What Not To Wear: Apparently, Clothes

Bah.

Humbug.

Happy Halloween. I guess.

Sigh, it's hard to get excited anymore about Dress-Like-a-Whore Day Halloween. Cuz of the costumes.

A good Halloween costume is witty, creative, topical, never store-bought, and judging by the works of my peer group, slutty. The rise in slutty costumes can ostensibly be attributed to a desire to shed taboos and stretch out our secret womanly desires- if only for a little while- and our secret desires apparently involve prancing around like a trollop. "[Halloween] has become the holiday where people are allowed to exhibit behaviour or dress in a manner that would normally be thought of as 'deviant.'" But it seems like year after year, we're seeing the same tired old Little Red Light District Riding Hoods. Deviant implies something outside the norm- something risqué. What is exhibitionism if you're exhibiting the same old goodies over and over?
Boooooooring!

It's time to get a little more creative about dressing up like a slattern. Put the HAR! back in harlot this year with the Goo Floozy Costume Guide. It's easy! Just wear what's listed and nothing else, and you're down the winding road to the good life of a fallen woman:

• Slutty Al Gore: Power pointer, Nobel Prize, wind turbine pasties.
  
• Slutty Larry Craig: Trench coat with nothing on underneath except a bow-tie, toilet plunger, five-inch stiletto heels with toilet paper sticking out.
  
• Slutty Silvia Plath: Slutty secretary outfit, E-Z Bake Oven.
  
• Slutty anorexia: I promise you'll see this at a party this year. Nothing says H-O-TTT like a vague resemblance to Skeletor. Prow!
  
• Slutty infant: Onesie for the 6-8 months crowd (preferably one of the fun new ones that say "slut" on the butt).
• Tea and Strumpets: Strategically placed tea cozy and English muffins. This one comes courtesy of the fond childhood memory I have throwing a temper tantrum in front of my Irish priest uncle, Father Paddy, in which I whinged, "But MOOOOOOOOOOM! You promised he would have tea and strumpets!"
  
• Slutty professional blogger: Ratty bunny slippers and a pack of Marlboro reds.
  
• Slutty FEMA staffer: Dress in slutty kangaroo costume. Hold court. In case you're wondering, a slutty kangaroo looks like this:

• Slutty crack whore: make some painful life choices over the course of several years
• Slutty repressed conservative Christian minister: Two wet suits, scuba mask, flippers, rubber underoos, Liberty University degree. Bonus points for hidden treasure.
• Slutty Mother Theresa: You know, I just can't. Apparently, I have one teensy, tinsy scruple left.
  
• Slutty Hill staffer: Dress as you normally do. Shame on you.
• If all else fails, bust out (heh) some Chinese Condom Couture.
  

I'm feeling better about Halloween already. Me? I'm going as global warming, a costume that will involve silver lamé, strategically placed depictions of carbon dioxide molecules, and a dead polar bear.

There's Fall and Then There's Going Down

Well hello there!

Oh my, it's been a little while, hasn't it?

No, no - there's nothing wrong with your computer.

I'm basking in this weather and the season. I don't think I've ever liked fall quite so much, but that may be because I have mastered the quintessential fall weekend- rainy Friday evening at AFI, watching Nosferatu with a live orchestra, a Saturday afternoon jaunt crunching over the leaves in Rock Creek Park, and a sunny Sunday trip to a farm for pumpkin-picking and hot apple cider-drinking. Oh, there was a hayride, too. Some of the kids in my wagon were a little upset that we were going to crash and die a horrible death, mostly because our tractor driver seemed a little distracted:

He was checking to see if the Redskins had started playing. Luckily for us, they hadn't yet; I'm pretty sure if they'd been playing, we would have been sideline casualties, too.

Rain Rain, Stick Around, Just Until My Sorrows Drown

I woke up ungodly early this morning, unable to sleep. and in my bleary state, it took me a moment to identify the sound that woke me up.

Oh, how I've missed the rain.

The DC area is in the midst of some record-setting weird weather. We've had crazy 90 degree days with rains few and far between- the paltry quarter-inch we received last week barely covered the ground- and that was the first rain in 34 days.

Whatwith all the sunshine, it's hard out there for us tricky secret introverts. My bones have been craving a day to curl up with a book and Kitty, or a walk through puddles with the cuffs of my pants rolled up, juggling my iPod and umbrella, trying to pick the right music to set my mood. What's the point of a new Radiohead album if you can't listen to in some gloomy weather?

And oh, how I've been missing the opportunity to really nurse a gripe. Nothing too serious, just a time to feel some quiet malaise and secretly despise something petty. When the sun is shining and the grass waving, the peoples just want to talk about the lovely weather and exchange pleasantries. I guess it's nice for a bit, but after a while all the bright-eyed, bushy-tailed go-getters start to seem really oppressive and I sink into a glower that would make Wednesday Addams cringe.

But now the rain is here, and the peoples want to bitch, bitch, bitch.

YAY!

So for your pleasure, two pet peeves that are positively thriving: one old, one new, both chafing on the insides of my skull and creating a paste of skull dust and brain juice that I can't wait to schmear onto others:

OLD:
Commercials with music that is completely incongruous to what is actually being marketed. EXAMPLES:

• ELO- Hold on Tight to Your Dream, heard in an Honda commercial. Really? A Honda? That's your deepest desire? Not a Lotus or a Lamborghini? You couldn't even make the stretch to the Acura?
  
• John Lennon - Imagine, heard every Christmas in the MasterCard commercial. "Imagine no possessions/ I wonder if you can..." You probably can't, though, so just buy some shit you can't afford. While you're out, get some earplugs to muffle the sound of John Lennon tossing and turning in his grave.
  
• There's a commercial for some cruise ship that plays Iggy Pop's Lust for Life: "Here comes Johnny Yen again/With the liquor and drugs/And the flesh machine/He's gonna do another striptease" The Object has been coerced into some destination wedding cruise business in a few months. I was told I shouldn't bother coming, insofar as it would be a waste of money for something that wouldn't really interest me. I think I get it now.
  

NEW:
Mismatching camouflage. I've always hated the camouflage-as-fashion look; it seems to say, "look at me; you can't see me!" and imply some vague connection to the military, ergo badassery. If you want to be a badass, go serve four extended tours in Iraq, delay your wedding, miss out on seeing your first child born, just so you can get shot at in a war that doesn't make a whole lot of sense¹. But even then, camouflage isn't always the best idea.
I used to think pink camouflage was the worst- what do you do in Barbie's special ops, combat counterfeit lipgloss? Blergh. But lately I've been seeing people wear one kind of camouflage on top of a slightly different kind of camouflage. Are you hiding in the trying to sink someone's battleship, fight C.O.B.R.A., or do you expect to come under heavy fire from guerrillas in gumdrop mountains? Make up your mind.

Now it's time for a warm cup of thick winter squash stew, which, conveniently happens to be the plan for the evening.

I hope this rain stays for a little while.

1.Shout out to my brother, who just got his tour extended by four months. I am not a badass.

Halloween? More Like Christmas!

"[U.S. Women's National Team Head Coach Greg] Ryan is not exactly fired. His contract, which is up at the end of the year, will not be renewed. And the United States doesn’t play any more games in 2007."

While this has some seriously negative ramifications for one of my initial Halloween costume ideas, I'm still pleased as pie and punch. Everyone told me that costume was too esoteric anyways.

Critter Comforts

The rats are going to kill us all.

Well, if you believe the peoples on my neighborhood listserve. They're calling for the Pied Piper of Adams Morgan, citing the alley behind my house as the filthiest place in DC where the little critters run rampant. Maybe it's because of the variety of weird trash left back there, including an excessive amount of abandoned gardening equipment. But there's no denying that there are a ton of rats in the hood- especially over by the ex-crackhouse at 17th and Euclid. I'm pretty sure I saw a rat king rolling through the debris last night.

A few months back, the peoples somewhere in Arlington were bitching about the feral cat colonies, and they worked with a group called the alley cat allies to neuter the kitties and control the population. Now, I've had cats for the better portion of my life, and it has been my experience that nothing makes kitty happier than killing a rat/bird/mouse/squirrel/speck of dust that may or may not present an imminent threat to humanity. Just look at what Jeff can come up with. Cats want to help us out (or possibly wait till we're sleeping and kill us and then take over the universe, but it's best not to think about that too much).

Why not import the feral cats? Cats eats rats, rat population decreases, peoples on neighborhood listserve go back to doing what they do best, namely, blaming Councilman Jim Graham for all the kids shooting each other in the street, then counting the typos in Councilman Graham's humble replies that call for action from the mayor. Order restored. It's not like Adams Morgan is Australia or something; you're not going to irreperably harm some flora-fauna balance. In fact, I used to see cats all the time in the neighborhood, sitting at the window and provoking my own kitty into a territorial hissing contest.

Except that I don't see the cats around anymore. And I think this is because the rats have actually gotten to the point where they're eating the cats. There's only one solution left.

Monkeys.

Seriously, who's gonna fuck with a monkey?

Ok, I know what you're thinking- that one deputy mayor got killed in a monkey attack.

New Delhi Deputy Mayor S.S. Bajwa was rushed to a hospital after the attack by a gang of Rhesus macaques, but succumbed to head injuries sustained in his fall, the Press Trust of India news agency and The Times of India reported.

Fair enough. We cannot spare Councilman Graham as a friendly-fire casualty to satisfy the bloodlust of monkeys sent to do our bidding. We can't count on government; we can't count on the kitties, and we can't count on people to actually throw their shit a garbage cans. The situation seems hopeless, n'est pas?

Wrong, for yonder sits the Fourth Estate, and they are more important than them all.

Slate answers the question that plagues us more than the rats, and one that has plagued us for centuries: How can I defend myself when surrounded by a pack of angry monkeys?

"Just give 'em what they want. "

So, problem solved. Now we can focus on the real issues facing the city, namely the gardening supplies in the alley. The back of my own building hasn't been a rodent problem so much as people abandoning weird, weird, chintzy garden types of stuff: At least a dozen decrepit rocking chairs, a rusted planter shaped to look like precious toddler overalls, life-sized wagon wheels, doll heads. And that's not stuff that was left there and then stayed a while- it's a rotating crop of rejected items that even handy tips from Real Simple couldn't save. My alley is the shabby-chic graveyard, which is much creepier and probably more disease-ridden than rats. I'm terrified to walk the streets at night for fear that a cadre of Martha Stewart-like zombies will force me into tatting holiday wreaths with them. Stabbing them with a knitting needle only fuels them; you'll just have to trust me on this one. It's not a good thing, crafting zombies.

Slate remains chillingly silent on the issue.

It's DINNERTIME!

In answer to Friday's not-so-tough trivia question, the answer we were looking for was The Emperor's New Groove. Observe:

By The Power Invested in Me By the Internet, I Hereby Declare Today International Mona "The Hammer" Shaw Day

Tales of treachery and torment abound in this week's Goo report, but if you stick with it and then smash it with a hammer, you will be vindicated come the post's end.

And also, ten points to anyone who can tell me the origins of the quote ""We turn him into a flea, put him in a box. Then put that box in another box, then mail it to ourselves, then smash him with a hammer!!" And no fair googling it or turning to any alternate sources, cuz it's really not that arcane at all; I just like it.

• "Forbes is reporting that despite Radiohead giving their latest album away 'for free', more copies of the album were pirated than downloaded from their site. Commentators offered up the opinion that this was probably more out of habit than malice." Shenanigans. You're reading too far into it. People like being pirates. I keep an eyepatch at work for just such occasions. Case closed.
• "AT least 99.9 per cent of all Radiohead fans are the worst kind of musical snobs. These pseudo-intellectual cultural elitists still pretend to like the unlistenable and inexcusably indulgent Kid A and Amnesiac records."
  Why thank you for the compliment; I do have better taste than you. Wait a minute... can you be a cultural elitist when you're joined by more than a million of your nearest and dearest? In that case, can Columbia open its graduate admission to more than 10 candidates for PhD in history?
• Sigh. Can't we all just get along? Pepsi and Coke, I'm looking at you. Or do we have to bring Pepsi Clear and Zima back?

Fun with optical illusions:

• Is the woman spinning clockwise or counterclockwise? You answer determines the career you will be pigeonholed into for the rest of your life! (Tip o' the Goo to Manifest Density)

• Pope? Or KKK grand Dragon in full Regalia?

I suck at this magic eye shit. Optical illusion time is OVER.

• I appreciate that Arkansas legislators are willing to give lip service to the children when it comes to harmful tobacco products. But more pressing than Randy Stewart's concern about children's longterm health, "We need to set an example in here for all the kids who sit in the gallery and watch us work," simply focuses on children's long-term health. Somewhere in the AR legislature, some lowly page pukes every night when he has to clean that shit up. I can't imagine that's too healthy.
• As the Object pointed out, the nice thing about the Nobel Prize? Instant gravitas. In every media mention. Ever: "The president's top science adviser said yesterday there is no solid scientific evidence that the widely cited goal of limiting future global temperature rises to two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels is necessary to avert dangerous climate change, an assertion that runs counter to that of many scientists as well as the Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change." That's right boys, until you come back here with a Nobel Prize, you're about as credible as the chica up there claiming all Radiohead fans are elitist.
• That said, honestly, I'm not so sure anymore that Al Gore should have won the Nobel Peace Prize. After more consideration, it probably should have been Mona Shaw. Which one of us hasn't been screwed waiting for Comcast? Mona Shaw, a real American Hero, we salute thee.
  

I've Been Shot!

Three in my right arm, one in my left. Because I'm going to... UGANDA. To assess a site to establish a program for volunteer doctors to teach and train local health care professionals, who will then be able to pass on those same skills.

I'm trying really hard not to gloat about my job. If it makes you feel any better, every time I raise my arms up in victory, they hurt. Cuz of the shots I had to get so that I can go to Uganda.

Let's step it back down here a notch. Situational irony to the rescue!

This Might Be My Favorite Holiday

I completely forgot that today is Boss Day. Luckily someone told me just in time, so I had time to run out and get Bruce a card, congratulating him on his new album.

The Long and Winding Road

Every Monday, I hop in the Object's car for the one and a half hour drive to Middleburg, get therapized in a physical fashion, then hop back in the car to sit on my choice of three out of the four of either the Dulles Toll Road, 66, the Beltway, and/or Rock Creek Parkway. These 5-8 hours of my Monday are an experience best described through haiku.

iPod: Left at home.
NPR: Fall drive for funds.
Universe: Score 1.

Iraq: Big success!
What's next for Condi? Of course!
Isra'l/Palestine

Late. Zoom zoom, Mazda!
Five speeds, ninety-nine horsepow'r-
Porsche this ain't. Sigh, late.

Note to VA plates:
Maybe your "XS GASS" comes
From your Hummer, tool.

One hour, poked and prodded
PT- therapy? More like
pernicious torture.

Weaving scooter girl:
I hope you don't die; but you
Prob'ly deserve to

Whom do I hate more:
LaRouche or Cheney? Tough call,
Like Spy vs. Spy.

Cure global warming:
Heavy metal filled ocean.
Band-aid on cancer

All-time worst career:
School bus driver. Also,
Roadkill scrape-upper.

Forty-five minutes
Circling concentrically
Really, no parking.

Woop Woop Woop!

I had another post ready to go for today, but we've shifted into crisis mode here at the Goo: one of my BFSupremeFs broke up with her boyfriend yesterday.

While many people will tell you the five food groups- fat, sugar, salt, booze, and food that never occurred in nature- are the way forward, I'm a better fan of the distraction method, especially if the friend has decided not to stay at home, but to surround herself with people (which is what I tend to do, too). So I'm going to be updating the Goo as often as possible today, in an effort to quell a little of the pain- follow along, and think about how much your last breakup completely sucked!

Or at least think about something else.

3:27 p.m. According to About.com, brief, opinionated, and not necessarily accurate knower of all things (like me!), there are certain breakup/heartbreak (seriously, you don't need to breakup to get your heart ripped directly out of your chest and then dunked in salt and vinegar while it's still beating) necessities. I concur, and so I offer you a list of such necessities with my preferred picks. Feel free to elaborate with your own helpful hints:

• Breakup food: Breaking up actually makes me feel a little sick to my stomach. It's possibly the only time I 100% lose my appetite. It's really disconcerting. When I'm upset in general, though, there's nothing quite like a box of macaroni and cheese with tomatoes, spinach, broccoli, and extra cheese (especially goat cheese) with crushed red pepper flakes. Also, Peanut Butter Cap'n Crunch, except that the volume of it that I tend to eat scratches the roof of my mouth for days. Oh Cap'n, why must you insult me on top of my injury?
  
• Breakup clothes: A constant struggle between pride (what if I and the desire to wallow, which is the true beauty of dresses. In theory, I would don this one item of clothing and be instantly dressed, and instantly looking good (just in case). In reality, I'd likely be wearing silver lame leggings (effort to look edgy and cool), a blue full-length fleece robe circa 1997 (effort to look edgy and cool thwarted), and bunny slippers from the same era.
  
• Breakup journal: Last time I got my heart really trashed, I immediately had to hop on a plane with nothing to read other than the in-flight magazine. After I wrote "Lying Cheating Sack of Shit" on every last page of my journal in every font of handwriting imaginable, I filled in the sudoku and crossword with the same epithet, then moved on to creating an extremely graphic and not terribly nice flip book wherein the main character dies from being forced to eat shards of glass concealed in a delicious meal. I left it on the plane. To the person who got that magazine after me? Sorry 'bout that. And probably don't cook that recipe I left behind.
  
• Breakup books: Useful for throwing at heartwrecker. While his or her favorite titles will sting the most (not to mention a great opportunity to tell him why he's a pretentious git for liking Henry Miller), I'd still go for heft. This is the only reason I can think of to explain why people like David Foster Wallace's books so much.
  

1:46 p.m. Consolation: at least he wasn't looking at other women. Unlike Colin. Oh, quit gasping, wrong Colin.

11:37 a.m. The Object is also close with breaking-up-friend, and is willing to pitch in for the betterment of society. Specifically, he's willing to provide sugar and alcohol! Mike's hard lemonades! (Disclaimer: leftover from visit by his maternal unit; we would never confess to actually keeping this in the house for ourselves. Cuz we don't . No seriously, the Arbor Mist might be for us, but the Mike's are a fluke.) The combination sure to cure even the most deep-struck grief, for at least 15 minutes to no more than an hour...It kind of replicates the being-with-boy experience in that you feel GREAT for about fifteen minutes, but you really hate yourself and how you feel in the morning.

In unrelated news, I just ate what probably amounts to a third of a bag of candy crack corn. I feel ill and I'm pretty sure my teeth are going to rot out in protest. But I still kinda want more. And there's the upside to living in a consumer culture: there's always more where that came from.

10:29 a.m.: The Goo list of top 3 Breakup Movies:

• Brazil. Well, this is just cuz it's one of my favorite movies. But it's hard to be depressed about your own life when you know you don't have to worry about a dystopian nightmare wherein improperly filling out a 27b/6. Although, those public service announcements I've seen lately telling me not to be worried when cable t.v. makes the switch to being fully digitized creep me the fuck out. I wasn't worried about the switch before the commercials, but with whatwith the people telling me in ostensibly soothing voices not to be alarmed, I get a little alarmed. You're not paranoid if they really are out to get you.
  
• Sean of the Dead. "Shaun of the Dead [is] perhaps the only movie in which all the sad compromises of maturity are symbolized by the pressing need to lop off your undead neighbors' rotting head[s] with a cricket bat." If love can overcome zombies, you'll do just fine. Also a helpful film for anyone who gets stains frequently. "Hey mate. You got red on you."
  
• Sliding Doors. Yep. It's my girly downfall. If John Hannah and his brogue do not cure all ailments of the heart, then leave it to the rowing and Jeanne Tripplehorn's immortal line: "Jerry... I'm a woman. We don't say what we want, but we reserve the right to be pissed off if we don't get it. That's what makes us so fascinating- and not a little bit scary." Just don't ask yourself how Jerry managed to woo either woman; it's best not to think about it too much.
  

9:49 a.m. Wait, you're asking- The Annihilators sounds a lot like Mr. T's movie, D.C. Cab. Well, not really, but it's funny to think about Mr. T's movie, DC Cab, especially considering there really aren't DC Cab companies per se, but a whole bunch of independent contractors trying to srew you out of$4 when you're late to work. Other funny highlights? "The R-rated comedy was controversial upon release due to Mr. T's appeal among children, which resulted in the film being mis-marketed in many regions." Wikipedia also thinks it's not a little funny that Mr. T contracted T-cell lymphoma. Ha! Cancer! Funny!

Mr. T is also not afraid to get oddly meta: "Mr. T had licensed his image to a food company for a breakfast cereal. During the commercials for his eponymous cereal, Mr. T would use his catchphrase of "I pity the fool who don't eat my cereal!" Mr. T's cereal was famously featured in a scene of the movie Pee-Wee's Big Adventure, in which Pee Wee eats two mouthfuls of Mr. T cereal on his Pancake, while doing an impersonation of Mr. T himself."

9:19 a.m.: Consolation- you'll never have to go see a film at the Washington Psychotronic Film Society. That may be less consolation to you once you realize that this Tuesday, you'll be missing:

The Annihilators
(1985) Directed by Charles E. Sellier, Jr.
Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs (TV's Boom-Boom Washington of "Welcome Back Kotter") stars in this take-back-the-streets revenge flick about some Vietnam Vets who band together to save a fellow vet's neighborhood from some punk-ass thugs. This action-packed adventure is what you would have gotten if you crossed the 'A-Team' with 'The Golden Girls.'

(Tip o' the Goo to Lionel)

The Goo Report: I Haz Hard Week. Hallmrk Mmts Plz.

Sigh.

Shortened week. Long week.

Good week. Hard week.

Nothing left except a list of the things that make me happy:

• Al Gore. FUCK YEAH. No, seriously, FUCK YEAH.
  
• And you will know us by the trail of our lemon squares: UNITARIAN JIHAD! "There is only God, unless there is more than one God. The vote of our God subcommittee is 10-8 in favor of one God, with two abstentions. Brother Flaming Sword of Moderation noted the possibility of there being no God at all, and his objection was noted with love by the secretary."
• Hemoglobin levels. Maybe science is like Spanish, and if you hang around it long enough, you just pick it up. I got a call from one of the people I'm partnering with to start programs for hematology teaching and training in developing countries. She said she got an email from a doctor at the institution there, and that he made an apparent joke about hemoglobin levels being normal at 3. I got the joke.
  
• To think that this entire time, I've been flushing the toilet all by me lonesome self. Chump!
  
• As long as we're talking about feeling like a chump because of a deficit of robot assistance, bah! I just got a lousy wobble board from my physical therapist.
• "Cats love cat trees. Cat trees are ghastly. So it is a simple but profound — maybe even existential — dilemma that has dogged kitty lovers for ages: Happy pet or stylish pad?" I hate walking into a house and immediately knowing pets /children and rule the roost. The smell, the special furniture (actually, I'm ok with kids' toys, so long as I can play with them) ugh. Finally, some design options. If only someone could tell me how to get kitty to stop barfing, start playing with toys, not mope, and not scratch the Object's rug, we'd be good to go.
  
• In futbol:Celtic makes sweet goal cuz Milan goalie fucks up. Hilarity ensues when crazy Celtic fan runs onto field. Milan goalie Dida has painfully delayed reaction, must be taken off the field in a litter. Celtic gets fined $25,000 (teams are responsible for their fans, which makes sense- fans won't want to do anything to hurt the team), Dida gets two game suspension for being a whining, diving brat. Justice served.
  

A Yuppie Dilemma

I emailed this question to the waiter over at waiterrant.com, but I'm curious to hear your opinions, oh Gooey readers. What would you have done in this situation? And "eat meat" is not an appropriate answer. Although it is a funny one, cuz vegetarians are great at being smarmy douchebags.

Dear Waiter,

Last Sunday, my boyfriend and I dropped into an upscale(ish), non-chain bar and grill for some post-hangover brunch. The appetizers were tasty, and the service was mediocre (I waited five minutes at the bar to ask the non-busy server for utensils before getting them myself) but friendly.

When our entrees came, my boyfriend's pizza was so greasy it was inedible. This guy is not a terribly picky eater; I've seen him eat moldy sandwich bread because he didn't want it to go to waste, but for the first time ever and with a green look on his face, he sent the food back (and apologized profusely). Of course, we're the asshole vegetarians in the bar and grill in Baltimore, so there wasn't anything else on the menu that would have worked for us- and my boyfriend had completely lost his appetite.

The waiter was a nice guy about it, but when he brought back our check, he apologized and said that he didn't know how to comp the meal on his computer, and that he couldn't get a hold of the manager, so we were out of luck on the $9.

So here's the question. Should we have made that $9 his tip (which would have been more that 25%), or paid the full price and tipped on top of that? We were both waiters once upon a time and feel strongly about tipping generously, but should this guy have taken more responsibility for not knowing how to do his job?

Nine bucks is a lot of chump change.

Thanks!

Liveblogging Insomnia

Family lore recounts some of my earliest nights awake in my crib, putting the finishing touches on my own rendition of the ABC song, "Now I know my ABCs; can't you see I'm not sleepy?" For as long as I can remember, I've spent nights simply awake, awake, awake, my mind nattering away with the minutiae of inner monologue amplified. Apparently, tonight will not be the landmark night to dismiss 27 years of precedent.

11:00 p.m. After a long day at work and a cozy evening with my girlfriend, curled into bed relatively early in hopes of rejuvenating night's sleep for another busy workday tomorrow.

11:11 p.m. Hip and back are throbbing faster than my pulse; have nothing in the house stronger than Advil and long since surpassed the safe dosage. Engage in deep breathing and think about serene pastoral visions.

11:41 p.m. Object comes to bed. Deflects my advances for latenight idle chitchat ("soooooooo, what do your parents think about the rate of childhood morbidity in Sub-Saharan Africa?") and falls promptly asleep. Smiling. Bastard.

12:13 a.m. Fuck deep breathing.

12:17 a.m. Fuck peaceful pastoral scene. Have counting sheep kill Bessie instead.

12:23 a.m. Vow to demand payment in codeine as part of direct-deposit plan at work.

12:29 a.m. In what may be a record for Columbia Road, have gone 14 minutes without hearing a single siren.

12:36 a.m. Wonder what my first boyfriend is doing at this very moment? Did he ever become an architect? How many 15 year-old boys want to become architects? Has anyone ever done a study on that? What would go into conducting such a study? Vow to think about this in the morning, shift bed position for maximum sleeping benefit.

12:37 a.m. Blink open eyes. Still waiting for maximum sleeping benefit.

12:38 a.m. Blink, blink.

12:39 a.m. Blink. Shift again, in case was wrong about prior optimal sleeping position.

12:41 a.m. Blink.

12:46 a.m. If I had gotten the alarm clock with the green numbers that the Object insisted seemed "friendlier," would I be sleeping right now?

12:49 p.m. Goddamit, officially awake for the night. Too late to take a sleeping pill. Trapped! Is this how the one-armed hiker felt when he got trapped in that canyon? Or when Tom Brokaw interviewed him?

12:56 a.m. Drunk peoples of Adams Morgan, where are you to entertain me? You keep me up every other night, where the hell are you now that I need someone to entertain me? Did a Bush twin flash her boobs over at Georgetown or something?

1:04 a.m. Wonder if I can be the one-armed hiker again for Halloween? That was a great costume.

1:11 a.m. Poke kitty with tow in an effort to convince him he can't sleep either.

1:12 a.m. Swat kitty for biting my toe and returning unsympathetically to sleep.

1:14 a.m. Fake coughing fit in an effort to convince the Object he can't sleep either.

1:15 a.m. Wonder what the hell the point of moving in with someone is if you can't get a little conscious company in the middle of the night. I could have just gotten another cat.

1:16 a.m. Vow to get kitten an show them all.

1:17 a.m. Vow to get puppy instead.

1:26 a.m. Give up on bed, wander into living room. Newsweek beckons.

1:48 a.m. What I have learned so far: most powerful women in history are Cleopatra, Elizabeth I, Catherine the Great, and Rachel Ray.

1:53 a.m. Am wondering if Peter Gabriel actually meant for Washing of the Waters to speak literally about pain: "River, oh river, river running deep/Bring me something that will help me get to sleep. In the washing of the waters, will you take it all away?/ Bring me something to take this pain away" Seems like he knows chronic pain.

1:59 a.m. Finally give up on Newsweek when I read a review excoriating a new t.v. show about a Pakistani exchange student for being insensitive. According to said article, one can grow out of the stigma of being a geek, but you can never live down growing up Pakistani.

2:01 a.m. Maybe my books need to be reclassified?

2:04 a.m. Halfway through the b's of the environmental philosophy section (third bookshelf, second shelf from the top) realize already re-re-reclassified the books last time I couldn't sleep.

2:08 a.m. Kitty wanders into the room stretches magnificently, and falls promptly back asleep. Show off.

2:13 a.m. Wonder if my eyebrows are properly tweezed?

2:14 a.m. Yes. They are.

2:15 a.m. No new eyebrow growth.

2:16 a.m. Wonder if I could tweeze my armpit hair?

2:17 a.m. No. I cannot. Cease and desist all tweezing activity. Wipe tear from eye.

2:19 a.m. Wander into kitchen. Ponder mysteries of the foodiverse. How in the hell have we come to be in possession of what appears to be 36 and one half Boca Burgers, plus one fake chik'n patty? Why does muesli always taste stale, even from a freshly opened bag? Is this why the Swiss are so stodgy? How many dry pinto beans can I balance on my nose?

2:29 a.m. Only 31 more minutes until four hours have passed since last Kirkland brand non-candy coated ibuprofen dosing.

2:30 a.m. Throwing caution to the wind, I see how many Kirkland brand non-candy coated ibuprofenI can toss in the air and catch in my mouth.

2:31 a.m. Celebrate new all-time record of 7. Wonder if am eligible for the Guinness book of world records? Vow to reward myself by buying actual Advil brand with candy coating next time.
2:33 a.m. Maybe I will start writing the great American novel. Right... now.

2:37 a.m. Riiiiiiight now.

2:43 a.m. Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight now.

2:44 a.m. Eh, it'd probably be lost on the philistines anyways.

2:53 a.m. Wonder if anyone would get mad if I got out the blender and made a batch of homemade pesto right now?

2:55: Which would be a worse death: fatal familial insomnia, or being slowly nibbled to death by carnivorous minnows?

2:57 a.m. Reaffirm life choice never to have children or pet fish. Just in case.

3:01 a.m. Vow to give sleep the old college try.

3:03 a.m. First, look up origins of phrase "the old college try".

3:09 a.m. The Bears beat the Packers. Heh, Bret Fav-ray, that'll teach you to mess around with Mike Ditka.

3:10 a.m. Why do I care about the Bears beating the Packers? I don't even know what a touchdown is.

3:12 a.m. Worry that I have brought bad karma onto the city of Chicago. Worry about future of the Windy City.

3:14 a.m. Have successfully convinced myself that in 2008 the Cubs will lose, Barack Obama will be assasinated in the same spot that Bobby Kennedy was shot, and Oprah will keel over in 2008 LaSalle National Bank Marathon.

3:19 a.m. Try not to think about huge knot of throbbing muscle pain in right hip.

3:21 a.m. Insult to injury: still thinking about huge throbbing knot in hip, but inexplicably, the "meow mix" jingle is running through head.

3:28 a.m. Try to massage knot in hip into relaxing. Object wakes up and wonders what my hand is doing down my pajama pants. Sure, now he's awake.

3:29 a.m. Not anymore.

3:30 a.m. Mosey back into living room to test theory that there is always an episode of Law & Order on.

3:36 a.m. Realize that Mariska Hargitay has been a constant fixture of my life for longer than any friendship I now maintain, unless you count reading Renee Kenny's blog as maintaining friendship.

3:39 a.m. Bask slackjawed in the flickering glow of the t.v. Only three more hours until time to hit the snooze button the first time and take another handful of Kirkland brand non-candy coated ibuprofen.

4:01 a.m. Climb into bed, vowing sleep.

4:04 a.m. The Object stirs. "I love you sooooo much!" he mumbles drowsily, throwing an arm over me, trapping me. "I wish your love made me sleepier," I counter.

4:05 a.m. Take advantage of my golden opportunity for late night company, "Let's put the bed on the ground. Maybe then it won't sag!" "OK."

4:06 a.m. The Object snuffles. "Wait, where would we put the stuff under the bed?"

4:07 a.m. "In the radiator box."

4:08 a.m. Object jerks in a myoclonic fashion. I'm losing him. I panic. "What do you think of global warming?"

4:09 a.m. Snore.

4:10 a.m. "Are you excited for the dolphins ruling the globe?"

4:11 a.m. "Trains? Rapid transit? Trains of great speed?" I'm reaching.

4:12 a.m. Snore. Alone again. Not sleepy.

You're A Yogi; Can't You Be Flexible?

" [Jeffrey] Abramson wants to build a 12-story monument dedicated to peace and freedom -- a "Tower of Invincibility," as he calls it -- smack in the middle of Washington.

In Lafayette Square, perhaps, across the street from the country's reigning symbol of supposed invincibility, the White House. Another ideal location, Abramson said at a news conference yesterday, would be the Mall, home to memorials for World War II veterans and Abraham Lincoln. Of course, the Mall is already home to another tower, a little something known as the Washington Monument.

But Abramson is not unreasonable. If those sites are unavailable, he said, he's more than willing to look elsewhere, and he's eager for Americans to send him suggestions for a location."

I have two questions for Abramson:

1. "The list of projects that the Tower Cos., his family's real estate firm, have built include White Flint Mall..." Why not build the tower of transcendentalism at the White Flint Mall? Because that would be very, very American. Even better yet, tear down the White Flint Mall and then build the tower.
   
2. Why does peace have to be such an eyesore?
   

Mathematical Proof of Mathematical Bogus

Google is acting quite feisty.

First, it started acting up after I got an email from my friend and yours, Howard Dean, M.D. I forwarded it on to the Object, and the following conversation ensued:

The Goo: Why only use the MD to tug on heartstrings? I mean, yeah, wooooooot, healthcare, I'm a doctor; I know what I'm saying, smickety smackety, blah blah blah, but c'mon, seriously?
The Object: It's obnoxious. For a while he wanted to be called Chairman Governor Dean, M.D. More like Chairman Governor Dickwad, M.D.
The Goo: How about Professor Doctor Chairman Governor Dickwad, M.D., AssHOle?

Then I noticed my little Google spying Big Brother sidebar had changed its ads dramatically from the norm it gives me- in three little Deanbashing emails (one gmail conversation), I went from "Fruit and Veggie Recipes", "Official Kashi Site", and "Rock Climbing Joshua Tree" advertisements to links wondering if I wanted a bumper sticker that says NObama, to visit OurKarlRove.com, and to start reading Ann Coulter. Lesson learned: if you don't like Howard Dean, you're whiling away your hours fantasizing about a threesome with Karl Rove and Larry Craig.

It got weirder when I started looking for more information on medical symptoms. I started to type in "numbness in legs". I got as far as the B in numb when a suggested search term appeared:

number of horns on a unicorn acre = 7.7675003 × 10²⁴ US teaspoons per light year

Apparently, it's a measurement. Of unicorns. And teaspoons of light. So next time someone tells me math is legit, I will ask if we can now measure volume in terms of fairy dust and leprechaun tears.

You're Horrible

At my office, we don't have cubicles. We have "workstations". So I don't know what cubicle life is really like. But I like to imagine it's a little something like this:

James Blunt mockery:always appropriate. True story: for some reason, I woke up feeling vaguely nauseated this morning. Little did I know that this was a pre-huzz, my subconscious steeling itself for the forthcoming knowledge that James Blunt is waltzing around the country covering Peter, Bjorn, and John. On my walk to work, I saw not one, not two, but three steaming piles of human excrement, a dead and rotting crow long since plastered to the pavement, and the maggot-ridden carcass of a huge rat, and none of them skeeved me out as much as the thought of James Blunt live.

That's A Fact, Jack!

I'm a little nervous.

Today is the first meeting of the full subcommittee. This is the subcommittee that oversees the project I am managing. This is my time to be a responsible, productive, adult member of a functioning society working to make the world a better place.

I don't want to fuck it up.

Every so often in these positions, I feel like the fourth grader who can't figure out fractions or the college freshman trying to sound like she already knows music theory, trying to prove she fits in at music school despite only having taken lessons for two years- incompetence trying to pass myself off as legit. Don't we all get this way sometimes? Terrified that someone is gong to figure out our secret- that we actually have no idea what the fuck we're doing, and we're hoodwinking people into believing we do?

Guh, it's a jittery feeling. But who would I be to leave you hanging out to dry with this cold, soggy, awful thought? You know what I turn to in these times of inner angst?

Saturday morning cartoons.

Seriously, if you can remember all the words (including the interjections, e.g. "He's a radical rat!") to the Teenage Mutant Ninjas theme song, how can you go wrong?

Sing along with me, my gooey friends, and let us reclaim our competence.


N.B. I know there is a version with more verses, I couldn't find it on YouTube.

Squidendum

From a comment in the previous post:

"I disagree. I think the crafty bastards theme was twofold. Cartoon little girls (and a mermaid) projectile vomiting AND squid."

Ahhh, you're absolutely right- squid are the new pirates are the new ninjas, and little cartoon girls vomiting are the new squid are the new pirates are the new ninjas. But ALL of them were felted. And, as 3Pennyjane mentioned at the fair, who knew there were that many Williamsburg dropouts in DC? It was a thought you tool a giant hipster sieve and shook it really hard, so that all that was left was the kind of people very excited about a "What Would Tom Waits Do?" t-shirt (this includes both the Object and the Object's father). I, on the other hand, was excited about a myriad of other things:

• Taxidermied unicorns- FINALLY.
  
• Squid.
  
• Who doesn't appreciate marshmallow comeuppance?
• Squid.
• Felting.
  
• I would have played with dollies as a little girl had damned dollies been available at my disposal. Please note continuance of cartoon-girls-vomiting theme.
  
• In a refreshing departure, octopi.
  
• This astonishingly non-kitschy, and yet somehow still lovely (I know, you're asking "how is that possible?!?!") jewelry will likely show up in someone's life come Christmastime.
  
• Bonus points: exploding and/or possibly vomiting octopus.
  
• I am shocked that the Object had the willpower not to buy a St. Bob Ross print. I have a feeling that come Christmastime, this will show back up in my life, like a bowling ball with his (the Object's, not Bob Ross'- well actually, both) name on it.
• In a sad move for necessity, she was forced to give birth to a "Your level 42 warrior is ruining our marriage" t-shirt.
  

I always feel guilty at these things because I have successfully quashed almost all of my "crafty" tendencies. I grew up in an exceedingly pro-crafting household (my mother quite literally knits for a living), and 99 days out of 100, I can't be bothered to do the work myself. I just show up, buy some stuff, and every three years or so bust out some crafty marvel that people ohh and ahh over so that I can assuage my guilt ridden and crafty free conscience. But who can draw the limit on the overload the charming anti-crafty kitsch? It worries me greatly, I'm afraid that in just a few years, we'll be looking at the backlash and will again be surrounded by precious, non-vomiting Holly Hobbies that are nowhere near squids.

Clerical Error

I could have told you back in first grade that being smart was no more than an excuse to be lazy. It's around the time I stopped doing my homework, having decided to rest on the laurels of the i.q. test that declared me a sort of wunderkind. (The test said I was brilliant, but the test administrators said that I was just really, really good at faking being smart. Guess who was right?)

But I also could have told you what nipped it in the bud- a smack on the hands from a stern nun. So there you go, the problem of modern education: not enough child abuse on the part of the clergy.

By the way, fun project for when you're bored at work: take all the online i.q. tests out there and marvel at how much your scores vary from one to another. Realize that your i.q. means jack shit and that if you want to get ahead in life, you should stop dicking around with internet quizzes and actually do some work. Or you could just spend your morning doing what I'm doing, namely, trawling the internets to discover if felting is the new grey, which is what yesterday's Crafty Bastards fair would have us believe.