Amid all those Oh-My-Wonderful-Sainted-Beautiful-Mother posts today, I thought I’d throw something together for the rest of us, who give out of obligation, not love.
life
46 posts
This spill…was special.
I knew I was in trouble after I’d spent ten minutes crawling around on concrete in the 25 degree weather, in the icy breeze blowing off the lake, looking for a tooth that may, at one time, have been in my mouth, without success. The part of brain not in crisis mode and still well-acquainted with my Girl Scout training said, “Say, I understand you’re concerned about spitting out mouthfuls of blood but do you think you should still be on the ground in icy weather when you might be going into shock? I mean, don’t you think your dentist could just make you a new tooth, if need be?” This is the part of my brain that likes to sprawl on a ledge overseeing the panic neurons as it relaxes with a glass of Riesling.
Oh my god. We really can’t believe that we’re standing up here, talking to all of you people. We’ve worked so hard and we’ve failed so much so that, we’re sorry for tearing up. We really are! It’s just, we’re so happy right now. We mean, obviously we have to thank the Academy for rewarding us with this great achievement that all of the other nominees deserved just as much. Go you! Go you! We’re all winners, even if we’re the ones with the statue. Oh! We’re just a little hot up here (fans selves). This is just so exciting! We came from a small town without the support of anyone but screw you all now! Screw you all! We made it and you’re watching us on television right now! We made it! We made it. (softer) We made it. And it’s all because we believed. We believed in our writers. We believed in our producers. We believed in the little people that make this all happen and, of course, we believed in God because He’s the one that gave us all this talent and He’s the one that’s opened up the doors so that we could share it, not only with everyone in this room, but with everyone in the world. (raises trophy above head) We did it!
Continue reading
Confession: I am the laziest female you will ever meet. There are a bunch of reasons for this, some more valid than others, but the point remains: Like the honey badger, I am a sleepy fuck.
I’m not a tomboy. I’m not some gross hobo living on Lower Wacker. I still want to look good, but I just don’t want to have to try. At all. So, I’ve developed a regimen. It’s not exactly the regimen of a Real Housewife of Orange County, but nor is it that of that creepy girl Karen in 10th grade who didn’t wear deodorant and had bits of old food on her sweater all the time. Continue reading
Good morning little birds! Oh dear, oh me, oh my! You’re all covered in residue from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. And on Earth Day too! We’ve got to get you cleaned up, but we’re all out of Dawn™ or whatever detergent is the one that has those commercials of workers cleaning ducks. Covered in black gold on Earth Day! Oh dear, oh me, oh my! Let’s get clean with Joseph:
There! All clean! You’re no longer an endangered species! We’ve saved you! But because you’re all such individuals, maybe you are endangered. We know for sure that LaZiguezon is endangered. That Canadian weather, man! We don’t think we could handle it and we live in Southwest Ontario*! Anyways, it’s Life, Death and Violence™, America’s number one source for environmental journalism** and jokes about The French™. Oh, the French™! And on this day, the anniversary of the greatest environmental tragedy ever perpetuated on the world by those smarmy English®, we bring you people and events that matter to their sworn enemies for all time, no matter what any treaty says! That’s right, we’re talking about The French™ so surrender your seriousness and grab a baguette, we’ve gotta get going or we’ll miss the last bus to Giverny! France shuts down on Good Friday (they’re good Catholics, well, the France we romanticize is), so we’re going to talk about what happened yesterday! OMGSHUTUPLETSGO
LA VIE!
(En ce qui entre parenthèses est absolument vide de sens)
Michel Rolle: 1652: That hair! So French™! A mathematician, which explains the adult onset acne*** (or is that supposed to be scruff?), he developed Rolle’s Theorem which states that “a differentiable function which attains equal values at two distinct points must have a point somewhere between them where the first derivative (the slope of the tangent line to the graph of the function) is zero” or f'(c)=0. He also hated calculus, which isn’t surprising since Wikipedia says he deserves to be credited with the invention of Gaussian elimination which stems from Newton’s notes and Newton invented calculus. J’accuse Rolle! J’accuse! The French™! Always at war with The English®! There is no known portrait of Rolle. Newton slashed them all****.
Michel Rolle: 1652: That hair! So French™! A mathematician, which explains the adult onset acne*** (or is that supposed to be scruff?), he developed Rolle’s Theorem which states that “a differentiable function which attains equal values at two distinct points must have a point somewhere between them where the first derivative (the slope of the tangent line to the graph of the function) is zero” or f'(c)=0. He also hated calculus, which isn’t surprising since Wikipedia says he deserves to be credited with the invention of Gaussian elimination which stems from Newton’s notes and Newton invented calculus. J’accuse Rolle! J’accuse! The French™! Always at war with The English®! There is no known portrait of Rolle. Newton slashed them all****.- 1774: Jean Baptiste-Biot: Watch out everyone! Rocks can fall from the sky at any moment! Not only that, they’ve been sent this way by aliens! Three run homer for the Orion Warriors! And The French™! They believed him! Meteorites are now considered scientific fact as opposed to sports history, which, really is a shame, because the Warriors went all the way that year for the first time in a lightyear*****.
- Jean-Baptiste, and how could he not be French with that smug face, also participated in the world’s very first hot air balloon ride! Is anyone shocked by the fact that the French conquered hot air? Anyways, he rode with some gay guy named Lussac. They talked about physics, if you know what we mean.
- He also studied polarization which gave us LCD televisions and camera filters. Bow to your French master. He lived in Paris, he died in Paris. He knew how fucking magnets worked.
1774: Jean Baptiste-Biot: Watch out everyone! Rocks can fall from the sky at any moment! Not only that, they’ve been sent this way by aliens! Three run homer for the Orion Warriors! And The French™! They believed him! Meteorites are now considered scientific fact as opposed to sports history, which, really is a shame, because the Warriors went all the way that year for the first time in a lightyear*****.1972: Gwendal Peizerat: Listen Gwendy, ice dancing is not a sport. No matter how many medals you win (silver at Nagano, gold at Salt Lake), no matter how much the Olympics tries to legitimize it, ice dancing is not a sport. Couldn’t you have been a figure skater like your cousin****** Jean? He never amounted to anything, but at least he had some athleticism!
- All you have is jazz and a pretty face, Fabio. You’re from Bron for chrissakes. You couldn’t do something more befitting of the Brawny paper towel guy? Oh, you don’t know who that is, Fabio? Of course you don’t. Get back to your theatrics, pretty boy. I’m sure the high school quarterback is really as interested in you as you want him to be. We’re sure he is.
- Anyways, we’re sure that after your “career” is over you can sell fake butter and be on romance novel covers. Oh wait, that job’s already taken by actor slash model Fabio! Dance away Gellert Grindelwald. Dance into the sunset and do your French thing. We don’t care.
LA MORT!
(La mort est tout sauf féminin, à moins, bien sûr, il est le résultat d’une cession)
- 1142: Pierre Abélard: Peter was a sexxxy theologian who is famous for sexxxing sexxxy French nun*******Héloïse. With all those accents and umlauts, how couldn’t he find her attractive? They met at the Notre Dame (the Parisian one) and it was love at first sight. She with her deep knowledge of classical letters in Greek, Latin and, oh!, HEBREW and him with his ability to spout theology and philosophy to thousands at once! Oh! Le petit mort! How couldn’t they be together? But, oh, it wasn’t to last. After one particular petit mort, Héloïse’s womb grew and grew until out popped a baby boy named Astrolabe (who would later become the inspiration for the Japenese AstroBoy********)
- To appease her uncle, they married secretly, so as not to harm Peter’s Important Man Career™. The uncle, j’accuse!, announced the marriage publicly and after Pierre sent Héloïse to a convent, Fulbert, the uncle, castrated him! He castrated him! Why? Because he thought Pierre wanted to be rid of Héloïse who was then forced to become a nun and write letters saying how sad she was because all she ever wanted to do was be a can can dancer at the Moulin Rouge which hadn’t even been built yet which is probably why Fulbert was always so confused by his niece. She spouted crazy talk. Witch? Maybe that’s why she was forced to be a nun. She was a witch*********.
- 1699: Jean Racine: He wrote plays at the same time as Moliere and was considered one of the Big Three. Unlike Moliere, he wrote tragedies. He drank too much and died of liver cancer. Obviously, the following video is all that needs to be said of Jean:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hXzKnVgMdU
LE VIOLENCE!
(Dans lequel je suis pas par des traducteurs)
- 1809: Battle of Eckmühl: Oh, it’s on. It’s on like Donkey Kong! BANG! POW! SHOOT EM UP! Napoleon took control of the horribly named “Campaign of 1809” after having to, oh my god le grande mort, retreat eleven days earlier after a surprise attack when the war began. However, Napoleon didn’t know that the French garrison of Ratibone had fallen to the Austrians and inadvertently gave the remaining Austrian calvalry (since he killed about a third of Austria’s army) a route to escape. Damn Austrians. Why can’t you just let The French™ have what’s theirs!? Oh, because it’s not? Oh, well, that seems fair. You go on with your bad selves. Bee tee dubs, Napoleon the Short (ohmahgawdguyzthatssowittyandoriginal) showed up and rotated the entire French army with his mere presence. Now, that’s a leader!
D’AURES TRUCS SYMPA QUI S’EST PASSÉ AUJOUD’HUI!
(Certains cela n’a rien à voir avec le français)
- 753: OMG NEW AND IMPROVED! Twins found Rome™! Rome™ conquers France sometime later.
- 33: OMG BETRAYAL! Judas betrays his buddy for some silver. The French™ go cuckoo for the buddy sometime later.
- 1519: OMG SHINY! French neighbor’s Spanish son Hernan lands in Veracruz and begins slaughtering everyone due to his gold-lust. The Aztec™ never saw it coming until sometime later.
- 1898: OMG WAR! The United States (patent pending), with land purchased sometime before by The French™, declare that they’re at war with Spain! The Spanish find out sometime later
- 1910: OMG A COMET! It flies over France and the rest of the world, too, we guess, but mainly France.
- 1910: OMG SAD! Comedian Mark Twain, born under a comet, on land originally owned by The French™ sometime before the Louisiana Purchase, dies under the same comet that flies over France and, we guess, Connecticut, but mainly France.
- 1952: OMG SECRETARIES! It’s Secretaries Day! Canadian fellow David Rakoff has a story about how when he was an assistant at a publishing company, he and all the other assistants would take the day off so as not to be confused as secretaries. These shenanigans would obviously go over well with the class obsessed French.
- 1994: OMG ASTRONOMY! How many Poles does it take to find an extrasolar planet? Just one! Aleksander Wolszczan! Poland is near France (sort of, not really) and we know that the aliens on extrasolar planets are just goo goo for French cinema. We just know it!
You know what? Fuck The French™. We always liked American boys better. See you on Tuesday, birds, for more historical accuracy. We’re outta here (until Photo Phriday. Stop by that!)!
*Southwest Ontario is what we call Detroit. Mainly because of Tim Horton’s and hockey.
**Life, Death and Violence is not and has never been America’s number one source for environmental journalism.
***People who study mathematics are no more likely to get adult onset acne than people who study, say, business.
****Mr. Newton is not responsible for the absence of any portrait of Mr. Rolle.
*****We are aware a lightyear is a measure of distance, not a measure of time.
******We have no proof that Mr. Peizerat has a figure skating cousin named Jean.
*******Héloïse did not become a nun until after the culmination of her affair with Pierre. This obviously diminishes how sexxxy they were together.
********Mr. Astrolabe is not the inspiration for AstroBoy.
*********Ms. Héloïse was not a witch. She was a very nice person by all accounts who found herself in a bad situation.
Dorky songs on your workout playlist! C’mon, we all have them.
What’s on your workout list?
If you’ve read my article about me boxing, you know I get INTO that shit. I like songs that pump up and kick ass.
Tops on my list:
- The Theme to Rocky. Of course. Because that’s the Nor’Easter running past you, through Queens, on her way to Philadelphia, where I’m going to run up those steps someday.
- “Eye of the Tiger” — the Survivor Version and the Gloria Gaynor version
- “I Will Survive” — speaking of Ms. Gaynor
- “We’re Not Gonna Take It” — Twisted Sister. Because I’m not going take it. I’m going to punch you, mofo.
- “Cum On Feel the Noize” — Quiet Riot. Yeah, I said Quiet Riot. Not Slade.
- “Theme to St. Elmo’s Fire” — because I am where the Eagles are flying, higher and higher
- “Straight Outta Compton’ — N.W.A. I could not be less outta Compton. I am a white woman from the suburbs of Boston. But I wrap up my hands and throw punches to this sweet ditty, I am gangsta.
- “Back in the Saddle” — Aerosmith. Because I am Boston girl, and I would love to play horsie with Steven Tyler.
I’m sorry, was that last one out loud?
Sometimes the subways melt together, fuse, split apart and rise again, utterly different. Sometimes it happens slowly, and sometimes it happens in the course of a single stop.
Sometimes, Manhattan’s fabled street grid shifts, or tilts, making north become east and east become south.
My brain doesn’t accept direction, or distance, or shapes, or numbers the way most people’s brains do. In most people, there is an instinctual sense of direction. In me, there is not. I’m learning disabled in spatial relationships, affecting how I deal with things in space and time, and how I process non-verbal information. I can’t tell my left from my right unless I’m wearing my watch, which I understand, because I’ve memorized this fact, is on my left wrist. Even then, I have to think about it for a second. This was the main reason I didn’t learn to drive until I was twenty-two, after failing one drivers’ test and then getting a good word from a State Trooper friend whose barracks regularly got cookies from me in my reporting days.
The constant flogging from teachers and parents when it came to my math problems: You’re not trying hard enough. You’ve got to pay attention. I didn’t understand how crying at my desk wasn’t trying hard enough. It started with the shoes — all my classmates in first grade could tie their laces. I was still figuring it out in third grade. Thank God the mid-eighties Velcro trend kicked in. That only helped if I could put the damn things on the proper foot. Even now, at thirty-seven, I mark all my boots with a Sharpie so the left one doesn’t go on the right.
The problems were not officially noticed until I was in my second round of pre-algebra in high school. The teacher was your classic arithmetic teacher with chalk dust covering his pants and crooked glasses on his end of his nose kind of person and found it unusual that the editor of the high school paper was in the same math classes as the kids who showed up twice a week. I was sent to the school shrink (hysterically named Dr. Brain) who sat me down and asked me to put a simple puzzle of an elephant together.
I couldn’t do it.
“I don’t know how you’ve gotten this far,” he said. I was about to enter my senior year of high school, too late for remedial training, unless the school system kept me back a year. I had already been accepted to Emerson College, which openly said it did not care about a journalism major’s math scores.
I’ve learned to get around. I plot a trip to the mall like a Marine launching an offensive in Afghanistan. I play word association games to remember my parking spaces. (Section F is for a FANTASTIC space!) I make friends with mannequins upon mall entry, remembering their outfits as my entry/exit points. I go out of my way to use, say, the escalator by the tacky indoor waterfall to help remember my route through the retail wasteland, since the mall maps mean nothing to me. I feel my way though like a firefighter in a building filled with thick smoke, searching by hand, by touch, for The Body Shop.
I have gotten lost in giant Targets and Walmarts, desperately pawing through knockoff handbags for whomever may be my shopping companion. My mother still thinks it’s a riot to move her carriage over a few aisles and see if I’ll figure it out. We’ll see who’s laughing when Nursing Home Time comes.
At home, I foolishly refuse to accept my limitations, attempting to assemble cheap furniture and managing to put it together upside down and backwards. My husband, ever kind and patient, takes it apart and assembles it properly.
You’ll probably see me, the only person in Manhattan taking a compass out of her bag to figure out where she is in Midtown. Or maybe confused in a hospital, lost going to the doctor I’ve seen dozens of times. Or maybe in my own neighborhood, somewhat discombobulated having gotten off at the wrong subway exit and launched myself south instead of north. You’ll see me in a restaurant, using a tip calculator on my Blackberry to figure out a twenty percent tip on a ten dollar bill. I might show up for work when I’m not scheduled, because I have trouble absorbing the spreadsheet grid that spells out the shifts. Don’t laugh. Don’t yell. I’ll get it.
I’ll get there.
Well it looks like everyone is having a pretty shitty day out there. Let’s try to to spread a little cheer to everyone feeling like crap tonight. Here is some happy stuff to get us started. Continue reading
Good morning my little birds and Happy Tuesday! You know, we’ve been feeling like this thing has been going in the wrong direction. More crass than sass, if you get the gist, so on today’s program, we’re going back to basics. Now, that’s a very broad statement, so we must ask ourselves, what do we mean by that? We don’t want to rehash past glories and we certainly don’t want to offend anyone with our blatant inaccuracies, poor judgments and crude jokes (this is, after all, the column that once quipped ‘Remember that group of anti-Nazi protesters whose members were arrested last week, The White Rose? Yeah, they were executed.’), but, honestly, we think there’s too much hot boy. It’s distracting! That’s not to say that we are discontinuing the Life, Death and Violence Crush Object™, but we will be taking a break from the male models for a hot second and going back to that boy we all know and love. That’s right, birds, he’s back:
Hi. Wow — I can’t believe I’m here. I never thought it would get this bad. But I’m here. I have to admit it.
My name is Eddie L, and I have a problem. I can’t turn away from Farmville. It calls to me. My herd of black sheep. The penguins I keep in a pen with my turkeys, even though I know that’s ecologically unsound. I ignore logic and believe I can grow both pomegranate and potato, even though they require opposite climates. I reap, reap, reap Nature’s digital bounty, even though I never rotate my crops and I know I am creating another Dust Bowl. I have abandoned logic!
So, I have come to you, Farmville Addicts Anonymous, for help.
Shall we begin?
I admit I am powerless over my addiction – that my life has become unmanageable
Like I said, my name is Eddie L., and I wish to acknowledge I am a Farmville Addict. I am powerless over the demon call of Farmville. I admit my life is unmanageable, because my life consists only of selling off my pen of pigs in Farmville.
I believe a power greater than myself can return me to sanity
Spock. It must be Spock. Spock was always the creature I turned to for guidance in this wacky world – before my motley collection of cows and horses and reindeer and ducks took over my life. I used to be a Classic Dork – not a Farm-obsessed freak. What would Spock, that pointy-eared lover of all that is orderly – say about Farmville? He would say it is not logical. I bow to you, Spock.
I am making a decision to turn my life over to a higher power
I am all yours, Spock.
I will make a searching and fearless moral inventory of myself
The only question here is what character flaw led me down the path into Farmville, a delightful place with a no-place-like-home farmhouse and a well-cared for chicken coop of happy hens. Why do I so desire to grow apple trees, yet have no desire to dirty my hands or actually sweat?
I must admit to a higher power, myself, and another human the exact nature of my wrongs
Spock, there is no doubt. I have behaved terribly. If I can say that to Spock, I can say it myself. I am doing so here. I would like to confess my sins to my wife, but I don’t remember what she looks like. Perhaps if I leave the Man-Room, where the computer is kept, I can find some wedding pictures to refresh my memory.
I must be ready to ask a higher power to remove these defects of character.
I am ready for my Mind Meld, Mr. Spock.
I must make a list of all those I have harmed, and be willing to make amends to them. I must make said amends
First off, there is the wife. I understand she lives, still, somewhere in this home. I’ve been told, via text message, that she wears earplugs all day long to block out the sound of Farmville music, which grates upon her very soul. Darling, the music will stop. And I will take you out! Perhaps to a — those places where they sell already cooked food for human consumption? I can’t remember what they’re called.
I also wish to make amends to your cat, Eleanor Roosevelt Rigby. I’ve been so obsessed with faux animals that I forgot we have a real living furry creature here at home! How exotic! I think it’s the poo. The Farmville animals don’t poo. Eleanor does. I don’t like poo. But I will learn to live with it. Poo is the price of love.
I will continue to examine my shortcomings and admit when I’m wrong.
Honey, you are always right. Always.
I will seek through meditation the peace and guidance that comes from a higher power
Spock, I beg of you to not abandon me. Perhaps Captain Jean-Luc Picard can offer some guidance. Please, make it so.
Having had a Dork Awakening through these dozen steps, I will spread the word to other addicts, and tell them there is help.
Spock will help you, too. Or perhaps your Spock are the Golden Girls. Hello Kitty? Or Curious George. It matters not. Take off the overalls. Turn away from Farmville. There are real, living creatures out there. You may be married to one of them! There is hope.
My name is Eddie L, and I am powerless over the lure of Farmville.