WTF? LOL.

1. By all means, wear the tie. If you don’t wear the tie, you might look silly.

 
 
 
2. I have this apple. Now what do I do?
 
 
 
3. Wouldn’t it be easier just to stab him?

(I linked to this once before in the comments, but then I couldn’t stop thinking about it. If only there were a term for such things.)
 
 
 
4. There used to be a local hamburger franchise here called Dag’s. Its logo was a bull wearing a striped t-shirt and carrying a tray full of food. I was trying to find the logo recently, so I did a Google image search for “Dag’s Hamburgers.” Why, Google image search, why?
 
 
 
5. At long last, the vast potential of the internet has been fulfilled.

Confounding to the Last

I don’t have much to say about the passing of Michael Jackson, but I wanted to make some note of it. I grew up with his music, and even after it became apparent that his mind was doing terrible things to him, no one could deny his enormous talent. Scandal and strangeness aside, he’s always been a presence.

 
Rest in peace, Michael.

For I Am Costanza, Lord of the Idiots

Today’s lament is that of the world’s best kitty cat, who would be mine. If you have a cat, you might think yours is the world’s best, and I would agree with you if you were correct, but sadly for you, you are not. This is a story she might tell you, if she could type. Or drive. Okay, she would never tell you this story. She would leave the room as soon as she became aware of your presence. In any case, the world’s best kitty cat, who I’ll just call Cat because you don’t need to know her real name, is fifteen years old, which is roughly equivalent to 75 human years. For the first 13 years of her life, she had an excellent veterinarian, whom she hated with a deep abiding passion. I will call him Dr. Young. That’s not his name, but it rhymes with his name. (His name is not “dung.”) (Or “bung.”) (Or “hung.”) (Actually, just forget about the rhyming business; it’s distracting.) Although Cat hated him, I was very fond of him because every time he saw her for her annual exam, he was gentle with her but thorough, he kept her in excellent health, he didn’t try to upsell us on products or procedures or tests, and on the two occasions when she needed to see him for illness, he and his staff took the time to talk with me on the phone before and after the visit, following up on how she was doing. You would think this is standard in veterinary care — and it should be; unfortunately, it isn’t.

(After reading over the first few paragraphs of this post again, I feel I should say that Cat does not die at the end of this story. It kind of sounds like that’s where I’m going with this, but she’s fine. At this very moment, she’s in the kitchen eating turkey.)

For the last few years, the area around Dr. Young’s office has been undergoing a lot of commercial development. Although he presumably could have sold the building that housed his practice at a hefty profit, he didn’t. He continued to see his patients in the same spot he always had, as newer, taller buildings crowded in around him. Two years ago, he retired, and instead of doing the expected thing and selling the building separately and then the practice itself to a younger vet just starting out, he sold everything to someone he’d gone to vet school with. In the 1960s. Hrm. My immediate thought was, “if this dude went to vet school 40 years ago, shouldn’t he have a job already?” I don’t know what Dr. Young’s reasoning was; perhaps he wanted to help out an old friend or maybe he just wanted the practice to continue on as it had, but in any case surely he would not have entrusted his patients to someone who was No Good. After all, the couple of times when Cat had seen someone filling in for Dr. Young over vacation, they were also wonderful; thus, when it was time for Cat’s annual exam in 2007, I took her to see Dr. Young’s successor, who I will call Dr. Old. No reason. I wasn’t thrilled with Dr. Old’s exam. There were little things that seemed off to me, but the main thing was that he didn’t show Cat any affection. I don’t expect vets to gush over their patients, but he seemed completely indifferent. I mean, Cat hates all strangers and especially all vets on general principle so it made no difference to her, but if someone who has presumably centered his life around animal welfare can’t even muster up a single head skritch for the world’s best kitty cat? That is not right.

Still, I wasn’t sure what to make of it. I am aware that I always expect more out of people than … I was going to say I expect more than I should, but that’s not true. I expect exactly as much out of people as is appropriate AND IT’S NOT MY FAULT IF PEOPLE ARE ALWAYS SO DAMNED DISAPPOINTING.

But I am getting ahead of myself. I tried to rationalize the ooky feeling I was getting from Dr. Old by telling myself that (a) no one was going to seem as good as Dr. Young, and (b) Dr. Young is the one responsible for Dr. Old being there in the first place, so Dr. Old must be a good vet. If I had also told myself that (c) no good ever comes of giving someone the benefit of the doubt, then further unpleasantness could have been avoided.

I took her in to see Dr. Old again for her 2008 exam. There were no other animals in the waiting room. There were no sounds of animals coming from the examining rooms. There was one assistant at the desk instead of the normal two or three. During Cat’s exam, I had to prompt Dr. Old to look at certain things. “How are her ears?” I would ask, or “Do her teeth look okay?” Dr. Young always used to palpate her abdomen looking for growths, but I didn’t know how to ask about that. “How are her internal organs? Tumor-free today?” The thing about her teeth was that although she has had them cleaned every three years, the last time I saw Dr. Young, when she was 12 years old, he said she was getting a little too old to undergo the necessary anesthesia, so he recommended against doing it again unless she developed gum disease. But Dr. Old, noting a bit of tartar, leapt upon the idea. “She should have a cleaning! Right away! Let’s schedule it! Receptionist! Bring the book!” I asked him about potential complications from the anesthesia, which he brushed off with a “well, I haven’t lost one yet, knock on wood.” At that point, I just wanted to wrestle Cat back into her carrier and get her home as quickly as possible so she could begin the 36-hour post-veterinary period of being Put Out With Me For Taking Her To The Barking Dog Place When I Know She Does Not Care For That. The path of least resistance was to make the appointment and cancel it later, which is exactly what I did.

For a month after her checkup, Cat spent several hours every morning hiding under the bed. Normally after a vet visit, she’ll hide for a day or two until she’s sure I’m not going to be taking her anywhere, but never has it gone on for a month. I have to assume that when they took her in the other room for a blood draw, they hurt her in some way, and whether it was on purpose or due to general ineptitude makes little difference to me. She would not be going back there again. Later, I was talking to a neighbor who told me she used to take her dog to the same clinic. Like me, she loved Dr. Young and had a bad yet non-specific feeling after one visit with Dr. Old, and thus took her dog to a new place, which she liked a lot and where I plan to take Cat for her next checkup in August.

Then a couple of weeks ago, I got a call from a vet clinic I was unfamiliar with. The receptionist told me that Dr. Old had closed his practice and had sent all of the patient files to their office. Well, this is certainly a professional way of informing me of the fact. She furthermore wanted me to know that Cat’s first checkup with them would be free. Uh huh. As you all know, I am frugal to a purse-clutching fault, but there are certain things I do not skimp on and one of them is how much I will pay to a person who might stick a thermometer up my cat’s butt. That is not a time to bargain-hunt.

I know that when I take Cat to the new vet that my neighbor recommended, they can get her file from the Discount Vet, but I started to worry about what would happen in the meantime if there were an emergency, so yesterday I went to Discount Vet’s office to get the file. It was seriously a disturbing experience. In the first place, it was in one of the most rundown parts of town, surrounded by tire stores, payday loan outlets, and boarded-up buildings. Second, when I got out of my car outside the clinic, it smelled like unwashed dog. And that was just outside; inside, the smell was so bad I could barely breathe. It was dark and everything looked old and grimy. I could hear a cat in the examining room not just yowling, but also hissing. Someone who works there had brought a little girl in and parked her next to the reception desk so she could stare at all the clients like some creepy child of the corn. I asked the receptionist for the file, she said, “no problem!” and got up to get it. I could see her in the hallway talking to one of the vets (I assume), and they kept turning and peering at me in an unsettling way, as if attempting to determine if I would fit in the trunk of a car. She brought back the file, took the contents out and started to copy it on a desktop copier. I asked if I couldn’t just have the file since my cat had never been seen there, and she said they were “required by law” to keep it and could only turn it over to another vet. That sounded like it might be true, and I had no information to refute it, so I didn’t argue the point. I watched her making the copies on the cluttered little section of desk. She kept setting the originals and the copies down on other piles of paper and I couldn’t be sure that she wasn’t getting it mixed up with other files. Finally, she handed me a random stack of paper and asked if I wanted it stapled. I said no, but would she mind if I put the original file back together just be sure I had everything? Again, “no problem!” and she handed everything over.

I took a seat in the waiting area and found that she had mixed up the copies and the originals and had also given me warranty information for a coffee maker. I spent about twenty minutes making an honest attempt to make sense of the mess she had made but having little success, then there was a sudden glut of people and the most pathetic parade of animals you would ever want to see coming in. Sad-faced pit bulls, scrawny cats, and then a tiny puppy wrapped in a blanket, eyes not open yet, obviously taken from its mother far too soon. Between the complete clusterfuck she had made of my cat’s medical records, the fetid smell, and the pitiful dogs and cats, I kind of lost it. As soon as the receptionist got up and went to the back, I did something completely ridiculous. I made a break for it.

I threw all the papers into the file folder, pushed my way between Mullet Woman and Gold Tooth Man and made my way briskly out the door, fishing around in my purse for my car keys at the same time. Had I not been alone, I would have been just like that women in the IKEA commercial, run-walking to the parking lot, screaming, “START THE CAR! START THE CAR!” In my case, there was no screaming, although there was one second of contemplation regarding how I had NO TIME to put on my seatbelt, followed by squealing tires on pavement.

About three blocks later, I said to myself, “um … Nitwit? Are you done being, you know, so stupid?”

I turned the car around, reparked outside the clinic, walked back in to find everyone staring at me, said to the receptionist, “yes, I am going to need to borrow your two-hole punch, if you don’t mind.” She gave me the two-hole punch and some tape, I retook my seat, and spent the next hour sorting out the mess she had made of 15 years of medical records. As it turns out, a few of the pages were still sitting on the copier, so it’s probably a good thing I went back, and not just because my name and address were on those pages.

Before leaving, I asked her if she knew why Dr. Old had closed his practice, and she told me it had gone bankrupt. She said she had heard he was now breeding animals for sale, and I could tell she thought that was as bad an idea as I thought it was. She quietly said that if I needed anything else just to call and she would be happy to assist. She seemed like a nice woman. I feel bad about almost robbing her. Driving home, I could only think about Dr. Young and all of his great assistants and techs who had been so kind to me and Cat and, many years before, to my parents and their cat, who I’ll also call Cat because you don’t need to know. It makes me sad and a little angry that they did a lot of good work for 40 years, building up trust and goodwill with their clients, and in less than two years, it all got shot to hell. On the way home, I went past the building where the practice used to be. A For Sale sign is nailed up over the door.

I Will Assume the Gifts Are in the Mail

I just realized that today is the one-year anniversary of the day I first posted on this blog. Okay, that’s not true. There were a couple of earlier posts that I deleted for reasons I can no longer recall. But then I started over, so officially, this is the one-year anniversary. If I had noticed my anniversary date was coming up, I would have planned to have a contest. I would not have held the contest because I would be afraid that no one would enter and then I would feel sad and alienated, but I would have planned it for sure.

In lieu of a well-thought out, interactive, and potentially-lucrative-for-you post, instead, I present: a meme. Try to contain your excitement. I saw this first at Monkey’s, then at Marius’s, and then Stefanie did half of it before succumbing to the salad dressing.

I will begin doing the meme in a moment.

Wait.

OKAY NOW.

What is your current obsession?

Locating my khaki shorts. They’re not in the closet next to my other shorts. They’re not in a drawer. They’re not in the pile of clothing in the spare bedroom. They’re not under the basement stairs where I sometimes drop things on their way to and from the washing machine only to find them months later, covered with dust. They are not in places where they couldn’t possibly be, like in a file cabinet, and I know this because I’ve looked. My shorts are missing. I miss my shorts.

What is your weirdest obsession?

Weirder than the thing about the shorts?

What are you wearing today?

Well, I can tell you one thing I’m not wearing today.

What’s for dinner?

For tonight, I don’t know yet. But last night, two slices of pizza and some cabbage. Yesterday was a strange day all the way around.

What would you eat for your last meal?

I’m thinking it would probably be something like applesauce or chocolate pudding or whatever they give you in the hospital when you’re on your deathbed. Incidentally, if I am ever in the hospital on my deathbed and you are sitting next to me, holding my hand, and saying things like, “is that the only copy of your will?” then please tell the nurse not to bring me Jello for my last meal. Jello is upsetting to me.

What’s the last thing you bought?

Milk. It’s this kind of information that makes the internet worthwhile, isn’t it?

What are you listening to right now?

Um. A Vagisil commercial. Wait. Okay, it’s over now. Whew. Awkward.

What do you think of the person who tagged you?

No one tagged me, but as to the three people I mentioned, I think Marius is a very decent guy, and the world would benefit from having more people like him in it. Also, now that I’m thinking about it, in addition to his blog, I want to direct you all over to Starbase 66, a podcast that he does with a couple of friends of his regarding all things Star Trek and science fiction. Well, okay, not all of you, just those of you who are interested in Star Trek and science fiction. Personally, I am not so interested in science fiction, although I did see E.T. in 1982. Thus, I don’t regularly listen to Starbase 66, but I have listened in to a couple of episodes, and the three of them have a nice style, they’re funny and conversational, and I’m sure I would really enjoy it, if they were talking about something I was familiar with, like phoning home, or Elliot, or … phoning home. (Hey, E.T. was 27 years ago; I can’t remember everything forever.)

Monkey and Stefanie are also two very decent guys, even though they are technically girls. Monkey’s was one of the first blogs I read and nearly three years later, I remain a fan of her cranky, smart girl charm. Although I would be upset if an injury were to befall her, the days when she tells a story involving tripping over something or her pants falling down are very good days indeed. I’ve been reading Stefanie’s blog for almost as long and stand in admiration of the fact that even though she’s been blogging for something like four years, she still comes up with interesting things to write about. If I am still blogging in four years, my posts will consist entirely of YouTube videos of cats flushing the toilet. If Stefanie offers you grammar advice, take it. (But if she invites you to Thanksgiving dinner, bring your own turkey.) You know, both Monkey and Stefanie, each in her own way are somewhat responsible for me even having a blog, since without them, I wouldn’t have had any readers early on and would have quit. Thus, all irate emails should be directed to them.

If you could have a house totally paid for, fully furnished anywhere in the world, where would you like it to be?

Kailua, on the windward side of Oahu. I would also accept it unfurnished. (In case that’s the deal-breaker.)

If you could go anywhere in the world for the next hour, where would you go?

Just for an hour? Yeah, I’m good right here then.

Which language do you want to learn?

American Sign Language, so I can eavesdrop on deaf people.

What is your favorite colour?

Greeun.

What is your favorite piece of clothing in your own wardrobe?

I used to have these really nice khaki shorts. I … I don’t want to talk about it.

What is your dream job?

This question threw me because I realized that I don’t know. I should know. I’m 45, so I don’t have that much time to figure out what my dream is and then be bitter about not achieving it. For some reason, I’m thinking about elephants now. I have a vague idea that my dream job would have something to do with wildlife conservation. Or being a barber.

What’s your favourite magazine?

I don’t have a favorite. The only magazine I regularly read is Newsweek, but if it were to go under, what the hell, I’d just read Time.

If you had £100 now, what would you spend it on?

That is $163.00, so I do have it now. I will probably just spend it on something frivolous, like food or insurance.

Describe your personal style.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. These questions are funny.

What are you going to do after this?

Something equally exciting, I’m sure.

What are your favourite films?

I feel like I talked about this recently, but I could be wrong. After a year, it all seems to run together. American Graffiti, A Scene at the Sea, Unforgiven, Rocky, the 1978 remake of Heaven Can Wait, The Shawshank Redemption, and because I just saw it and could see it two or three more times, Bolt.

What’s your favourite fruit?

NOBODY CARES. (But it’s papaya, in case you are nobody.)

What inspires you?

To rage? Cruelty to the weak. To greatness? N/A.

Do you collect anything?

Books and dust.

Your favourite animal?

My favorite individual animal is my own cat, but as to type of animal, I can’t pick one because I love them all. However, I love monkeys and apes slightly less because they’re so closely related to humans, who I mostly don’t like at all.

What are you currently reading?

Just today, I finished reading Red Meat Cures Cancer, a send-up of the fast food industry that has some funny moments, but mostly fails to hit the mark. It might have helped if there were at least one character who wasn’t either amoral or moronic. Stupid character names like Frank Fanoflincoln and Traylor Hitch don’t help matters either, although the author’s name is Starbuck O’Dwyer, so maybe he didn’t know any better. One of the customer reviews on Amazon notes that the book was originally vanity published before being picked up by Vintage, and that seems about right.

Go to your book shelf, take down the first book with a red spine you see, turn to page 26 and type out the first line:

“A few weeks later, Nelle wrote rapturously to a friend about the Browns’ offer: ‘The one stern string attached is that I will be subjected to a sort of 19th Century regimen of discipline: they don’t care whether anything I write makes a nickel.’”
                                    Mockingbird: A Portrait of Harper Lee, by Charles J. Shields

And who wouldn’t be rapturous? A 19th century disciplinary regimen? Why, that sounds swell! I guess I might as well read this book now seeing as how I already took it down from the shelf.

By what criteria do you judge a person?

I won’t if you won’t.

What skill would you like to acquire immediately?

Super quick digestion. I ate one too many Fig Newtons about ten minutes ago. Happy then, sad now.

I Don’t Talk Smack, I Talk Trash

I had to buy a new trash can the other day. The city provides trash cans to each home, but in our municipal leaders’ ongoing efforts to make garbage, recycling, and yard waste collection as onerous and expensive as possible, on March 30 of this year collection rates increased by 35%, and we changed over to a system so complicated that each household needs three separate bins, a six-page flyer with photographs of which items can go into which bins, instructions on how to prepare your items for collection (my personal favorite being that we should keep food scraps such as chicken bones and banana peels in the refrigerator until collection day), a color-coded calendar so that you know which day to put out which bins, and a warning that if you get any of the foregoing incorrect, your pickups will be suspended. The justification for the change was that our city officials are trying to reduce the amount of material going into our landfills and save our planet, but their newfound-and-not-at-all-superficial-or-politically-expedient concern for the environment is somewhat undercut by the fact that they they now have twice as many trucks on the roads making three times the collection runs that they used to make. The city is also now using new trucks, having trashed the old fleet. The average person might think this sounds a tad wasteful, but HEY, let’s not let common sense get in the way of being kind to Mother Nature and by “being kind to Mother Nature,” I of course mean, “increasing revenue.” In addition, all collection services have been contracted out to a different company than the one that had been working efficiently and competently for as long as I can remember. Instead, the city has gone with a cheaper company, the only appreciable difference between the former company and the new company being that the former company used to actually show up and take the trash away. With the new company, they might show up or they might not. It makes trash day suspenseful and exciting!

In any event, garbage rates went up, so I opted to get the smaller can at a non-proportionally-reduced rate that’s still more than what I was paying for the larger can before the rate increase. City Utility workers came and took away my perfectly functional round 32-gallon can with wheels on it, which I never filled up anyway, and replaced it with what was supposed to be a 20-gallon can but is about half the size of my next door neighbor’s 20-gallon can provided to them by the city last year. Presumably, my old can is now sitting somewhere in a landfill, discarded and despondent, yet not decomposing. The new can has no wheels, no handles, a lid that doesn’t fit, and it’s also a weird shape. It’s a rectangle but narrower at the bottom than at the top. Also, I think they laid it on its side and had Jumbo the Elephant sit on it for a week before delivering it to me because the top and bottom are diamond-shaped, which is why the rectangular top doesn’t fit. Geometrically, it’s a trapezoidal rhombus. Or a rhombic trapezoid. Mathematically interesting, but not all that great for conveying my fingernail clippings, used Kleenex, and clumps of cat litter to the alley. After I’ve deposited into it the seven half-filled bags of daily garbage that only fit if I arrange then rearrange them in a puzzle-like formation as though it’s a smelly version of Tetris, it’s nearly impossible to take the can to the alley because there’s nowhere to grab onto the damn thing. There is a small lip around the edge that I can jam my fingernails into, but as a borderline germophobe I can’t say I enjoy that, particularly considering that that’s the same area of the can that they use to hook it onto the garbage truck’s lift. Its awkward shape also requires that I hug the thing close to my body as I’m carrying it. Why, this isn’t a hideous bacteria-laden nightmare at all!

After putting up with it for a month, I called the city and asked if I could please have the 20-gallon can that they used to give out because it is both larger and has less potential for infectious disease transmission. I had a rather lengthy conversation with the city employee that consisted mostly of me listening to him tap on his computer, at the end of which he said: “um. No.” At that point, I went to Home Depot to buy my own trash can.

Upon entering the store, I spotted an employee, which, if you’ve ever been to Home Depot, is a rare and wonderful occurence. I made a beeline toward Orange Apron and said, “hello! Can you tell me where the trash cans are?”

Orange Apron smiled at me. “I could tell you …”

Oh, hell no. Don’t even think about saying what you’re about to say.

“… but then I’d have to kill you.”

Christ.

This is exactly the kind of thing that saps my strength on a daily basis.

And really kind of gutsy of the guy, considering we were standing right next to the power drills. One day, Orange Apron, one day. Fortunately for him, and also for me because I don’t want to go to prison, that was not the day. Instead, I played along, saying, “yes, but if you don’t tell me, then I’ll have to kill you,” which elicited a sound from Orange Apron that would be most accurately phonetically rendered as “HAR HAR HAR HOO!” So glad I could amuse you, Orange Apron. Now tell me where the cans are, or I will hit you with my purse. The cans were in the garden section, so I bought not only a can, but also a small, very prickly cactus that seemed to suit my mood that afternoon.

In addition to screwing up garbage collection for residential customers, our halfwit mayor and the slobbering goons known as our City Council have also removed all dumpsters from downtown and, based on the mountains of garbage I saw in the alleys in Chinatown a few days ago, I’m going to guess Chinatown as well. The reason for this, according to a Public Utilities spokesperson, is that dumpsters provide, “a cover for crime.” Well, possibly. But they also provide a cover for garbage, which is preferable to what’s going on now, which is that bags of trash are just left out in downtown alleys, ostensibly to be collected three times a day instead of two or three times a week, but in actuality to provide an all-you-can-eat-or-strew-around buffet for the crow and rat population. In response to the criticism that having so many more garbage pickups and therefore so many more garbage trucks on the road is not exactly eco-conscious, the city has responded that it’s okay because the new trucks are powered by natural gas, and as everyone knows using natural gas has zero environmental impact. Wait, no. I’m thinking of unicorn tears. Using unicorn tears has zero environmental impact. Using natural gas does have an environmental impact, particularly when you are using it to power a bunch of trucks that are driving around the already congested streets, screwing up the traffic patterns, and forcing all of the other fossil fuel burning cars to idle in the resultant traffic jams all day long.

Then a couple of weeks ago, it was announced that all trash cans will be removed from parks and city-owned public areas. Citizens are advised that if they are in a park or walking along along a public street and find themselves in possession of something they would like to discard, they should take it home, consult their six-page flyer, place it in the appropriate bin (or, if it’s half a sandwich from their lunch that wasn’t eaten because it fell on the ground, into the refrigerator until trash day), put the bin out in the alley, and hope that someone actually comes to pick it up. I’m sure that everyone will be extremely cooperative regarding this plan.

Our mayor is up for reelection this fall and one of his more sycophantic city council members has announced that she will be running against him. When asked how she will differentiate herself from him since they have an almost identical voting record she stated, “[i]t’s hard for me to conceive of running a campaign based on process and personality if you have a good record. I think that’s the dilemma.” That’s an interesting statement, in the sense that is contains no content whatsoever, yet it answers any lingering questions anyone might have about the woman. So not only will I not be voting for Mayor Jughead, I think I will also have to take a pass on Councilwoman Big Ethel. Instead, I am throwing my support behind this guy:

If we’re going to turn the whole city into a dump, we might as well get someone who knows the terrain.

I Have a Paddle Game, a Remote Control, this Ashtray, a Magazine, and a Chair. That’s All I Need. Oh, and this Thermos.

You’ll have to forgive me if I seem a bit distracted. Today is Best Friend’s Day, so I am waiting by the phone and refreshing my email every five minutes in case someone invites me to dinner or to have a drink after work. I didn’t receive any lunch invitations, so instead I ate some noodles at my desk and don’t think I’m not bitter about that. If one of my so-called friends doesn’t contact me by 3:00 PM, I’m going to call each and every one of them and yell angrily. When they ask why I’m mad, I’ll drop my voice to a whisper and say, “you know what you did” then slam the phone down. I plan on using the corded phone on the land line. It’s the best way to hang up on someone.

I was trying to find an official link to Best Friend’s Day, but all I could find were links to sites I’ve never heard of and MySpace, and I can’t go to MySpace because I had a falling out over there with Tom, who acts like he’s your friend but he’s really not. He probably friends everyone and then ignores them. Creep.

The concept of “best friend” is probably not all that useful much past college-age or so. In fact, it just seems like it would create problems where none existed before. Say you’re having a conversation with a friend, during the course of which you refer to someone else as your “best friend.” This is just going to cause the friend you’re talking with to feel hurt and angry. She may even say, “and just exactly where do I fall in your hierarchy of friendship? Well? WELL?” Or maybe I’m the only one who says that. Sometimes I like to mess with people.

Not that I don’t divide friends up into different categories. I have Work Friends. I have Lunch Friends, which is a subcategory of Work Friends, although since I hardly ever go into the office, those two categories have more or less merged. I have Friends From When I Was a Kid. College Friends. Law School Friends (also known as “People I Don’t Like Very Much”). Blog Friends. Why Am I Friends With This Person Friends. No Best Friends though. I sort of miss that, but at the same time, it’s nice not to have to be there for someone all the time. Sometimes I just want to go out for Mexican food and talk about The Amazing Race, but best friends tend to expect that you care about their stupid problems. I’ve got my hands full with my own stupid problems.

Recently, I’ve been thinking about Carol, who used to be both a Lunch Friend and a Why Am I Friends With This Person Friend. When I moved to California for a few years, we morphed initially into being Email Friends and eventually into Complete Strangers. However, I saw her a few weeks ago because I was at the university where she still works, and for no real reason I stopped by her office. Talking to her reminded me of why we’re strangers now. She’s horrible! I hate her! Oh my god! I think I might call her later, yell at her, and then slam down the phone. Just because.

To put it into context, I hadn’t talked to Carol in seven or eight years. The last time we talked was after I had moved back to Seattle and was in the process of remodeling my house. I mentioned to her that I was kind of sick of having all these contractors around every day, working at a glacial pace, and using up all the toilet paper. She replied, “I think you love it. I think you love having your house full of men. That’s why you’re remodeling your kitchen in the first place.” Did I mention that was the last time we talked? I’m not sure what prompted me to go see her when I was on campus recently, but the good news is that I’m not the least bit sad that we’re not friends anymore. She’s horrible! I hate her! I know I already said that, but oh my god! She’s the worst!

She was pretty nice to me, but she spent a good twenty minutes badmouthing John, a friend of hers (ahem) and her husband’s. I met John at lunch many years ago — actually I think Carol and her husband might have been trying to fix us up — and he’s a very nice man whose picture is in the dictionary next to the word “nerd.” He was very smart but very shy, and as I understand it, he spent every Saturday night at Carol’s house eating dinner, watching videos, and then having work conversations with her husband in which they spoke exclusively in “1″s and “0″s. For years, this is what they did every Saturday night. But now, according to Carol, they no longer have movie night because John has done the unforgivable thing of having a girlfriend for the first time in … well, ever, probably. Carol said (and you have to imagine her saying this in a nasal, bitter way), “John doesn’t even come to the house anymore. He spends all his time with her. He thinks he’s in love, but she’s so trashy. She’s divorced and has kids and is only with him because she wants someone to support her. I told him that, but he didn’t want to hear it. He’s like an emotional virgin.” Emotional virgin? Hell, I’m pretty sure he’s an actual virgin. In any event, I tried to explain to Carol that people don’t generally like it when you refer to the person they love as gold-digging trash, but she seemed to think we were all unreasonable on this point. She’s so horrible. I hate her.

The other reason I’ve been thinking about her, aside from my renewed hatred, is that she once also disparaged another friend of hers who had shortly before that published a novel. According to Carol, it was a terrible novel, from an “unknown” publishing house, the author photo was really ugly and included a stupid looking hat, and her friend would never ever get published again because she had no writing talent. After a couple of questions, I determined that Carol had not actually read her friend’s novel nor did she have any intention of doing so. But then, she never was one to let reality get in the way of a good belittling.

I’ve been thinking about that because a couple of weeks ago, I was browsing the books at Target and, in the children’s section, saw a book written by someone whose name I recognized as being a friend from grade school. At first I assumed it had to be someone else because how could a fifth-grader write a book? Then I remembered she probably got older as well. Upon reading the acknowledgments section, I saw that she mentioned another name I recognized, so I knew it was her. And the author’s page indicated that it was her third book. I bought it and, initially, just felt so pleased for her. She’s a published author! How cool is that? I also looked her up online, and found her profile page on the Random House website. She won some type of Rising Star award and her photo was beautiful. I read the book that I bought, and it was very cute and funny, and I think she’s going to continue to have a lot of success.

But then I shifted into feeling envious. She was someone I didn’t remember very well until I saw her book, but after I started thinking about it, I remembered that she a few other girls Mean-Girled me in the fourth grade. I remembered that she used to have a big mole on her face. I remembered that her brother was kind of slow. (To be fair, I remember everyone’s brother as being kind of slow. I’m sure her brother is perfectly standard.) I read the customer reviews of her first book on Amazon and was the tiniest bit pleased about some of the more critical remarks. I am horrible! Oh my god! I hate myself! NO WONDER NO ONE WANTS TO HAVE DINNER WITH ME ON BEST FRIEND’S DAY!

I’m sure I’ll get over it. Or 99% sure anyway.

Oooh, I have to go now. It’s 3:00, and I’ve got some phone calls to make.

Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner. Did You Guess The Antichrist? You Guessed Right!

It’s been unseasonably warm here lately, as it is only the end of May and our warm season normally runs from August 3rd through August 8th. Nonetheless, it has been warm and sunny and lovely recently, and today in particular was a long lazy Sunday. Now I am trying to elegantly segue from the nice weather to the fact that I decided to make a big salad for dinner, but I can’t think of a way to do it without saying something inane like, “nothing says summer like salad!” and thereby sounding like a complete simpleton, so instead I’ll just say that it was a hot day and I made a salad for dinner.

On the menu: Vietnamese Beef Salad. “Vietnamese” because I dress it with Ginger-Lime Dipping Sauce, which is one of the recipes in Mai Pham’s cookbook, Pleasures of the Vietnamese Table. “Beef” because it has sliced strip steak in it. And “Salad” because it is salad. Keep up, people.

I didn’t have everything I needed, however, so I went to one of the Asian markets to get a few things. Now, one of the things that you have to know about me is that I am a little superstitious. I hold to some of the superstitions most of you are familiar with, and also to a few Japanese superstitions that you probably haven’t heard of. Thus, if I can help it, I don’t walk under ladders or step on cracks. I’m not afraid of black cats because I like cats and believe them to be misunderstood creatures, but I won’t buy a particular type of fried tofu after dark because if I do, I may be robbed by foxes. I will throw salt over my shoulder if I spill any, but I won’t make my chopsticks stand upright in the rice. And I never ever buy four of any one item at a time. Well, unless there’s a good sale. I’m not a fanatic.

Yes, I’m getting to the part where that’s relevant. I went to the store to buy four items: cucumbers, fish sauce, rice noodles, and lime. (It’s okay to buy four things if they’re different things.) (It does so make sense.) The cucumbers were $1.43. The fish sauce was $3.99. The rice noodles were $0.99. The lime was $0.25. The total? See for yourself:

Did I consider saying, “uh … don’t total that out yet; I’m just going to go get one more lime”? Yes I did. But the smaller, more rational part of my brain realized that was mere foolishness, so I simply handed the cashier ten dollars and sixty-six cents. At which point she screamed, “$10.66? I spit on you, you Norman bastard!” (That’s a joke.) (I don’t care if you didn’t think it was funny. I thought it was funny. It’s not always about you.)

Then I came home, made my salad and ate it.

This turned out to be a less interesting story than I had anticipated. Therefore, I’ll throw in a recipe.

Vietnamese Beef Salad
The Salad of Eternal Damnation

Lettuce
Cucumber
Tomato
Beef Strip Steak
Rice Noodles
Ginger-Lime Dipping Sauce

Wash and tear lettuce. Peel and slice cucumber. Wash and slice tomato. Cook beef and slice across the grain. Boil rice noodles until tender, rinse in cold water. Arrange lettuce, cucumber, tomato, beef, and noodles on plate. Drizzle with Dipping Sauce. Don’t say Grace; you’re already doomed. Eat.

Hey, cooking is easy!

For more information, continue reading.

Ginger-Lime Dipping Sauce
The Dipping Sauce of Copyright Violation

1 teaspoon chopped garlic
2 or 3 Thai bird chilies, chopped
3 tablespoons sugar
3 tablespoons minced ginger
1/4 cup fish sauce
2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
3 tablespoons water

Place the garlic, chilies, sugar, and ginger in a mortar and pound into a paste. Transfer to a small bowl and add the fish sauce, lime juice, and water. Stir well to combine. Set aside for 15 minutes before serving to let flavors meld.

A couple of things. (1) I have a mortar and pestle, but it’s a pain to clean because the mortar has grooves in it and the thing is not dishwasher-safe. Generally, when a recipe requires that a mortar and pestle be used, which … yeah, not that often, I ignore that part of the recipe and instead finely chop up the ingredients. This is probably why I am going to hell.

(2) I don’t use fresh chilies in this recipe because Thai bird chilies are very small and this is the only thing I make that calls for them. Also, I always halve the recipe, so I only need one. If I try to buy only one or two chilies, they don’t even register on the scale. If the cashier is sensible, she’ll tell me to give her a nickel or a dime, but if she’s not sensible, I have to wait for the manager to make the ultra-important decision. Therefore, I forgo the chilies and instead use a few drops of chili oil (not to be confused with sriracha, which is a chili paste). For no real reason, here is a picture of my bottle of chili oil:

Here’s another picture. Still no reason:

The fish sauce has a picture of crabs on the label, and the rice noodles have a picture of fish on the package. Sometimes dogs live with cats. Armageddon!

If you’ve never had rice noodles before, you want to get the kind that are long and bent and impossible to get out of the package, not the ones that are straight and short. Long noodles equal long life. That’s another superstition, but since I am already walking on thin ice, afterlife-wise, I feel it prudent to maximize my time on earth.

If you’ve never had fish sauce before, it’s supposed to smell that way.

If you’ve followed these extremely complex directions, your salad will look something like this:

I slightly overcooked the beef, so I hid it in the back of the photo, away from the cruel taunts of the blogosphere.

Preparation time: 30 minutes, unless you keep stopping to take photos, in which case, three hours.

Evidently, I’ve Decided to Make Every Post Nine Million Words Long Now

After a three-day weekend, it’s not good to work too hard. You have to ease back into things so as not to cramp up. Therefore, a meme! Or a quiz. Maybe it’s a questionnaire. Possibly a poll. In any event, I saw this over at The Reluctant Grownup, which is Gillian’s lovely blog that I read but never comment on because I don’t have a Windows Live ID, and frankly signing up for one more thing that requires a password will be the final push that drives me over the edge. I’ll end up like that dude on Lost in the mental hospital with Hurley, repeating, “4 8 15 16 23 42″ over and over until it’s time for my dopamine receptor blocker.

Anyway. Onward.

1. What author do you own the most books by?

After consulting my Nerd Girl Book Database (NGBD), the answer is a tie. At 32 books each, it’s Beverly Cleary and Larry McMurtry. I have almost every book that Cleary has ever written, including Leave it to Beaver. You probably think I’m making that up. Behold:

Needless to say, it was not her best work. If I had to pick her best book, it would be one of the Henry and Ribsy books, I think. I know everyone loves Ramona the Pest, but a boy and his dog are hard to beat. I also have a lot of fondness for both Otis Spofford and Ellen Tebbits. As far as I know, the only Cleary books I don’t have are two more tie-ins with Leave it to Beaver, which I might eventually get for the sake of completeness, but otherwise, I’m not that excited about them.

As for McMurtry, I don’t have every book he’s written because he’s ridiculously prolific. He’s like the Joyce Carol Oates of Western fiction. I don’t equally love everything he’s written, but in general, I like his historic fiction better than his contemporary fiction and his contemporary fiction better than his non-fiction. “Fiction” starts to sound weird if you say it too many times. If you have not read him, read Lonesome Dove certainly; that’s the one the won the Pulitzer and it has one of the best last lines of any book ever written. If you like it, read the sequel, Streets of Laredo, which is a better book, but only read the prequels if you really loved both of the later books or if you’re hopelessly retentive since the prequels are just okay. In general, I like McMurtry’s sequels better than the originals because he seems to have more of an affinity for his characters as they age. For example, The Last Picture Show is the one that got all the acclaim, but Duane’s Depressed will break your heart. Similarly, Some Can Whistle is the last in a trilogy and it is so melancholy it will make you want to kill yourself, but in a good way.

2. What book do you own the most copies of?

And this is exactly why I need the NGBD. I have, on a couple of occasions, purchased a book I already own. I’ve since purged the multiple copies, so I guess now the only book I have more than one of is the dictionary.

3. Did it bother you that both those questions ended with prepositions?

No. “Don’t end a sentence with a preposition” is not now and has never been a rule of English. The misconception that it is likely stems from the fact that it is a rule of Latin, and back when Latin was still taught in schools, many teachers decided that Latin, being mostly obsolete and therefore only available to the educated, was superior to English, which any old slob can use, and thus began misapplying rules of Latin to English in order to class things up. They did this despite the fact that Latin is an Italic language and English is Germanic, meaning that using Latin rules for English is no more justified than using rules of Sanskrit on Swedish. Even after most schools ceased teaching Latin, generations of teachers repeated the error. The rule is necessary in Latin because Latin has very few other rules pertaining to word order; as a result, a Latin sentence ending with a preposition is ambiguous at best and nonsensical at worst. This is not the case in English. An English sentence that ends with a preposition is not only grammatically correct, it is also often the most elegant construction. Syntactic rules arise organically out of the language itself; they can’t be forced on from the outside. This is why you see very few job openings for prescriptive grammarians; they’re wrong about a lot of things and also they’re really dull and judgmental.

4. What fictional character are you secretly in love with?

I’m not even in love with any actual characters.

5. What book have you read the most times in your life?

I’ve read a lot of books more than once, so I don’t really know. To Kill a Mockingbird, maybe.

6. What was your favorite book when you were ten years old?

It’s hard to remember what I was reading when I was ten because I’m, like, a hundred now, but I’m going to guess Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder, about the early life of her husband Almanzo Wilder, or From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E. L. Konigsburg. I can never look at coins in a fountain without thinking of this book.

7. What is the worst book you’ve read in the past year?

The Total Woman by crazy-ass Marabel Morgan. I only read it so I could get a blog post out of it, and even though it only took an afternoon to read, it’s an afternoon of my life that would have better been spent pounding on my thumb with a hammer.

8. What is the best book you’ve read in the past year?

I didn’t read anything I really loved this year, but I guess I would go with Company by Max Barry. It’s a dark satire of Corporate America, in which a missing morning donut may have unforeseen consequences.

9. If you could force everyone you tagged to read one book, what would it be?

Clockers by Richard Price. Regarding a murder followed by an unlikely confession and told from the alternating points of view of a crack dealer and a homicide detective, Clockers is meticulously plotted and constructed. The revelation when it comes, comes to the main characters and the readers almost simultaneously, and the ending is oddly hopeful. In many ways, it’s an amazing book; if you’ve seen the movie, which was not great, don’t let it put you off reading the book.

10. Who deserves to win the next Nobel Prize for literature?

Am I up for it? If I’m not up for it, then I don’t care who wins.

11. What book would you most like to see made into a movie?

The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint by Brady Udall. At the age of seven, Edgar is run over by the mailman’s truck and then abandoned by his parents. It’s a comedy. Well, a black comedy. But it’s quirky and interesting and tragic and only a little sappy, and would probably make a nice movie that would get released in the fall when no one goes to the movies.

12. What book would you least like to see made into a movie?

Although I should pick a great book by a great writer that could potentially be ruined by a bad filmmaker, I’m instead going to go with anything by Sophie Kinsella, because I find her success to be completely undeserved and I don’t want her to make any more money off her total lack of originality than she already has. On the one hand, you have to love bad writers who sell a lot of books, even if they’re terrible books, because that’s what keeps the publishing industry afloat. On the other hand, it’s just annoying when people make a lot of money off of crap.

13. Describe your weirdest dream involving a writer, book, or literary character.

When I was in college and taking a symbolic logic class, I had a dream involving the living playing cards from the garden of the Queen of Hearts in Alice in Wonderland. Instead of living cards, they were the symbols used in the proofs I had to do for class, and they arranged themselves to make a giant proof of some syllogism or other. Although it sounds like the kind of dream you would only have after dropping acid, Lewis Carroll was a mathemetician and a logician, so I think that was the basis of the dream, although, yes, it’s still pretty weird.

14. What is the most lowbrow book you’ve read as an adult?

I’m a sucker for any Christmas book, so one year I picked up something called The Night Before Christmas, which was a collection of romantic short stories with a Christmas theme by different authors, ostensibly in the chick lit mode, but in actuality, it was more soft-core porn than anything else. They were all exactly the same: woman want man, man no want woman, woman show man her vagina, man trapped! man propose marriage, woman win! It was gross.

15. What is the most difficult book you’ve ever read?

Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant. Even Kant himself deemed it unreadable.

16. What is the most obscure Shakespeare play you’ve seen?

I’ve only read Shakespeare but have never seen any of his plays performed. Not even as a movie, come to think of it.

17. Do you prefer the French or the Russians?

In terms of literature, the Russians. In terms of salad dressing, also the Russians. Actually, I’m not sure I’ve read any French authors, aside from parts of Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past, which, if nothing else, is a fantastic sleep aid.

18. Roth or Updike?

I’ve never read any Roth, so Updike!

19. David Sedaris or Dave Eggers?

I’ve never read any Eggers, so Sedaris!

20. Shakespeare, Milton, or Chaucer?

Shakespeare, I guess, although I do like some of Milton’s sonnets. And Chaucer can be quite funny, even though the Middle English is a bitch. So, I don’t know.

21. Austen or Eliot?

Eliot. Silas Marner, in particular.

22. What is the biggest or most embarrassing gap in your reading?

Honestly, I’m more embarrassed by some of the things that I have read than by anything I haven’t read. There are a lot of books in the world. I can’t read all of them.

23. What is your favorite novel?

I don’t have a favorite. There are different books that were important to me at different times of my life, but there’s nothing I would single out as my all-time favorite.

24. Play?

I don’t really have a favorite play either, but I’m going to say M. Butterfly because I saw an absolutely horrendous community theater production of it, in which the actor playing French Diplomat Rene Gallimard made the unusual artistic choice of giving him a Jamaican accent.

25. Poem?

Nope!

26. Essay?

Nuh uh.

27. Short story?

“Primo Doesn’t Take Back Bottles Anymore,” by Darrell Lum. Anthologized in Best of Bamboo Ridge and Pass On, No Pass Back. I read it twenty years ago, and I still feel a little stab in my heart when I think of the last time Rosa took the empties back to the brewery.

28. Work of non-fiction?

A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson. It almost makes me want to walk the Appalachian Trail. Almost.

29. Who is your favorite writer?

I’ve mentioned some of them already: Cleary, McMurtry, Price. I’d also add Lois-Ann Yamanaka, Nevil Shute, John Irving (if I ignore everything he’s written in the last ten or twelve years), Frank Norris, Bernard Malamud, and Helen Fielding.

30. Who is the most overrated writer alive today?

I don’t know if I’d call her the most overrated writer alive today, but I don’t really get all the whoop whoop over Alice Sebold.

31. What is your desert island book?

The dictionary. I do love reading the dictionary.

32. And … what are you reading right now?

Writing a Novel by John Braine. I don’t want to discuss it.

The Third Option Being Cake AND Death

I have decided I need to lose 14 or possibly 21 pounds, so the other day when I was grocery shopping, I bought whole wheat tortillas instead of white flour tortillas. Do I have to do something other than that, or is that sufficient?

Talking about weight is a tricky matter because pretty much everyone on the other end of the conversation will find a way to take it personally. Suppose I were to say, for example, “I, flurrious, am 5′4″ tall. I am currently 156 pounds. My wrist measures almost 7″ around, meaning I have a large frame. Given my age, height, and frame size, and taking into consideration previous weights at which I have felt healthy, I have come to the conclusion that I, flurrious — the person whose DNA profile I am now providing along with a thumbprint and retinal scan — should lose 14 or possibly 21 pounds.”

In response, the person I’m talking to may think and possibly even say, “oh, so you’re saying I’m fat, then? You think I need to lose weight? Who the hell asked you? Bitch.” Thus, I would just like to reiterate that what I am about to say applies only to me because even if it could apply to you, I would never be presumptuous enough to tell someone else what he or she should weigh (unless that person is famous because obviously famous people have no feelings) and also because I don’t actually care about your weight in the slightest (unless you are famous because obviously everything about famous people is inherently interesting).

At the same time, a different person will think, “156 pounds? OMG you are such a whale,” but say, “I feel like I should lose some weight too. I used to wear a size 2, but lately I’ve had to buy some size 4s. I think it’s because my breasts are getting bigger. Also, my legs seem longer than they used to be.” If you say anything in response to this other than, “shut up, hot girl!” followed by a playful shove and a laugh, she will forever remember it as the time you accused her of being morbidly obese, even though you are OMG such a whale. So at the risk of being redundant, repetitive, and repeating myself, I must stress yet again: not talking about you.

Now you are saying to yourselves, “why is she talking about her weight? I don’t care about her weight. It’s not like she’s famous or anything,” but I am going to pretend you are saying, “why 14 to 21 pounds? Tell me. This is so interesting.” Well, I’m so glad you asked! First, I will say that since age 12, I have fluctuated between what I would consider a good weight for me and 10 to 15 pounds over that, but I have never officially been on a diet. (I did briefly in junior high attempt to drop some weight via the use of the unfortunately named Ayds diet plan, which involved eating two Ayds candies before each meal, but, as I recall, I instead just ate large quantities of the Ayds candy while watching Laverne and Shirley. There also may have been pizza rolls involved.) I decide what a “good” weight is based on whether or not I feel okay and can find cute clothes in my size, and the last time I was at a good weight was about six or seven years ago when I weighed 135. That’s where I get the 21 pound figure. But because since that time, I have both passed age 40 and my metabolism has departed for whereabouts unknown, I’m giving myself 7 pounds of leeway. As you can see, it’s all very scientific.

Since January, I have lost nine pounds. This doesn’t mean that I weigh 147 now; it means that in January I weighed 165. Gaining 30 pounds over the last six or seven years is how I know that my metabolism has gone to hell because I don’t really eat any differently than I ever ate. And I’m not going to say that I don’t eat that much because … uh, I do. When it comes to food, I am a fan. Nonetheless, 165 was a bit of a shock because I don’t weigh myself regularly. I knew I had gained weight because jeans that had fit fine six months earlier now seemed to be actively attempting to kill me, but the actual number still surprised me. So at that point, I got extremely serious about losing weight and did absolutely nothing about it. Not at the conscious level anyway. But I must have subconsciously cut back a bit (though not so much that I didn’t have the occasional license-plate sized chocolate bar or lunch consisting entirely of apple pie) because I lost nine pounds. Despite the fact that I did nothing to make that happen, I will still talk about it as though it is worthy of congratulations.

Now, however, I need to get slightly more serious about losing weight because I recently found out that my blood sugar has become a little elevated. It should be under 100 after an 8-hour fast, and it’s been 102 and 104 in two different tests. It doesn’t sound like much, but the danger of doing nothing is that I have about a 35% chance of developing diabetes within the next three years, which I wouldn’t enjoy, I don’t think. I do know a woman who managed to convince the Department of Licensing that her diabetes qualifies her for a handicapped parking sticker, but other than that, there’s no upside. Besides which, once you go blind, lose a foot, and slip into a diabetic coma, you do less driving anyway.

One of the reasons I have never dieted is because most diets require so much planning and measuring and calculating that the entire enterprise makes me want to order a large sausage and mushroom pizza and eat it while watching Dancing with the Stars. There are diets that do all of the calculation for you, but when they detail, for example, a six-week menu plan, they never take into account the way normal humans buy groceries. Breakfast on Day One requires that you eat one egg, but then an egg doesn’t appear in the menu plan again until Day 37. So are you supposed to use a 37-day old egg that you bought back on Day One? Or should you instead buy a dozen eggs, eat one, throw the other 11 eggs away, buy another dozen on Day 37, eat one, and throw another 11 away again? And what if you want to eat out during this time? Do you go along to the restaurant with your friends but ask the waiter to bring you a plate so you can enjoy [sic] your homemade Mock Crabmeat over Broccoli with Brown Rice that you brought with you in a sad little brown sack? If you do that, you may eventually be thin, but your friends will forevermore let all your calls go to voicemail. Alone at home with a plate of mock crabmeat is no way to live.

Thus, when it comes to dieting, I am not exactly sure what I’m supposed to do. I already eat in a reasonably healthy way, except that I eat way too much sugar and I feel that if you eat less than a double serving of pasta, you are kidding yourself. Seriously, have you seen what a “serving size” of spaghetti looks like? It’s, like, 12 noodles. Aside from that, I think Registered Dieticians would be okay with what I eat, since five days out of seven it’s a lot of lean protein and whole grain nonsense, but they might laugh and talk amongst themselves over things like, “three tacos, one sitting.”

Despite my lack of dieting expertise, I have come up with the following plan: eat less food.

And although I already work out, I think I’m going to add in some weight training since building up muscle is good for fat-burning and, also, increasing my upper body strength might come in handy if I want to punch someone, which I think I probably will since I will no longer be able to rely on milk chocolate peanut M&Ms to alleviate the indignation of daily living.

So, 14 to 21 pounds is ballpark, but the only goal number I really have is to get my fasting blood sugar under 100. I’m sure I would be worried about my cholesterol as well if I knew what it was, but I’m not going to find out because I’ve got enough problems right now. Secondarily, I would like to have a less squashy stomach and the ability to do a push-up without my arms giving out and having to use my face to break my fall. Flooring may be delicious, but it’s highly caloric.

Regarding an Issue of National Importance

The Players:

The Instigator

 
 
 
Perez Hilton
Celebrity Blogger
Judge, Miss USA 2009 Pageant
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

The Persecution Complex

 
 
 
Carrie Prejean
Miss California 2009
First Runner Up, Miss USA 2009
Serial Accidental Nude Model
 
 
 
 
 
 

The Winner

 
 
 
Kristen Dalton
Miss USA 2009
Favorite Quote: “Marcia! Marcia! Marcia!”
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

The Waiter in the Wings

 
 
 
Tami Farrell
First Runner Up, Miss California 2009
DNA results show a 62% likelihood that Carrie, Kristen, and Tami are all the same person.
 
 
 
 
 
 

The Hair

 
 
 
Donald Trump
Real Estate Mogul
Bastard
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

The Hair Loss

 
 
 
Matt Lauer
Co-Anchor, Today
Dies a little inside every time he has to do a segment about this damned story.
 
 
 
 
 
 

The Desperate Bid for Attention

 
 
 
Shanna Moakler
Miss USA 1995
Playboy Playmate of the Month, December 2001
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
The First Digression

Even as a young girl full of hopes and dreams for the future, I was not all that interested in beauty pageants. I remember watching the Miss America, Miss USA, and Miss Universe pageants, but that was because it was the ’70s and there were only three TV networks. When there are only three networks, you watch whatever’s on. Miss America seemed slightly more respectable than the other two pageants, as they were strictly beauty contests, whereas the selection of Miss America was based in part on the talent competition. Of course, I am using the word “talent” in a rather broad sense, one which encompasses singing, “I Could Have Danced All Night” in a faux operatic fashion, playing the 1st Movement of Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No. 2 as if wearing mittens, or, if you are Miss Hawaii, doing the hula.

I admit, however, that while watching the broadcast of the 1975 Miss Teen USA pageant, I became briefly enamored with the idea of entering that pageant myself. I was only 11 years old at the time, but the girls all looked so friendly and happy and grown-up that I decided I wanted nothing more than to end my junior year of high school by competing to be Miss Teen USA. About three minutes later, I forgot all about it, which was for the best really. My junior year of high school turned out to be an awkward time for me. Appearance-wise, I mean. Frankly, I was a dog. Well, and also, I was very busy. Between school and my part-time job, I barely had enough time to chase cars.

I didn’t think much about pageants at all until Vanessa Williams became Miss America in 1984 and subsequently resigned after nude photos she had posed for a couple of years earlier were sold by the photographer to Penthouse magazine. Because her resignation came ten months into her reign, the 1985 pageant happened soon thereafter. That was the first pageant I had watched in years. My impression was that if on the one hand you have nude photos, and on the other you have women in bathing suits walking up and down a stage and standing for several seconds with their backs toward the audience and cameras so that everyone can get a good long look at their asses, then what you have is not so much a difference in kind but, rather, a difference in degree.
 
 
The Present Day

So, here we are in 2009, most of which we are evidently going to spend discussing whether Miss USA First Runner-Up Carrie Prejean is a brave advocate of free speech rights or a stank ho. The right answer: neither. But the better answer: she was the first runner-up in an outdated and irrelevant beauty contest, so whatever.
 
 
The Lead-Up

On April 19, 2009, the 58th annual Miss USA pageant was held at the Theatre for the Performing Arts at the Planet Hollywood Resort and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada. A lot of boring stuff happened, and then it was time for the Q&A segment of the competition. I didn’t watch the pageant itself, but since April 19, 2009, I have seen one particular 50-second portion of the Q&A approximately fourteen kajillion times on various other shows. It involved Perez Hilton, who is famous for having a blog that I do not read, asking a question of Miss California, Carrie Prejean.
 
 
The Question

“Vermont recently became the fourth state to legalize same-sex marriage. Do you think every state should follow suit? Why or why not?”
 
 
The Second Digression

I now have to rescind my statement that the Miss America pageant of 1985 was the first pageant I had seen in many years. I just now remembered that a year or two before that, my friend Deanna and I watched a broadcast of our local Miss Seafair pageant because Kelly, a girl we knew from high school, was competing. (The winner of Miss Seafair goes on to compete in the Miss Washington pageant.) (You do too care.) So the year was 1983, maybe. It was August. We were at Deanna’s house, most likely wearing something ridiculous as would befit the year. I’m going to guess there were Funyuns and Doritos involved. The program was hosted by local celebrity Ross Schafer, who later went on to national fame and fortune as the host of Match Game ‘90 and who still later than that went on to unemployment as the former host of Match Game ‘90. On that August evening, however, his future was bright, as was Kelly’s. At least until the Q&A.

Ross: Kelly! You have 60 seconds to answer the following, randomly selected question. Are you ready?

Kelly: Ye-ess …

Ross: Here is your question. In your opinion, what is America’s greatest natural resource?

Kelly (uncertain expression, quickly replaced by deer-in-headlights expression): I think it might be, like, space or something.

Me: Augggghhhhhh!!!!

Deanna: Accccckkkkk!!!!

Me: God.

Deanna: She blew it.

Me: Ha ha ha ha! “Like, space or something.”

Deanna: Ha ha! That was embarrassing. But … it is kind of a hard question. What would you say if they asked you?

Me: Oh, please. The answer is “the youth of America.” America’s greatest natural resource is the youth of America. And education. You have to throw some shit in there about education.

Deanna: Yeah, I see what …

Me: Oh! And believing in themselves! We have to ensure that the youth of America believe in themselves!

Deanna: Do you believe in yourself?

Me: Hell no.

Deanna: Me either.

Me: God, why is it so hot in here?

Deanna: Are you hot?

Me: Yes.

Deanna: YOU DON’T LOOK SO HOT!!!

Me: Shut up. Miss West Seattle is getting her question now.

Ross: Janine! You have 60 seconds to answer the following, randomly selected question. Are you ready?

Janine: I am!

Ross: Here is your question. If you could be President of the United States for one day, what is the first thing you would do in office?

Deanna: I KNOW! I KNOW! Oooh ooh ooh! Mr. Kotter!

Me: Well?

Deanna (vapid pageant voice): “If I could be President of the United States for one day, the first thing I would do in office is … resign.”

Me: Ha. We should have been in this pageant.

Deanna: We should have.

Me: Are there more Funyuns?

Deanna: Ummm, no just Doritos.

Me: Oh good. My breath doesn’t smell quite bad enough yet.

Kelly didn’t win Miss Seafair that year, despite the fact that her hair looked really shiny. Thus, as you can see, how a contestant answers her randomly selected question is extremely important within the context of winning the pageant, a context that has implications for, well, nothing actually.
 
 
The Question (Again)

“Vermont recently became the fourth state to legalize same-sex marriage. Do you think every state should follow suit? Why or why not?”
 
 
The Answer

“I was raised to believe that in my country, we can choose who to love, and if people choose to be gay and wrong then I also believe that we should deny them their basic civil rights and not let them get married because they would not be opposites like in real marriage. No offense to anybody.”

I am paraphrasing, but that’s the gist of it. But the “no offense to anybody,” is something she actually said because she is a moron. In later interviews she even pointed it out. “I said, ‘no offense’! I don’t understand how anyone can be offended when I said, ‘no offense’!” Hmmmm. Maybe it’s because you’re a bigot? You think? Let’s keep that on the table as a possibility!
 
 
The Outcome

The Miss USA 2009 crown went to Miss North Carolina Kristen Dalton. Carrie “No Offense” Prejean was the first runner-up. According to the always accurate Wikipedia, Dalton had the top scores in both the swimsuit and the evening gown competitions, whereas Prejean came in third and second, respectively. Prejean lost on her scores.

Nonetheless, Perez Hilton took the opportunity to gloat on his blog about how she lost because of her answer, that he voted against her, and that she is a “dumb bitch.” He didn’t say “no offense,” so I think he meant that.
 
 
The Intermission
This is a long post. Let’s rest for a minute.
 
 
The First Set of Photos

Two weeks after the pageant, topless photos of Prejean, taken when she was a teenager, appeared on a website called TheDirty.com. I’m not going to link to that, but you people should feel free to follow your heart. Prejean’s explanation was that (a) it wasn’t her, (b) okay, it was her, (c) but she was a model, (d) models sometimes wear only lingerie, (e) the photographer lied to her, (f) she was naive, (g) the photos weren’t authorized, (h) okay, the photos were authorized, (i) but letting anyone see them was totally not authorized, (j) the only reason why people are seeing the photos is because she is a Christian, (k) when, oh when, will America’s persecution of Christians end?

Uh, okay, Carrie. I guess some of that was relevant. Or wait. No actually, none of is. Because the only relevance the pictures have is whether they violate your contract with the Miss California organization. That would be the contract that contains a clause in which the contestant agrees that she has not previously and will not during her reign as Miss California pose for any nude or semi-nude photos. The agreement that Carrie Prejean signed despite knowing that she had in fact posed nude.

After Prejean assured the Miss California organization that there were no other nude photos of her in existence, they responded thusly, “oh, okay. I mean, you didn’t win Miss USA so you’re kind of a footnote now anyway. Whatever. Keep your crown.”
 
 
The Second Set of Photos

Oh, look! More semi-nude pictures! Clearly taken fairly recently!
 
 
The Explanation

“Those are not me! Those are Photoshopped! I am a Christian!”
 
 
The Explanation 2.0

“Okay! They are me! But those pictures were taken without my knowledge! I am a Christian!”
 
 
The Explanation 3.0

“Okay! I knew they were being taken! But I was alone with the photographer! He took advantage of me! Christianity! I has it!”
 
 
The Explanation 3.1

“And the wind! It was the wind! I was alone with the photographer and the wind! The photographer and the wind took advantage of me! The wind blew my blouse open and the photographer took pictures of me without my knowledge that I knew about and I was alone and naive and taken advantage of and I will say the word Photoshop even though it has nothing to do with anything and unauthorized release of photos that I didn’t know about or maybe I did my mother my sister my mother my sister and I forgive them all for they know not what they do!”
 
 
The Response of Good Christians

 
 
The Response of Opportunistic Self-Serving Christians

Sarah Palin Jumps to Carrie Prejean’s Defense. And also demonstrates that she has zero understanding of the First Amendment.
 
 
The Donald

Realizing they had been lied to yet again, Miss California pageant officials decided to … uh, decide whether or not Prejean should retain her Miss California title, or if it should instead go to Tami Farrell, the first runner-up. Donald Trump, being owner of the Miss USA and Miss Universe pageants, was to make the final decision. Despite being very busy with his real estate holdings, reality TV programming, and other various business deals, he took the time to do this personally because of the importance of the issue, the opportunity to get his big doughy head in front of some cameras, and the possibility of seeing someone’s boobs.
 
 
The Today Show Interview of Tami Farrell

Matt: Ha ha ha ha hahahaha!

Tami: I know, right?

 
 
The Press Conference

Thus spake The Hair: “My child! I hast not forsaken thee. Remove thy rags and crown of thorns and adorn thyself with this sash of polyester and this tiara of quarter-carat cubic zirconia. For thine art Miss California now and forever or until 2010, whichever comes first.”

Carrie wept.
 
 
The Today Show Interview of Carrie Prejean and Donald Trump

Matt: Seriously. The wind?

Carrie: Yes.

Matt: You’re sticking with that story. The wind.

Carrie: It was very windy.

Matt: Then how come your hair isn’t moving in these pictures?

Carrie: Have you ever done a photo shoot?

Matt: Only about a thousand times.

Carrie: Well, it was a special kind of wind. From the far left. Also, I was alone with the photographer and he took advantage of me. I say it that way to make it sound worse than it was and because I don’t care if it undercuts the credibility of women who have actually been victims of abuse or violence.

The Donald: I’m going to start talking now. Look, the fact is that Carrie is a very beautiful woman. That’s why her answer about the homosexuals got so much attention. I mean, let’s face it, if she were an average looking woman, no one would care what she says. Average looking women might have some good things to say, but they’re average looking. Come on. But Carrie is beautiful. And the photos were beautiful.

Matt: So you’ve seen the photos.

The Donald: I have studied the photos very carefully. I had one of my assistants print them out and bring them to me in my office at Trump Tower, which incidentally, is the tallest building in the world and houses many successful businesses run by very successful people. Not as successful as me, but, you know, I am a very successful guy. Not everyone can be as successful as I am. That’s just the way it goes. But the photos are very beautiful, and this is the 20th century. Come on.

Matt: So, Carrie. After the first set of photos, you said there were no other photos, but that turned out not to be true.

Carrie: Like I said, I am totally a victim in all this and I have no responsibility for anything.

Matt: Is it possible that more photos might surface later?

Carrie: You know, Matt. Anything is possible. I’m not gonna say that there are no other nude photos of me out there because it’s possible that some photographer took some naked pictures of me without my permission or knowledge or anything. It’s possible that this happened dozens of times, but I would like it to be known that no matter how many more times it happened, I did not know anything about it at the time and I did not agree to it because I am a moral person and I was raised with values and if I did pose naked, then I totally did not know I was naked at the time.

The Donald: I would just add that if there are more photos, then I will look at those photos. I will look at them very carefully, even though I am a very busy guy. I am very successful. Also, Matt, you didn’t mention The Apprentice. The Apprentice is the number one show in the world. You should have mentioned that. Come on.

 
 
The Aftermath

In protest of Trump’s decision to let Prejean keep her title, Former Miss USA Shanna Moakler resigns from her position as Miss California Pageant Director.
 
 
The Reaction to Moakler’s Resignation
 
 
 
 
The Perspective

Well, this has all been very special, but I have to say it makes me nostalgic for the days when the most embarrassing thing to happen at a pageant involved … You know, you just have to watch it. It defies description.

 
The End

God willing.

If … I … Were King … of the Forrrrresssstttt

The wise and venerable Monkey has issued some extraordinarily sensible decrees, which I will summarize thusly: take your asses home, people. I concur. More generally, she posed the question of what things we would outlaw if we could and also gave us enforcement power over those bans, although she didn’t specify which punishments we could dole out. The punishments are the part I would enjoy most, so I shan’t be omitting those. Yes, I said “shan’t.” If you don’t like it, make your own list and put “shan’t” on it. It won’t hurt my feelings.

Things You Cannot Do, According to Me, and the Consequences of Disregarding This List, Also According to Me

1. Use a leaf blower.

What is the point of this apparatus? It is deafeningly loud, it smells like an explosion is imminent, and all it does is move stuff from one location to another location for no useful reason. Use a rake, for God’s sake. Or a broom. Or just leave the grass clippings and leaves where they are because you are not improving matters at all by just blowing them four feet to the left of where they started out.

Punishment: Watch videos of melting Arctic sea ice and polar bears stranded on floes until you cry like a little punk.

2. Fail to yield any portion of the sidewalk to people who are walking toward you on that same sidewalk.

Let’s say there’s room for three people to walk side-by-side on the sidewalk. You and your two rude friends are walking side-by-side on the sidewalk. If I’m walking up behind you and want to pass, then I give you the benefit of the doubt regarding whether you know I’m there and simply walk around you. However, if I’m walking toward you, and none of you is either tapping a cane or being led by a German Shepherd wearing a little red vest, then at least one of you is going to have to move your ass over either in front of or behind your two rude friends. If I’m walking with someone, we’ll even go single file and let you, Rudy and the Rudettes, have two-thirds of the sidewalk. Aside from that, if any portion of your person drifts over into the 1/3 of the sidewalk that I have deemed to be mine, you are in violation.

Punishment: Amputation.

3. Spit in public.

Hey, they’ve invented this nifty new thing. It’s called swallowing.

Punishment: I get to put used gum in your hair.

4. Sing along with your iPod.

You can’t sing. You think you can sing, but you are incorrect. Also, your taste in music is why God created earbuds. When you put the two things together, the result is you, on a bus, torturing people with an off-key account of your lovely lady lumps. In related matters, you look ridiculous when you bob your head like that.

Punishment: Yeaaahaaa. Doot doo dew!

5. Ask me what I had for dinner.

I know that there’s nothing inherently wrong with asking someone what they had for dinner; however, my senior year of high school, I dated a boy who I’ll call Tony because that’s his name, and he used to call me up every night and say, “whadja have for dinner?” Every single night. Monday night: “whadja have for dinner?” Tuesday night: “whadja have for dinner?” Wednesday night: “whadja have for dinner?” I would continue, but I think you see the pattern. What’s worse is that when I’d tell him what I’d had for dinner he would then say, “mmmmmmm. What else did you have?” “Steak.” “Mmmmmmm. What else did you have?” “Chicken.” “Mmmmmmm. What else did you have?” “Spaghetti.” “Mmmmmmm. What else did you have?” Again, the pattern, you can see it. Aside from being brainless, the other annoying thing about it involved the fact that his mom spent half her day cooking dinner and would rarely repeat a recipe, whereas my mom worked during the day and would come home and make one of the six things that she knew how to cook. Thus, often the conversation would go:

“Whadja have for dinner?”

“Spaghetti.”

“Mmmmmmm. What else did … Didn’t you have spaghetti last week?”

“I want to break up with you so much.”

Sometimes I would make things up, just to avoid having him consult his notes and then ask me why I’d had pork chops twice in one week. And later when I hated him more, I would tell him, “hamburger,” every night, regardless of what I’d actually eaten.

Nowadays, if people ask me what I had for dinner, I might answer the question in a normal fashion, or I might become enraged. It’s unpredictable. Therefore, I think it’s best if I simply disallow the asking.

Punishment: None. Or death. It’s unpredictable.

Agoraphobia is Just Good Thinking

Perhaps I was a little too cavalier about the swine flu in my last post, as there are now three probable cases of it in my county, another four in two other counties, and I have a sore neck and a mild stomachache. I’m sure I’m fine, but just in case, I bequeath all my Nancy Drew video games to NPW because they both go by the name “Nancy.” If any of you are called “Lumpy,” let me know, and I will see to it that you get my couch.

Actually, I always feel a little yucky after a trip to the used bookstore. I love a bargain, but all of that pre-owned stuff in one place gives me the shivers. Also, I haven’t been in one for a while, so my immunity to previously handled page bacteria is low. My only 2008 resolution was to refrain from buying any books, since I already had something like 200 in my to-be-read pile, and I managed to get through last year without buying anything, but it seemed like I also read fewer books than usual so I decided to lift the ban this year. So far in 2009, I have purchased nine books but read only six books, thus this plan is not so great either.

In any case, I went to Half-Price Books this weekend, but it wasn’t one of their better locations. There’s a big store in the University District that I like because if you’re looking for a specific book that’s out of print, there’s a pretty good chance that they’ll have it at a normal price instead of at the hugely jacked-up amounts you often see on half.com or AbeBooks. But this time I went to a smaller store located in a strip mall in one of the suburbs with a selection that’s just okay, unless you are a fan of Jude Deveraux or David Baldacci in which case this location would be your version of where good people go when they die. Nonetheless, I managed to find four books that I’ve been wanting for a while, two of them even in new condition, so overall it was a success for me, though not for the authors of those books since they receive no royalties on resales. I feel a little bad about that, actually.

In general, I’m not a fan of this store chain. In the first place, they need to hire a full-time employee whose job it is to shake out the books to remove both the hair of previous owners as well as any paper napkins with mustard on them that previous owners have used as bookmarks. When I am looking through a book deciding if I want to buy it, finding hair and/or mustard inside tends to make it less likely that I will. I would have assumed that was understood, but there has been more than one incident demonstrating that this assumption is unwarranted. Secondly, they need to hire a full-time employee whose job it is to take all the books out in the alley and smell them before offering them for sale. It does no good to try to smell the books inside the store since between the low-rent building, the musty smell of old merchandise, and employees who either do not adhere to a regular shower schedule or who have an inexplicable fondness for excessive amounts of Drakkar Noir, the inside of the store is a collection of rude aromas. Come to think of it, considering how their regular employees smell, maybe the book-smelling job should be subcontracted out.

What I dislike most about the chain is that they’re so cagey about how much they will pay to buy used books from you. I’ve sold books to them on a couple of occasions, and both times they paid less than 10% of the cover price. I wouldn’t mind that so much if they just said, “we pay 8%” or whatever, but of course if they said that, no one would sell them anything. If you ask them how much they pay, they will give a very bullshitty answer about how they determine the price on a book-by-book basis and there is no set percentage that they pay for anything; however, they also say they pay “by the lot,” so taken together, what they are telling you is that they will not tell you. The first time I took a bunch of books in, the guy doing the buying said there were a couple of people ahead of me and I should leave my books and come back in a half hour. I did, and ended up getting about $50 for books that I had originally paid probably $600 for in total. The second time I went in, I decided I’d stand there and watch him price the books so I could see exactly how they were arriving at those amounts. They really do not like when you do that.

“This is going to take me about 15 minutes, so why don’t you browse the store,” suggested the friendly Book Store Employee.

“That’s okay! I can wait!” I cheerfully replied.

“No really, it will be a while. Why don’t you go look around?” responded the slightly less friendly Book Store Employee.

“I’m fine!” I informed him.

“YOU CAN’T STAND HERE. YOU ARE BLOCKING THE COUNTER AND OTHER PEOPLE MIGHT BE BRINGING IN BOOKS.” Hmmm. Someone doesn’t want to be my friend anymore.

I took up a position next to the shelves closest to the counter, pulled a book off the shelf, and proceeded to ignore the book so I could stare at Hostile Book Store Employee pricing my books. Despite all of their talk about supply and demand and market vagaries and whatnot, the highly scientific process they utilize appears to involve placing the books in three piles according to size and then offering to buy them for eight and half cents on the dollar. I went ahead and sold them that time as well, since I’d already schlepped them into the place and really didn’t feel like taking them back home, but I decided it wasn’t worth selling to them in the future.

I had considered using BookCrossing for books I no longer wanted, but if you look around the site you will see that most of its users are unclear on the concept. What’s supposed to happen is that you register a book with them, get an ID number for it, write the ID number in the book, and then set the book free in the wild, and by “in the wild,” they probably mean, “at Starbucks.” Then when someone picks up the book and reads it, they go to the BookCrossing site, note where and when they found it, what they thought of the book, and where they re-released it. In theory, you can follow your book as it passes through the hands of various readers, which I think is kind of a nice idea. But in actuality, what happens is that someone lists a book and releases it, and then a bunch of people who didn’t find the particular book that’s being tracked come in and review the book and by “review,” I mean they say things like, “the plot of the book was good but the part were it is supposed to entertain you was not,” or “this book is very boring its a lot of takling and old poeple,” or “I didn’t read this book.” It looks as if some of the members of BookCrossing have just decided to mail books to one another because the whole “release your book into the wild and watch it travel the world” concept was kind of a bust.

Because selling my old books on Amazon or half.com would require a lot of time and effort that I could better spend by looking at all my new books and saying, “huh. I should read those,” eventually, I decided that I would just donate the books I no longer wanted to the public library. We have an excellent library system and because I use it all the time for movies, I have saved a ton of money in Netflix fees over the last few years, so I’m happy to forgo the $30 or $40 a year I could get from selling the books. If your local library takes book donations, I hope you’ll consider doing this as well because it’s a good way to support an underfunded community service. And the bonus for me is that if my library can’t use the books it receives for its collection, it holds a twice-yearly book sale where donated books and books they’re taking out of circulation get sold at prices only slightly below what you would pay at a used book store. Their biggest customers at these sales are used book sellers, who end up paying the library a lot more than they would pay me for the same book, so I get a perverse sense of satisfaction from knowing that I got the additional 30% out of them after all.