Consumables #4

Here is what I ated with my brains and eyeballs this week.

Born into Brothels
Because when you are sniffly and teary-eyed from having a cold, you want to make your face leak even more, right?

Valentino: The Last Emperor
I have a completely irrational love for Valentino couture from the 60s. I just want to eat those effing dresses. Or hump them. Or something.

A Wink and a Smile
This was a documentary about the Seattle burlesque scene. Although I appreciate burlesque in theory, it seemed weird to me that they kept talking about how burlesque is all about women reclaiming their sexuality, and one way this happens is that all different types of bodies are welcome and celebrated, but then all of the performers that were shown were skinny minnies with perfect boobs. I don't know. To the folks who made A Wink and a Smile? I give you back a wink and a skeptical face.

The King of Kong
The drama of geeky gamers! The high stakes competition! The heartbreak! The underdog to root for! Who knew?

Also, I was in my head a lot this week. And while there, this song was playing a bunch.

Worky worky, Turkey Lurkey

I have this perspective, and I am glad I have it, but sometimes, I think it gets me into trouble. And it is this. No matter how hard I am working? I never really think that I am working that hard. I think this is what happens to people when they are brought up by people who have had to work really, really hard, in a real sense. No First World middle class crybaby status inbred into them and so it is just not tolerated in my family. Like, ever. Not even a little bit. And Nordic Boy and his family are the same, which just compounds the whole thing. But every once in a while, I have some days where I look around and I think Self? You are working like your hair is on fire. Ok, fine, yes, you have shoes on your feet and a house and running water and you get vacation time if you want it and you never have to worry about eating and your heat is not going to get shut off for want of bill-paying. And those are things that seem real to you, because you know people who don't have these things and you were brought up to never forget it. So I really do think, 99% of the time, that no matter how hard I am working or how busy I feel, that really? I need to just get over it and not cry into my Pampers. My picture of myself is one where I don't think of myself as a hard ass in any way, shape, or form, but on this subject? I am sort of a hard ass.

This is all just a preface to say that I realized yesterday that I actually work sort of hard. Well, I mean, in perspective. Compared to many people I am now associated with, I work super ridonk hard. Compared to most of the world, I am a big sissypants.

The extra laughable thing about what I am saying right now is that I am only saying any of it as an apology for not blogging much this week. Oh yes. That's right. I work so friggin' hard that I don't have TIME TO BLOG MY USUAL NONSENSE.

Someone needs to slap me immediately for typing that last sentence there. Seriously. It's just gross.

In other news, I was sick over the weekend, which caused me to do dumb things like watch an entire season of The L Word in one sitting. Which, in turn, got the theme song into my head for the rest of the week. And I think that that show just might have the worst, most annoying theme song in the history of theme songs. Including Saved By the Bell.

The other thing about being sick is that now that I am better, I still have residual sniffligiousness, and so I am the asshole in meetings that is honking their schnoz every two seconds and who carries a wad of tissues in both claws at all times.

The third thing that is of note that happened to me yesterday, was that I was at a meeting with a bunch of Very Important People (well at least they would think so if you polled them on their own Importantcy Factor) and there was a jug of orange juice in the snack area. I went over to get a bit of the OJ and picked up the bottle, which had the cap on it, and shook the everloving crap out of it. Only, the person who had partaken of the OJ before me didn't screw the cap on. They just lightly put the cap on top of the jug in a clear attempt to instigate some buffoonery at the VIP meeting. Result? OJ TORNADO! I sprayed the entire table with OJ, and myself, and the food that was set out. I don't know how so much OJ came out of one bottle. Plus, it turns out that the sweater I was wearing was made, apparently, out of the same exact material that they make Always With Wings or Depend Undergarments, because the immediate absorbency of the OJ into my torso region was impressive. I had to go into the bathroom, take off my sweater, and wring out OJ into the sink. Can you tell that I am sort of proud of this whole thing? You would be correct.

That is all, friends. I must return to my toil. Woe unto me.

Consumables #3

The Enchantress of Florence, by Salman Rushdie
This is one of those bastards that takes like 100 pages to really get you into it (which is almost a third of the way through), then it gets cooking. Which is annoying, Sal Bass.














Golden Globes:
Sophia Loren can really rock those rich old lady glasses, can't she?






Disco: Spinning the Story
A non-depressing movie about the 70s! I didn't know they made those!










Weeks and weeks ago, Hopscotch, who is a pregnant lady herself, posted a link to that Garfunkel and Oates song on her blog. For some reason, that song did not really stick in my head at the time. Also, this week I heard "Business Time" by Flight of the Conchords on the radio. For some reason, these two songs have created a weird remix in my mind, so that every time I am in need of a song to sing to myself, I mix up "Effin' son of a gun..." with "It's business. Business time." How am I doing this??

"Where wolf?"... "There wolf!"

It's story time, lil chilluns. Gather round. Do you want to hear about the worst pick up line I have ever heard? Psh. Of course you do.

Many years ago, back in the olden days before electricity was invented, I was a dancer, and I was living in Chicago and doing some choreography for a small dance company there. The dance studio we used was affiliated with one of the thirty-six crajillion universities in that fair city. While there, I would sometimes wait for my studio time in a student lounge type area, with my book, a gigantic dance bag (it's required that dancers have bags that are at least two times their body weight at all times), and an exceedingly aggressive do-not-talk-to-me-please crease in my brow.

One day, a young fellow happened by and sat in the same area. He asked me what I was reading, because apparently he was deficient in brow literacy. And for all my brow bravado, I really am ok with talking to just about anyone (hello, future librarian), so I answered him. His name was Drew.

Drew started, from then onward, to show up pretty regularly to say hi to me. He was your typical art geek college dude, and was cute except for an unfortunate need to wear a red beret at times. Despite the cuteness and the opportunity to be with someone who I could sing "Raspberry Beret" to, I was completely not in-like with Drew. He just didn't do it for me, plus I was already seeing someone at the time. But if he wanted to stop and say hi to me from time to time after braving my no-talking face, that was fine by me.

After a few days of short conversations, our friendship took a bit of a turn. Here's how it went.

Him: Have you ever read Dracula?
Me: Yeah.
Him: Are you more of a vampire person or a werewolf person?
Me: Um...how do you mean?
Him: You know that vampires and werewolves are enemies, right? Like, mythologically speaking?

An aside: Most of that conversation is, admittedly, reconstructed from my memory. However, the one thing that I am positive I am quoting verbatim is the phrase "mythologically speaking." It was as soon as he said those words that I knew that this conversation was not something I needed to be involved in. If you want me to sort of want to check out of a conversation I am having with you, say the words "mythologically speaking" to me in a Very Serious Voice, and I will pretty much be on my way.

Me: Oh. Ok. I guess I sort of knew that.
Him: So, which one?
Me: Which one what?
Him: Which do you prefer, vampires or werewolves?
Me: I'm not sure. I guess I've never really thought about it.
Him: Well, if you like vampires, it's kind of cool, um, at least to me, but ah, I have lots of ancestry that goes back to Transylvania.
Me: Oh. Yeah. Ok.
Him: I mean, not that that means I have any vampire genes in me or anything. Not everyone from Transylvania was a vampire. That's just a sort of misconception about the place. But still. It makes me feel somewhat of a kinship to vampires.

ARE YOU GUYS HEARING THIS?

Me: Ok. Yeah, I see what you're saying. So, you're a vampire person.
Him: Well, I guess so. But other people I have asked this question to have disagreed, especially girls. So I'm wondering what you think. Am I more vampire or werewolf?

DANGER! DANGER!

Me: I don't really know you well enough to say. But I guess if I had to choose which was cooler, I guess I would say vampires. Better fashion sense. Ha ha.
Him: Yeah. I suppose so. But, like I said, most people assume I am more of a werewolf person. Especially girls.

DON'T ASK HIM WHY! DON'T ASK HIM WHY! FOR THE LOVE OF LISA BOOF MARCONI!

Me: Why?
Him: I don't know. I guess I'm just more...animalistic.
Me: Oh. (Oh noh).
Him: I have that side to me, you know?
Me: Ok.
Him: And the other thing is, well, I'm pretty hairy.
Me: ......
Him: In fact, I have a really hairy back. Really, really hairy. (Leaning in, seductively)...Wanna see it?

Ladies, I implore you. Have you ever heard such a thing in your life? Do you think he planned to say that? Like, in advance? Had he used this before? Had it ever worked?

I wish I could remember how I got myself out of this situation. Rest assured that I somehow said SHITS NO in answer to his question (although I think I said it nicely), and that I extricated myself from the conversation. Drew continued to stop by to say hello to me in the following weeks, and there were more weirdo conversations that we had, which I won't get into now because they don't top the vampire/werewolf thing.

So all I have to say about this, really, is directed to all those Twilight fans out there. I had a chance to be with a vampire/werewolf HYBRID, ladies.

Jellus?

Nordic Birthday Boy

This week is already completely getting away from me. So, I'm afraid I must list.

1. Last week was Nordic Boy's birthday. In his honor, my mother gave up her scrupmtious carrot cake recipe, since carrot cake is Nordic Boy's favorite cake ever. This recipe comes from a family friend's grandmother, Mrs. C. Other than her carrot cake making skills, which are considerable, Mrs. C was also my lunch lady when I was in elementary school. This is confusing to me, as I simultaneously associate Mrs C. with delectable goodies (moistest carrot cake I have ever tasted), and those awful rectangle school pizzas with the meat kibble on top.

2. I made the carrot cake, and it was 70% as good as the original. I will work on it and I'm sure it will get better with practice. I bet I could make a mean kibble pizza though.

3. We went to see a play. Electra, perhaps you have heard of it? You know, the one where the mom kills the dad and then the two kids conspire to butcher the mom and stepdad? What, you don't celebrate your birthdays with lots of fake gore, knives, an axe, and screaming bloody murder?

4. We went to see Avatar. James Cameron, you need to just put the pen down. Please. The writing, it was way, way worse than I could have imagined in my wildest dreams. "Unobtainium"? FOR REAL? (Ha ha, look who's talking about bad writing? I can be so ironical). Also, that shit was racist. The end.

5. We ate a lot of lovely food, at a lot of lovely restaurants, with a lot of lovely people.

6. We put up insulation film on our bedroom windows. I think this was probably the highlight of the whole weekend for him, to be perfectly honest.

7. We took every spare moment we had and spent it beating up hordes of people via the Wii Swordplay game.

It was all super delightful. There is nothing that will get someone on my good side more than treating Nordic Boy with love. He's just so unassuming that when people treat him special, it sort of chokes me up. I love seeing that other people love him even a fraction of the amount that I do.

Is that corny? If so, I invite you to deal with it.

Consumables #2

This week I took in:



The Uncommon Reader. The Queen of England becomes obsessed with reading, to the chagrin of her entire court. It's funnier than it sounds.







Because, you know, these movies obviously go together.
















Electra, by the Seattle Shakespeare Company.
Dude, these people would make great Jerry Springer fodder. Also? I had front row seats and almost got spritzed with fake blood. It was like a KISS concert. Only, you know, not.


November Was White, December Was Grey
(And also in the grey/white family? January, and February. And most likely March and April).

Commentos! The Freshmaker!

You know that post I wrote yesterday about My-kell Boo-bleh? Here's the comment I got in response to it.

"Interesting article you got here. It would be great to read more about this topic. Thnx for posting that material."

Oh really? It would be great to read more about how Nordic Boy didn't know Michael Buble was real? Sorry, but there really isn't anything more to say about that. And would you really call anything I write here an "article?" Of course you would. This is fine, investigative journalism here, people. Oh, and also? Stupid ROBOT AUTOMATED COMMENTING MACHINE THING.

I wonder how many places that got posted? On how many blogs?

"I got fired today."
"Interesting article you got here. It would be great to read more about this topic. Thnx for posting that material."

"I have the flu and blew out a steaming snotball the size of a golf ball."
"Interesting article you got here. It would be great to read more about this topic. Thnx for posting that material."

"OMG I saw Robert Pattinson at the Dunkin' Doughnuts and as he leaned over the counter to choose his doughnut I walked behind him swiped the dandruff off his coat! And snorted it!"
"Interesting article you got here. It would be great to read more about this topic. Thnx for posting that material."

Today is De-Lurking Day. So come on out of the woodwork and say howdy, if you're so inclined. And ok fine, robots can de-lurk too.

Beauty and the Buble

Watching tv...

Me: Oh. Change the channel. We don't want to watch this. It's Michael Buble.
Him: IT IS???
Me: Yeah. What's the big deal?
Him: That. Right there. Is Michael Buble.
Me: Yes.
Him: Michael Buble...you mean...that's a real person?
Me: Yes! You didn't know that?
Him: I can't keep up with all your imaginary characters. I thought Michael Buble was an imaginary character!
Me: You did???
Him: I mean, come on. The name. And when you had mentioned him before, you always say it in a weird voice. Like the candelabra guy from Beauty and the Beast.
Me: Lumiere?
Him: Yeah, you know. (Lumiere voice): My-kell Boo-bleh. Haw haw haw.
Me: Sorry. It just comes out that way.
Him: But there he is. Real person. Wow.

School of Rock

My weekend seemed like it was weeks long. And yet I was still grumpy when it was over. What an ingrate.

On Saturday night, BioGirl, Nordic Boy and I went to see a rock show put on by the students at Seattle's School of Rock. If your town has a School of Rock (and many towns do, I have discovered), you need to get yourself to one of their shows as soon as possible. It was AWESOME. While there, we saw the following:

1. Kids just, um, rocking out. These kids were good. Hella good. I have heard many a band in my day (did I just say "in my day"? Why I believe I did), full of adults who call themselves professional musicians but, compared to these kids, sucked dingus.

2. A little 8-year-old girl with Princess Leia hair, belting out "Why You'd Want to Live Here" by Death Cab in a most delightful way, and then double-belting out "Outshined" by Soundgarden. Woo she was good.

3. Eric Corson from The Long Winters came out and sang a song with the kids. How cool is that for them?

4. A bunch of adults who came in with an all-too-familiar (to me, having been a librarian for teens) condescension for the kids ("won't this be a CUTE show...") get schooled on rocking out. They had to be taken seriously for playing like that. I loved it.

5. For all the respect they earned and got, some of them also got a healthy (and awesome) dose of embarrassment-inducing behavior from parents. One in particular. There was this lady who was standing right in front of us, and whenever there was a pause between songs, and the crowd stopped clapping and hooting and hollering for a second, she would wait for just that moment of quiet to scream out her daughter's name in the most mom-like manner. "Megan!!!!" she would yell. "I love you!" And then she would flap both of her hands over her head in the biggest wave you have ever seen, as if she were not only waving hello but also fanning the entire stage like a human air conditioner. She did this the entire show, and waved ever harder in confusion over the fact that Megan didn't seem to hear her ear-splitting love. Megan was not making eye contact, can you believe it? But still, Megan's mom was determined and never gave up. Her yells became a song in and of themselves. On the way home, BioGirl and I broke out with a good old chorus of "Megan!!!! I love you!!!!" much like a tune we couldn't get out of our heads. And Nordic Boy ignored us, so maybe that is just the affect that that song has on people.

Consumables

Here's a bit of what I consumed this week:










The Help, by Kathryn Stockett



















No One's Gonna Love You, by Band of Horses
Is it just me or could I take that song title the wrong way?











The Ballet Shoes, starring Emma Watson and a bunch of other Harry Potter people
Emma Watson is turning into a looker, and she acts with her eyebrows like crazy.







San Francisco Ballet's Nutcracker
Sorry, Pacific Northwest Ballet, but San Fran kicks your hiney all up and down the west coast.



















il Trovatore, by Giuseppe Verdi
I heard this while eating chips. Which led to the most dramatic chip-eating I have ever done.



Little Pink Mack, by Kay Adams

Food Freaks

Let's talk about eating weird stuff, shall we?

Do you eat weird stuff? I am not so much talking about exotic foods like crickets sprinkled over your salad or shark's balls or what have you. I am just talking about something that you like, or maybe a combination of food that you invented, and anyone else that looks at it might think what in the hootenanny is that all about?, but you love it and no one can stop you from loving it.

Take, for instance, my dad. My dad is known for mixing foods in a most original way. One of his favorites is the spaghetti and salad sandwich. If we had spaghetti for dinner with a nice side salad, you bet your lady lumps that the very next day he is going to take two pieces of bread and put a scoop of spaghetti between them, along with a scoop of salad. Viola! A sandwich! No matter that the spaghetti and salad sort of drips out the sides uncontrollably. He loves it.

Nordic Boy does this thing where he heats up Boca Italian Sausage. Let me stop the story right there and say that I am not a picky enough eater to say that I think that Boca Italian Sausage is gross. I rarely think foods are gross; rather I just feel a mild preference away from certain things. One of the things I have a mild preference away from is spicy hot dogs of any variety. I know, I'm from the Midwest so this is sort of sacrilegious, but it's just not something I would get excited about eating. Pair this with the part of me that wants to get Nordic Boy's goat, and you will find that I consistently try to taunt Nordic Boy about his Italian Sausage (that sounds dirty) by calling it dog food. Totally unfair since a real meat sausage/hot dog could be said to share some ingredients with dog food, but a Boca Sausage? The dog food name-calling is sort of nonsensical, unless you have a soy-eating dog, which perhaps you do. Anyway. Nordic Boy is an expert at Not Paying Me No Mind when I taunt, so I don't know why I persist, but I do. He is just easygoing enough to have adopted the taunt for his own self, which is totally disheartening when you are trying to taunt someone. He will just up and say, before I can, "I'm going to have dog food for dinner!" which really takes the taunting wind out of my sails. Dang him.

That was a tangent and a HALF, you guys.

ANYHOO. He takes the Boca Sausage, heats it up, chops it up, mixes it with fettuccine noodles (no garlic, no butter, nothing on them noodles), mixes some peas in there too and then douses the whole thing with Chipotle Tabasco sauce and eats it. And I find that weird. It's weird, right?

More than finding it weird, however, I find it makes me green with envy. I don't know what it is, but when people have quirky things about themselves, I want to have the quirky too. I feel left out of the quirky! Not that I don't have many of my own quirks. Believe you me I do. However, when I don't, (like when I couldn't find a word that I couldn't pronounce, or when I found out that I didn't talk to myself when alone but everyone else did), it kind of makes me crazy. Which I suppose is a quirk in and of itself.

Last night, I made Nordic Boy sit there and try to help me come up with what my crazy food combo is. What is it? Where is it? What has he seen me eat that would make someone else cringe? I want a crazy food combo love affair!

I couldn't think of one. He admitted he had never seen me covet anything weird either.

I am so disappointed in this, I don't even know why. It's just so...vanilla.

The only thing I can think of is that when I was a little kid and we would go back to Fiji to visit family, my cousins there thought it was the weirdest thing on planet earth that I would spoon out a spoonful of peanut butter and just eat it off the spoon. "WHAT ARE YOU DOING" they would yell at me. It was like I was eating mayonnaise straight from the jar or something like that.

That, in terms of weird food loves, just doesn't cut it in America. Eating peanut butter off a spoon is just a red white and blue sort of thing to do, even if it is cuckoo for cocoa puffs in Fiji.

Tell me, what food combo do you love that other people give you grief for?

My Own Creation Myth

Me: You know who that one guy in the last Matrix movie reminds me of?
Him: What guy?
Me: That guy. The computer one.
Him: Um, they're all the computer one.
Me: The one that reminds me of, you know, Chicken Sanders.
Him: Who's Chicken Sanders?
Me: You know.
Him: Stop saying "you know." I don't know. Who is Chicken Sanders?
Me: The Kentucky Fried Chicken guy.
Him: You mean Colonel Sanders.
Me: Oh. Yeah. His name might as well be Chicken Sanders.
Him: So, Colonel Sanders reminds you of who, now?
Me: The Matrix guy. The Sigmund Freud looking one.
Him: So, someone who looks like Sigmund Freud, and who also looks like Colonel Sanders. You mean The Architect?
Me: I don't know his name. He just looks like the Chicken Guy. And Sigmund Freud. I wonder if that was on purpose.
Him: You mean the creator of the Matrix program that we are all living in is really Sigmund Freud?
Me: Nope, worse. Our reality is created by Chicken Sanders!
Him: Scary.

I'm gonna bust a recap on your ass

I totally skipped doing my annual new year meme thingamabob, didn't I? I tried to do it, but it just wasn't hitting me right this year. (And what the hell kind of phrase is that? "Hitting me right"? That just doesn't sound good, when you really think about it).

Instead, I'll just do a brain dump of what things strike me about the year of aught nine. Ready? Ok.

2009 was the year that:

1. ...was just all kinds of seasonal. Usually, Seattle is not known for seasonalitism. Rather, we are known for two kinds of sky: either grey or blue. And it's mostly grey that wins. But this year! Seasons! We started out with a jackload of snow and then an outburst of spring, which was followed by a glawrious summer wherein I wore skirts and bare legs to my heart's content for weeks and weeks and weeks on end and rediscovered the joy that is popsicles. This was followed by a particularly pretty fall and now we are back to the grey days of yore.

2. ...our house got prettier. Ever since we bought our house, we have been in home improvement land, which is not only a land that Nordic Boy has a passport to live in, but he is also the Prime Minister of. We bought a place that needed a lot of work. A lotta, lotta work, actually. The past two years have been years where we do home improvements that are sexy to Nordic Boy, but not to me. Insulation! New roof! Water drainage! New electrical! New pipes! All things that are totally necessary, to be sure, but not if you are me and you have a decidedly shallow side that needs placating. This year, we got to do some of the stuff that we both love, not just stuff that he loves. What does that mean? That means making things pretty. Oh how I love to make things pretty. And the centerpiece of this prettyfication? OUR NEW COUCH! Besides being pretty, I am a big fan of getting my cozy on, and this couch has revolutionized the cozy. It has the perfect ergonomics for reading (sitting or horizontal), chatting with pals, watching a movie, making out, and the napping on this couch should just be illegal, it is so delicious. Plus it is so, so pretty.

3. ...we got our new dual flush toilet so that when we do a crapsie, we can have flushing OPTIONS. Because there are so many choices in life, why not with flushing?

4. ...Alli spent literally an entire day looking for a plane ticket to come and visit me and Map's husband surprised her with a plane ticket to join in. The effort Alli and Map put in for little old me made me feel loved and thankful for my awesome friends.

5. ...a friend passed away in the saddest way I can think of. I still can't quite wrap my mind around it completely.

6. ...I spent a fun few days at Alli and Chris' house where they drove us around the entirety of Chicago with no questions asked and made Nordic Boy and me laugh until our guts ached. I love those two.

7. ...I met blog friends for the first time and they were all more awesome than I could have hoped for. I mean, really, I was just hoping that they didn't smell bad or want to kill me or anything like that, and then they went and showed me up by being way cooler than I could have wished for.

8. ...my friend Hopscotch got knocked up and made me squeal with the excitement of it while I was at work. And I am not even a squealy type girl. But for her? Squeeeee!

9. ...I went to see lots of plays and ballets and dance shows. Thank you, job, for allowing me the cashola to do that.

10. ...I sang karaoke and scared my friends with my, um, enthusiasm.

11. ...we inaugurated a Vulcan fly-swatter as President of the You Nighted States.

12. ... I met the newly-born H and J's baby girl who is just a cutey and a half.

13. ... I shopped once again for a winter coat and rain appropriate shoes. FAIL.

14. ... I saw my BFF take a shit sandwich and turn it into a cherry pie. It's amazing to watch someone just be happier, and funnier, and more awesome by the minute. And she did that. And I got to see it.

15. ...I leapt into the 21st century via owning an iPhone. And eating pancakes out of a spray can.

Overall, I think that 2009 sucked for a lot of people. For me, it was a pretty good year. I had some work pressure, and some extended-family-type pressure, and some other various pressures, but I managed to not sweat it too much. I mean, I did sweat it some, but just the appropriate amount of sweatage. I then got back to more important things like doing silly dances and making up crazy songs, hanging out with my homies who always treat me with kindness, and hugging on my loverman until his eyes bug out. Priorities, dontcha know.

Happy New Year, everyone. I hope your 2009 didn't hurt too much and that 2010 kisses you right on the mouth.