when in reality I’m just exchanging my fat ass for his own.

In what might possibly be tangible proof of my split personality disorder, I also purchased two liters of Dasani, a pack of Tic Tacs (the 1 and a half calorie breath mint. I wouldn’t want to be the miserable mofo who had to explain to Mr. Tac that they couldn’t shave off the extra half calorie so they could be a nice round one calorie, like a whole can of Diet Coke used to be, before the one calorie mysteriously vanished and Diet Coke went to zero calories. I’ll bet someone lost their job over that half calorie. Try explaining that shiznit to the unemployment office, huh?) and a pack of Mentos. Apparently, there was freshmaking to be done and I was the girl to do it.

I’m quite happy with the Tic Tacs. They are lime and this incredible chartreuse green color. I love it. It’s very retro. Very sunshine day. I may set up a little display of those and the orange Tic Tacs because that color combination is both pleasing to the eyes and the palate. Hey, they’d match the acid green ensemble! I’ve heard of people decorating their homes with designer water bottles… Volvic in the living room, Perrier in the study, little baskets of Evian in the nursery. Perhaps one should choose their oral accessories based upon wardrobe. It makes about as much sense, I suppose. I’m specifically eating them in odd numbers so that maybe my body will get psyched by the half calorie and not know what to do with it, thus shoot it out through my digestive track and possibly burn up even more calories in the resulting confusion.

Trying to confuse the fat cells… that’s logic right there. They have but one job. Supply and demand. That’s it. It’s like trying to confuse a postal worker. It just doesn’t happen. They know what to do and they do it and then bark at you because you put your return address in the wrong place and wrote on colored envelopes with white ink and the pretty wax seals don’t go through the machine so who do I think I am anyway, some kind of postal anarchist or something?

Normally I end these things with some little definitive statement, but that free floating postal rant just wigged me out, so… um…. carry on.

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Um… it’s like…. yeah… or something.

Tuesday, October 29, 2002

I think work has spazzed out my brain. I’m completely fried. I must be the embodiment of the Peter Principle because it uses up all my smart stuff. I can think of nothing intelligent to say any longer. I’m stymied by the simplest things. Just now, Esteban called me from his cell phone.

‘Have you eaten dinner yet?’

I was perplexed. ‘Dinner?’

How could I have forgotten dinner? It’s not as though I had eaten lunch extremely late. Here it was something like ten hours later and I still hadn’t eaten and didn’t even notice? I suspect it was because there were much more important things on the horizon. I was compiling the new Quoted stuff and trying to figure out KT’s complex weird stuff. I was messing with the firewall. I was making my Sims talk to each other so that I could get rid of all the dorm beds and they would start sleeping with each other. I was mauling the cat, who is lonely and completely starved for attention. Things were being done. Important things. Dinner was not one of them.

‘Do you want to just order a pizza?’

‘Pizza?’ What is this strange thing you call ‘pee zah’ Earthman?

‘Where do you want to order it from? We can have it delivered?’

Pizza??? My mind decided that was a good time to think about Venice and nude sculptures and landscapes of marble penii. Pizza. Penis. Pizis. Penza. Pinazis. Puzzles. Pizza Penis Puzzles.

He waited while I pondered the philosophical ramifications. I pizza therefore I am? Such a thing as free will? Free pizza? If a pizza is heated in the woods and no one eats it, does it still burn the roof of your mouth? Pizza?

Realizing that once I had gotten over the hurdle of whether or not we should eat pizza, I would have to tackle such theological concepts as which place we should get the pizza and the existence of pepperoni, Esteban pulled a rare decision out of nowhere. ‘Er’ why don’t I just stop at Hansen’s and get a pizza?’

Um, yes. Pee zah. Pee zah good. You bring this pee zah. Me like.

Gah. And this is only just a symptom. I can barely focus long enough to type these sentences. At one point today, I was driven to hysterical tears over an email sent to everyone in our facility. And need I mention that I was ON THE PHONE? (Ok, sure, it was with Chauffi who was reminding me that HE told me to check out Wheatus’ ‘Punk Ass Bitch’ and I did not give him proper credit.)

The email had the subject line ‘Suspicious Smells’.

Even now, I’m restraining the giggles. ‘Suspicious Smells’. HEEEEEE!

Seriously, I think I’m about to get my Adult Card revoked. They’re going to send me back to seventh grade and I’ll have to worry about changing in gym class in front of kids born in the 90’s. I can just imagine it. I’ll be the salty matronly 7th grader with the DD’s, telling little Ashley and Kayla about how Seventeen Magazine is full of crap and they should masturbate with wild abandon and yeah, I’m pretty sure that Justin Timberlake is the kind of boy who’d go down on a girl. Oh dear. There went the potty mouth again. So sorry. I’m blushing now. Yes. We really talk about such things. Between our wild pillow fights and greasing each other up with scented lotion. Seriously. You don’t think Bath & Body Works is popular because of that Pear Berry crap, do you?

Oh, speaking of girly girl stuff, we had more panty bonding today. (You want to bet that Badsnake misread that as ‘panty bondage’?) This time, Heidi showed us the size on her pants, because she is a wee little thin thing and she was proving that she was not a size negative two. (I still don’t believe it) And I showed off my bra strap of my Dayam!Bra to Carissa, who is quite impressed at its anti-gravitational force field. I’m certain it will be a hit with the girls in the locker room.

Esteban: You’re looking’

Weetabix: Busty?

Esteban: Wow! They’re like anime breasts. All pointing north and stuff.

Weetabix: (lifts her shirt) It’s the bra. Happy Birthday Mr. President.

Esteban: Niiiiiiiicce.

Weetabix: (checking them out in the mirror) I’m quite enamored of them myself.

Esteban: Now you know how I feel all the time. I like your breasts.

Weetabix: Like, if there was a Weetabix action figure, these would be her breasts.

Esteban: You should put that in your diary. That was clever.

Weetabix: Er… I think I already have, actually.

Esteban: Ah.

Weetabix: Yeah.

Esteban: Should I shave off my mustache? And just be all Hasidic?

Weetabix: No. You need facial hair there. You look all newspaper boy without it. Your upper lip is like a time machine for your face.

Esteban: You’re no fun. I think it would look cool.

Weetabix: It would look cool but too cool for you.

Esteban: What are you saying? Is this your whole ‘I’m cooler than you are’ thing again?

Weetabix: Well’

Esteban: You are not cooler than I am. I’m very cool.

Weetabix: The fact that you have to reassure yourself that you are cool says something right there. Besides, this isn’t a contest.

Esteban: But you think it.

Weetabix: I know it. There’s a difference. I love you anyway, honey.

Esteban: Even though I’m not cool.

Weetabix: You’re a little cool.

Esteban: See? You admit it.

Weetabix: (noticing the Subway commercial) I think the scientific word is ‘osmosis’. And in other news’ I completely hate that new Subway guy.

Esteban: He’s a dick.

Weetabix: I mean, I hated Jared, don’t get me wrong. I hated his big freakish lips.

Esteban: You fixate on lips, I think.

Weetabix: I’m just saying. But this guy’ at least Jared was like ‘Hey, I’m just a former fat guy, hawking Subs.’ This guy’. He’s all smugass and smarmy. Aw’ and then he’s asking the college guys were the sorority house is? He’s like, what’ forty? Smarmy smug forty-year-old hitting on Betty Coed? GAH!

Esteban: At least he’s not ‘Dude’. You’re gettin’ a Sub!’.

Weetabix: Heeee!

Esteban: Will you show me your breasts again now?

Weetabix: I think I’m going to bed. And I’m bringing the breasts.

Esteban: Aw man!

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Can you hear the shitasses sing?

Monday, October 28, 2002

So now that I’ve got my 500th entry off my ass, I’m feeling pretty good about the diary. You might have noticed that I had been slowing down a bit, inching toward that big number, and that was why. While on the phone with Chauffi one night, I said “Do you realize that my last five entries span 14 days?” and he said “Nooooooooo!” because it just seemed impossible, but so it was. I’m a lazy punk ass bitch.

That’s my favorite song of the moment, if you must know. “Punk Ass Bitch” by Wheatus. Not only is the term “punk ass bitch” a fabulous phrase, they also use the term “shitass”, which is simply too precious for words. Shitass. Implying that not only is someone an ass, but also an ass which is covered in shit. It’s so simple. So perfect. The shitass does not need a prop.

I probably swear too much. And to think that in third grade (when I was a wee little parochial school girl who could not wear jeans to school and even now at age 31 when I wear jeans I feel as though I’m going to get busted for being a delinquent or something) I would not swear for any reason and felt that I was sinning for even HEARING someone else swear, because it put a little black spot on my soul. Hearing three incidences of swearing was as bad as swearing yourself. I wouldn’t even say “hell” during our bible recitations. “He descended into hmmmm the third day He rose again.” That’s probably why I swear like a shitass now.

Mofo right.

My Sims are loving their new warehouse suburban loft. It looks like it belongs in Soho or something and it’s not a loft. Well, it’s as lofty as a Sim can get. I haven’t put in the pool yet either, but they did their volleyball court a little too much. I think Javert fancies himself to be the next Gabriella Reese. He’s poofy that way. Eponine has spurned his advances and now he’s quite smitten with Enjolras now, who I think might have lecherous intentions towards little Gavroche. That’s not good. I’m hoping they will have some kind of Simintervention if he takes it too far. And someone needs to sit Gavroche down and explain the difference between good and bad touching. I’m afraid to take them on vacation, too. Wild things happen on vacation. People get tattoos and come back with heads full of expensive braids and crotches full of VD. My Sims seem to be a big morality play and going on vacation might turn into a dramatization of the 1950’s military public service film “Shore Leave”. I’m afraid to get a damn hamster because I think Enjolras will try to mount it or go all Richard Gere and that just leads to lots of prying questions. I haven’t installed Darth and his Trailer O’Evil yet. Perhaps I should. Damn punk ass Sim bitches.

Carissa, Penny and I are planning to go shopping on Friday afternoon, pre-Bad Bar. Carissa, who only qualifies as a “plus-size” girl through semantics, and I are going to drag Penny into all of the cute clothes stores, because Penny falls into the “skinny girl” category. Our goal: show Carissa how much better it is to get expensive bras and panties. We will convert her. Oh yes. (Insert supportive friendship joke here) I stopped over at her desk and had probably the best part of my day, giggling about shopping and drinking and about how I had the Green Panty crisis last week and thus had to wear my acid green turtleneck/black hooded vest ensemble, complete with matching lingerie. And of course I had to show both my panties and my bra to Penny and Carissa.

This is how girls bond. Right there. Guys tune up each others cars, we go to the bathroom together and ooh over each others panties. Guys would never be caught dead going up to their friends “Hey, Chuck, check out these Fruit of the Looms. See how the blue stripe on the elastic matches my jeans and the yellow matches my shirt? And plus! No skids!” Just wouldn’t happen.

And I feel bad for sharing that with y’all. Like some day some perfectly competent woman will be making a bid for the White House and someone will say “What are you going to say to Tony Blair? Hey, look at my panties?” and they’ll have proof because they read it on Weetabix. My Gloria Steinem inner brain voice disapproves.

And my inner Margaret Atwood says “Do you think Jincy Willett would be writing about how her panties match? No, she’d be writing sentences like At the center of her disbelief lie a cold hard stone–the type that could be found in the brook nearby– and she desperately wanted to know that Arthur was lying to her, but she could see in his dullness, the way his eyes merely glanced at her, that he was not and things had ceased to ever again be easy. Because while I can generally stand up to my inner Gloria Steinem and my inner Abby Hoffman brain voices, that Margaret Atwood is a clever heartless bitch who cuts me off at the knees. And she’s also telling me right now that I didn’t even come close to imitating Jincy’s incredible fluid compact prose and I couldn’t even glimpse her greatness if I tried.

So much for my 501st entry. Yeah… haven’t really gotten any better with experience. Well, maybe I’ll have this thing figured out by my 600th. Perhaps tomorrow I’ll write about forging my soul on fate’s bitter anvil or something instead. Inner brain voices are a bunch of shitasses.

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Batting .500

Friday, October 25, 2002

Nostalgia is a funny thing. It sneaks up on you the older you get. I had lunch with my friend Fern yesterday and she handed me two hand-written poems I had written for her when we were teenagers. One was about the street sweepers that keep Green Bay’s streets clean (they used to scare both of us because they’d sweep at night and you’d be lying in bed and suddenly hear it coming and see these flashing yellow and red lights and it would get louder and louder and LOUDER and then recede back into your nightmares.) and one was about binging, an obvious first and only draft, because it had words crossed out in a flurry of loops and swirlies. It was a strange thing, though, looking through those foolish teenage swirls. I don’t even remember writing the one about binging, but I remember the street cleaner poem because even though it was tongue-in-cheek, it had some elements that I loved. Sometimes I think I prove my grandmother right time and again. I really do just like to hear myself talk.

The cynic in me wants to spout about how nostalgia is sweet tea for the insipid, but the honest truth is that a diary is nothing but nostalgia. Or at least mine is. I often tell stories about something that happened before. The older you get, the faster nostalgia sneaks up on you. This diary is like a time capsule in a way. It allows me to read back through last summer and the summer before that and grasp at that place and that time. When I wrote my first real entry, I was sitting in Computer Room #2 and the sun was shining and I remember looking out into the little courtyard part of our backyard, the place where the house makes an L around the potting shed, and staring at the climbing rose bush. I remember thinking that I needed to replace the trellis (still haven’t, although I do have a replacement).

The nostalgia is probably the sweetest thing I have about this archive. It tells me where my mind was at a certain point on any given day. It might not say everything that happened or everything I thought, but it’s a snapshot of the fifteen minutes or hour that I stopped and wrote an entry. The easiest and best time travel device is the dialogue. There’s the first one I had with Esteban that I linked in the FAQ entry as being my favorite. There’s a powerful lot of pillow talk recorded on this page:

The Warning Finger

Reasons Why I’m a Poor Spouse

Reasons Why Esteban is a Poor Spouse

I’m Still a Bad Spouse

The Fictionalized Valentines Day

The Drive to Atlanta

Your Body, Your Body Butter

The One Which Shall Not Be Named

On Having Fart Karma

Ze French Accent

Esteban Is Still Sometimes a Bad Spouse

Who Doesn’t like My Hair

Must See Personas

The West Nile Skin Bump

The Soup (not technically in the format though)

Freaky Bunnies

More Fart Karma

And then there’s the dialogues I have with other people:

My Mom

Carissa

Ward and June

My Stylist

While Surrounded by Fake Genitalia

To embrace even more of the meta, I’m a bit boggled by the popularity of this thing. It’s a strange and also wonderful thing. I can’t tell you how much it meant to me to have condolences when my cat died. Or during lingering illness and eventual death of a much-loved family member. I’m thankful for every comment left and I try to answer every email. But at the same time, I still scratch my head. Sometimes I just write about how I don’t have anything to write about. I write an awful lot about being a girl, yet I still have a fairly large percentage of male readers. And then there’s the uterus entries‘ subjects that I would have thought would have driven away most of the testosterone long ago. Some people tell me I’m funny, but it’s just who I am. And I’m not funny all the time. It’s a bit of a mystery, but one I’ll gladly ponder. Because of it, I’ve had the wonderful opportunity to meet some great people. And made a friend.

I suppose that the nostalgia for you the reader is different than the nostalgia I have for the diary. You might have nostalgia for what is presented. Remember that time I got drunk? Or that other time I got drunk? Or the time I wrote while stoned on nitrous oxide? Or all the letters? Remember that? The time I wrote to John Irving? Dave Matthews? Michelle Branch? Johnny Depp? Steve from Blues Clues?Or remember that letter to God about American Idol? I doubt he reads this page, but you never know. I get some pretty weird servers on my stats meter (oh, and you guys who are reading from Oxford, Duke and Harvard should really be studying instead of reading about boobs and farts. I’m just saying.) Or the letters to Mattel and Mentos? Speaking of genetic mutants, what about those letters to Sarah Jessica Parker, Tom Arnold, Wil Ferrell, Anne Heche, and Mariah Carey? Those have gone unanswered, by the way. Remember that?

Remember my old blue template with the white writing? Remember that? Wasn’t that great? Remember when I only had a guestbook? Remember when people used to actually use the message board? Remember that? Remember the first time you saw Chubby Tink and thought ‘what the heck is up with that shit? She have an allergic reaction or some shit?’ Remember that? Remember the first time you used ‘Gah’ in a sentence? Out loud at work? And everyone looked at you like you had Tourettes? Remember that? Wasn’t that incredible? It felt weird the first time, like eating an under ripe banana, but pretty soon it was like a bad case of herpes and you just couldn’t get rid of it? Wasn’t that just the neatest thing?

Remember when you started to read this entry? Remember thinking ‘Wow, that’s a hella lot of linking and I know Weet really hates to do a lot of html’. I remember that. I remember that like it was five minutes ago. I was sitting here listening to Rufus Wainwright, just like I am now, isn’t that strange? I can hardly believe it’s already been more than three hours. I remember starting this entry and being nervous about writing my 500th entry and not having a clue how to start it and feeling nervous because I didn’t want to look up all of those entries and write all of those links. Remember that nostalgia thing, what I said about that? Wasn’t that just like me? Wasn’t it?

Yeah. I thought so too.

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My Diaryland Trading Card

Thursday, October 24, 2002

I wrote a big whiny lame entry last night about how stressed I was. I didn’t like it. I didn’t want to post it, but I was in love with a stigmata joke that I made, so I posted it. But honestly, the stigmata joke wasn’t enough to carry the entry. So I killed it this morning. Words are funny things. Jake read me this incredible quote from Jenny and the Jaws of Life by Jinzey Willet. I don’t have it right now, but I rushed out at lunch on Tuesday to purchase the book and now I’m looking forward to reading it like the glee one normally reserves for Christmas morning and showers of wrapping paper destined to decorate landfills for years to come. Sorry, sometimes my inner hippy child sneaks out. But what I’m saying is that I love words. Words turn me on, probably more than anything else in the world. John Irving is one of the sexiest men in the world, not because of his smoldering eyes or his awning-like eyebrows… no, it’s the words. The way they touch you. Words caress your cheek and blow in your ear. Words tickle your secret tickle place.

Words rock.

Diaryland Trading Cards!

Weetabix
member since 05/30/2000
498 entries
Supergold Edition

Description: Curvy Round Sex Goddess #00001.

Strengths: Ability to look at any situation and find something humorous.

Weaknesses: Gives all of her clothing names, continually breaks the html for the notify list, can be taken out with a Blind Russian or several stiff Malibu and Diet Cokes, uses the word “Gah” to excess, cannot resist HobNobs or Krispy Kreme donuts, writes long runon sentences that go on and on but somehow still manage to make sense and sound good.

Special Skills: Can open a beer bottle with her breasts, can sing just like Dennis DeYoung.

Weapons: Hips that have a wiggle wiggle known to mesmerize opponents, oral skills not limited to public speaking, irresistable to lesbians.

Diary Quote: The heart is a lonely paddleboat and the subconscious is a dank pit of wet earth that wants to bite you in the ass and give you mud babies.

Make your own Diaryland Trading Card!

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