may contain trace quantities of nuts

when i said i loved california, i didn’t mean the people 4/15/2005

yes, i know it’s friday, and it’s sunny out and the birdies are tweeting and the pretty flowers are in bloom and we’re all young and beautiful and live in eden out here, and that’s fantastic, but i still have to fucking get to work. friday does something to californians. it kicks their efficiency switches down from ‘hey, no rush’ to ‘hey, there’s still at least 12 hours of daylight left, right?’. friday morning is definitely not the best time to be an impatient further-east-personality-type person trying to get a cup of decaffinated coffee, and not because you LIKE it.

those of us from places like chicago and cleveland and new york, im assuming, understand the purpose of a coffee stand, what it serves, how it serves it and, most importantly, what is expected of us, the customer. calfornians, not so much. i stood in line at a coffee stand (not shop, not cafe, coffee STAND, with stale, saran wrapped muffins in a basket next to the cash register) for about fifteen minutes this morning waiting for a fucking cup of decaf as a bunch of all-the-time-in-the-world half-wits hemmed and hawed about what to get on their bagels. most of them were not buying coffee.

the folks ahead of me in particular, stood in line for the same ten minutes i did, right next to the little menu sign nailed to the side of the coffee stand, talking about the wedding the went to over the weekend, how drunk they got at it, how drunk they got at their sisters wedding last year, how drunk they got at their best friend’s wedding a month ago, and how drunk they planned to get tonight. when they got up to the window to order? it went like this:

turd 1: “oh, hey. i’ll have a … uh … what kind are there … *checks sign he’s been standing next to for ten minutes* … a wheat bagel … no, wait, make that a poppyseed one with … uh … *checks sign again* … artichokes and hot peppers on one half, and on the other half … uh … *turns to turd 2* what do you want ?”

turd 2: “i dunno, what do they have ?”

the prince of peace himself would have bitch slapped them.

other people who had already ordered would get bitchy about the fact that their bagels all came with the wrong stupid shit on them. “this bagel has chive-horseradish cream cheese on it, and i ordered bleu!” to their credit, the extremely harried coffee stand workers would just stare them down, not saying anything but “plain. iss plain.” stubbornly holding out the bagel, until the complainer inevitably said “oh, fine. whatever.” and took the plain bagel, with plain cream cheese.

but here’s the point, california. a coffee stand serves coffee. and sometimes stale bagels with little packets of philadelphia that you have to spread yourself. and anyway, bagels are not supposed to wear cranberry compote or fois gras or wheatgrass or any of the other fucked up shit you seem to want to put on them. at a coffee stand? order a plain fucking bagel with some plain fucking cream chese, so i don’t have to stand behind you for an hour, waiting to order my cup of motherfucking decaf, spending my time pointlessly trying to beam my hatred into a cranium you clearly don’t have. seriously.

now can i PLEASE have my motherfucking DECAF already? i swear to GOD it’s in everyone’s best interests.

We Are Experiencing Difficult Technicalities 4/6/2005

hello all.

apparently some of you read this silly thing. so to those of you who’ve been wondering, a few things happened last weekendish.

1. We sold our house.
2. We found a new apartment in SF
3. Joe’s colo box had a stroke and died.

in light of numbers 1 and 2, it took a while to get number 3 fixed. additionally, as some of you may or may not be aware, i now work for a fairly big deal website company in their Games & Entertainment division and we have a new site launching the end of may.

so, i *promise* to get to writing snarky little nothings just as soon as my world calms down a tad. certainly by june. unless by then the big one hits and SF sinks into the ocean. that could conceivably push things off until july.

stop smiling, lance.

Damn Your Eyes, Piggy, DAMN YOUR EYES! 6/4/2004

I am a vegeterrible. This means I eat no meat. Generally this is no big deal for me. I never liked hamburgers or steak, even as a little person. I remember chewing the same piece of steak for five full minutes once, until it had the flavor and consistency of cardboard pulp. I tried and tried, but it obstinantly refused to be swallowed, instead clinging grimly to my mouth, making itself less and less welcome.

Hamburgers were no better. When we would have them for dinner, they would seem to me as vast and unconquerable as the mysterious lands west of the Mississippi doubtless must have felt to Lewis and Clark. The first bite would feel like an unmanagable beef boulder clogging up my maw, and as I resolutely set to the sisyphean task of whittling it down to something I could actually swallow, I would gaze at the remaining 62lbs of meat puck on a tough kaiser feeling defeated and hopeless.

Let’s not talk about pot roast. I’m still in therapy.

Even chicken was alarming. Once, at a school pot luck dinner, while picking at a drumstick from the “Gigantoass Bucket” of the Colonel’s deep fried goodness that we always brought to such functions (yes, we were *that* family), a heinous blue vein the size of a hosepipe popped out of the chicken and flibbled maniacally at me like one of those birthday party favors you’re supposed to blow into other people’s faces. I nearly fainted.

But the piggy. Oh, the piggy. Tell me, piggy, if I am not supposed to eat you, why must you taste so extra-fabulously delectible? When I smell bacon or sausages frying, I get angry all over again at you. You have no right! You’d taste like turnips or brussels sprouts if you knew what was good for you, you stupid piggy, but no. You stubbornly insist on smeling like the sweet breath of baby angels and tasting like those sunsets they put on postcards of California. I thought you were supposed to be smarter than that.

In conclusion, piggy, although I am a very strong woman and can resist your succulent charms, not everyone is. And for what will inevitably ensue, piggy, I’d just like you to know I feel you have only yourself to blame. Running around, flaunting your bacon like that, you silly tart, what do you honestly expect?

Divorce 5/20/2004

(11:06:40) floppymuffin150: honey.
(11:06:44) floppymuffin150: hey i have a question for you.
(11:06:52) j03b4llz: ya
(11:06:54) floppymuffin150: dr. peper or mr. pibb?
(11:06:58) j03b4llz: pepper
(11:07:03) floppymuffin150: *sigh*
(11:07:07) j03b4llz: pibb?
(11:07:07) floppymuffin150: i thought you were my soulmate.
(11:07:14) floppymuffin150: pibb.
(11:07:21) j03b4llz: pibb is ghetto
(11:07:27) j03b4llz: like grape soda
(11:07:33) floppymuffin150: i LIKE pibb, you fucker!

Grüß Gott, Öterreich! 4/20/2004

One of the reasons I loved studying Germanistik in college was the sheer, unabashed nuttiness of the Germanic peoples. Once when I lived in Frieburg i. Br. I developed a severe bronchial infection from working too many hours in an unbelievably smoky bar. I went to the doctor with my friend Isabel, who ratted me out to her for leaving the house with wet hair. Being a doctor of nutty Germanic extraction, she glared at me, shouted that I was no longer allowed to leave the house with wet hair, and wapped me in the head to punctuate her order.

To my american brain, it all seemed pretty strange, as infections are caused by either bacteria or viruses as I understood it, and that no amount of water droplets clinging to my hair could transmit a disease, but whatever. I went and picked up my incredibly low-strength antibiotics and bottle of Echinacia tincture and went on my way.

Anyway, while browsing the worldwideweird today, as I do, I ran across further evidence of the <a href=”http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_903083.html?menu=”>abby-normalness </a>of germanic medicine. Enjoy.

Google Queen 4/13/2004

I have a rare talent for finding rare talent on the infobahn. The highlights from this week’s lunch breaks are <a href=”http://www.kilmartin.com/hoaxes/assletter.html”>A Letter to My Ass</a> and <a href=”http://bboard.scifi.com/bboard/browse.cgi/1/5/984/13129″>this posting</a> by a derranged crackhead Farscape fan on the sci-fi channel’s Farscape bb.

Judgements 3/25/2004

There’s a woman who sits across the cube wall from me. She is always talking. She always sounds irritable. She is always bitching. She bitches on the phone to her friends about her husband, she bitches on the phone to her husband about her bank, she bitches to her friends at work about her friends outside work, her husband, her shoes, the contractors, the weather.

She is a very large, unattractive woman with a very large, unattractive voice. Her brain has grown so accustomed to complaining that her voice is kept perpetually in a negative, nasal, whiny gear. Even when she’s not complaining, she sounds like she is. “Where is my pen?” “Have you seen Chuck?” “Is lunch ready yet?” Even innocuous comments are delivered sounding like bitter laments. The sound of her voice stuck in complain is not unlike how I imagine my car would sound if I drove it everywhere in second gear.

One day I heard her on the phone trying to make an appointment for Parent-Teacher meetings at her son’s school. I assume she was on the phone with the school secretary. Her conversation went something like this:

“No, it’s fine with us, whenever his teacher has time is good for us, his father will be going to the meeting.”
[pause as she listens to the person on the other end of the line speak]
“No, his father will go to the meeting, I won’t be able to attend.”
[another pause]
“No, really, no time is inconvenient for us. Whenever she’s free is fine.”
[pause]
“WELL I DON’T SEE HOW HE COULD POSSIBLY HAVE A PROBLEM WITH THE TIME, SEEING AS HE HAS NO JOB AND DOESN’T DO A DAMNED THING ALL DAY LONG.”
[pause]
“Ok, thank you. You have a nice day too.”

She has possibly the largest ass I’ve ever seen and she’s constantly eating. She eats jumbo-sized portions of free lunch, free ice cream, miscellaneous office cake. Some days I wonder how she can cram that monolithic ass into her Herman Miller. This large, loud, whining woman would be very easy to dislike.

However, some days I hear her on the phone to her son. Listening to these phone calls, I hear all the cheer and positivity she’s been hoarding all day being concentrated and poured into the phone to this little boy. Her voice softens in a way you wouldn’t think possible, and she sounds, at last, like a very kind, warm person. A person that I like a great deal.

It’s a strange friendship I have with this woman to whom I never speak at all, but whose every phone call I hear. Cube walls are so flimsy. She’s so loud and unpleasant and I spend a lot of time wishing she’d shut up, but I’m also fond of her in my own way. I am fond of her for the short glimpses of softness she shows to her small child and for being a constant reminder of how pointless it is to assume we know enough about anyone in our office environments to accurately judge their worths as humans.

I Work With Great Big Dorks 3/5/2004

The border between Technologia and Marketingland may seem like a few thin inches of aluminum and polyester blend, but it’s really a chasm miles wide. This is a conversation I just overheard across the cube wall:

dork A: I need some new music, man. Got any suggestions?
dork B: Uh, what do you like to listen to now?
dork A: I *love* Dave Matthews Band. I think they’re fantastic.
dork B: Well, I’ve been listening to Coldplay a lot. Maybe you’d like them.
dork A: Who’s Coldplay?
dork B: They’re this band from Iceland, bro. (Editor’s note: ?!?!?!?!?)
dork A: Oh, weird. What kind of music are they?
dork B: Alternative. Alternative Rock.
dork A: Wow. I’ll keep an ear out for them.
dork B: Yeah. They’re real great.

Life in the Flyover Zone 3/1/2004

Today, March first, the weather out here in Geneva, IL has been as follows:

Storm
Sunny
Storm
Storm
Sunny
Hail
Sunny/Storm

It occurs to me that this will be (weather-wise) only my second spring in the gorgeous Midwest, having previously only lived in the city of Chicago. I had assumed i *was* a midwesterner already. I had assumed the climate would be the same out here fifty miles west of The Big Stench. I was deeply incorrect on both counts. It would seem that the tornados, cyclones, hailstorms and plagues of frogs/locusts that nail the rest of This Fine State with regularity all spring politely skip over Chicago.

thus, i look forward to spending another spring jittering in my basement with a dying flashlight, a dog, a joe and a few bottles of water inhaling the intoxicating radon vapors seeping up from the ground below while waiting for our house to be ripped from above our heads and flung into neighboring mchenry county.

oh yay.

Drama Queens Should Not Have Access to Modern Methods of Communication 2/19/2004

one of my dearest friends in the world, melaina, is a drama queen. she understands this about herself and has mellowed out with age, so it’s not an issue these days so much as it was when we were wee high-school twits. back then, any time she got drunk at my house, the first order of business was to unplug all the phones, take them apart and hide their constituent pieces so she wouldn’t have the opportunity to make a phone call we would all inevitably regret the following day. once, when she was in college, she was at a party where someone had been remiss in their drama-proofing of the apartment, and she found her way to a phone. fortunately, she only had enough time to call her mother and then me (telling us both she had decided she was gay) before she passed out. another time, we were together at a little camp-fire pissup. After drinking the majority of a bottle of southern comfort (as you do), she decided she had to call her boyfriend, and ran off into the forest at night in search of a payphone. she never found one.

however, the lesson remains: drama queens should, under no circumstances, be allowed access to any communication technology while they are experiencing an episode. indeed, this caution is never truer than with a particular subset of the drama-queen, the bitter & jaded.

recently, it has come to our attention that my husband’s ex-girlfriend (as fantastic an example of The Bitter & Jaded Drama Queen as you’re likely to run across) has written a petty little article for an online magazine (apparently the current episode she’s experiencing is a particularly long-lived one). it went something like this:

“my ex-boyfriend is not an individual, he’s a type. a type that didn’t dump me, but that dumped all women. therefore, it’s okay for me to be as derisive, petty and childish as i see fit, because i’m just tellin’ it like it is and speaking on behalf of all women, not me. and anyway, i’m not talking exactly about my ex-boyfriend, i’m just implying it all over the place. i mean, like, my ex-boyfriend is an asshole. and a wimp.”

oh dear.

citizens, it’s up to all of us to protect these poor lasses from themselves. do not lend them your mobile, do not lend them your bandwidth, do not lend them fifty cents to make a phone call until a licensed therapist assures you they are in remission. it is always undignified and embarassing to work out issues in public; they will undoubtedly thank you when they return to sanity.

Suffering Hollywood II 1/28/2004

So, as a little exercise in curiosity, I thought I’d bop over to imdb.com and do a search for movies beginning with either “Chasing” or “Finding.” Here is what I found”
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Pretty Noise 1/22/2004

Listening to “In the Aeroplane Over the Sea” it occurs to me how so many strange and atonal things can be flung together to create such terribly bizarre beauty and sad-happiness.

It is, I flatter myself to think, a perfect musical metaphor for my marriage.

Wedded Bliss 1/16/2004

I love my husband more than I know how to say, I really do. So I hope he doesn’t take it the wrong way when I wonder if he’s getting premature Alzheimers.
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Suffering Hollywood 1/7/2004

I’m going to start a petition to get Hollywood to top using the “Verbing Propernoun” naming convention for movie titles. It drives me fucking nuts.
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A Fine Feminist I’ve Turned Out to Be 1/6/2004

Today, I finally got the courage to weigh myself in order to assess the post-xmas damage.
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