Thanksville

Happy Thanksgiving America!

Since it’s Thanksgiving, I should say that I am thankful that the raging eye socket headache I’ve had since yesterday finally appears to be fading. I was starting to think the only sure-fire way to remove it was with a hammer and a large spike. Or maybe a Mel Gibson, Sugartits-strength bender.

Curing an eye headache with a hangover though, seems counter productive. In the end I blitzed it with muttered threats and a vat of industrial strength Tylenol. And a Diet Pepsi. That is key.

Other things I am thankful for today:

- Bath & Body Works have a “Buy three, get three free” sale going on, which means I can get about seven million (ok, six) tubes of my favourite Black Raspberry Vanilla body cream for about thirty bucks instead of about $80. Woo! I might be insane but I smell delicious.

- Some people love me despite the fact I am a grade A idiot.

- My mum sending me parcels of tiny Japanese glass animals and chocolate.

- The Flight Control App. on my iPod. If you saw me on it you’d be thanking your lucky stars I’m not a real air traffic controller.

- All you lovely people.

Don’t you feel better already? Have a fun holiday, or if you’re not here in the States, hey, it’s almost the weekend.

November: Now With Stuff

Because I'm bored and somewhat kind of heart, (and totally lazy) here is a little repost from a couple of years ago that I wrote in honour of November, which tends to be a bit of a nothingy month.  I never do reposts and usually I’m sort of staunchly against them but hey, whatever.  I made a few edits, therefore, it’s almost new. 

You can pay me later. I accept food stamps and naked photos.

• According to Morrissey and his fey hair, November "spawned a monster in the shape of this child"! I wonder if Morrissey was born in November because, if so it would go a ways to explaining THIS photo of someone's dad going to the Bingo Hall Social.
  
  
• November 5th, we Brits celebrate "Guy Fawkes Night". Mr. Fawkes was some dude who, with a bunch of Catholics, tried to blow up parliament with gunpowder, back in the olden days and given the fact he had a ton of it he failed miserably and ended up executed by the Protestants.
  
  I imagine the night of the "incident" went something like this.
  "Are these gunpowder kegs in position? Yes? OK then. Light the thingy then on the count of 'one' run like your knackers are on fire. Which they will be if you don't pay attention to that last point! Wait... What do you mean you 'didn't bring any matches?'"
  
  Now we remember his "lack of win" by letting off fireworks, roasting marshmallows on a bonfire and setting scarecrows on fire. Don't knock it till you've tried it.
  
  
• Allegedly, it is somewhat customary for humans of the male persuasion in Melbourne, Australia to grow a big, furry moustache during the month of November. This is apparently known as "Movember" for "moustache" and "November".
  
  
• In Finland, November is celebrated as "Month of the Dead". That's a whole month of death. Take that Mexico. And let me tell you from the experience of one particularly blurry night in Helsinki, the Fins know how to throw a fucking celebration. Those people drink like prohibition is just over the horizon and barrelling towards them at the speed of light. And I'm from Scotland so you know, don't go thinking the irony of that statement is lost on me! So ..don't go to Finland in November. As well as your balls freezing off you're liable to get iced in another way. Just saying.
  
  
• In Croatia, November is known as "studeni" which apparently means "cold one". I'm not sure if they are referencing the weather, Betty Draper, a stiff (Hi Finland!) or they want another hit of Karlovačko. Regarding Karlovačko? I imbibed that very Croatian beer while sitting in a square in Split once (at least I think it was square, it was spinning a lot at the time). For two days afterwards I thought I was the Russian prime minister. That stuff is dangerous. They say it's only twelve percent proof, but twelve percent of what, that's what I want to know..
  
  
• November is the most boring month of the year because I can find almost nothing interesting that happened during it, probably because everyone's getting either hammered or murdered. Even Wikipedia was like, "Dude, that is SO all I have, go find a life or something, please!"

All this stupidity however, is cancelled out by the mere fact that November is the month of my birth and so to all you fellow November babies of awesomeness, I dedicate this to you.

You Don’t Know What It’s Like (To Love Somebody)

Hi! I seem to have had a busy week not being here. But things are calmer now. Personal projects are complete. I have relaxed by eating Havarti cheese. And acquiring a giant appreciation for the Bee Gees. You heard me right, don’t look at me like that.

I know I make fun of the Bee Gees sometimes. It’s so easy. That hair. Those pants. Those voices that sound like they’re being forcibly sodomized by a scalding hot tire iron. But I like the Bee Gees. I like their quirky, catchy, retro, goddamn cheesy songs. They’re infectious like the plague. I wish I'd been a dazzling 18 year old disco diva back in 1976, resplendent in sparkly gold lame so I could strut my funky thang to the Bee Gees in some palm frond decorated, Miami discotheque.

You can quote me on that. Sniff. I was born too late.

The thing is, I feel it’s my right to tell you all that the Bee Gees are ok. Really they are. Don’t fear the Bee Gees. Step into the light. You need to get their Greatest Hits album and play it in heavy rotation till your ears bleed, especially when doing mundane tasks. It makes sticking a marigold-gloved hand down the toilet seem like a pleasure when somewhere behind you, the brothers Gibb are shrieking “You win again!” It’s like they’re huddled by the door frame going “You go girl! You blitz the stains off that porcelain! You turn that water blue with a fresh stick-on! You get that brush down there and twirl!” Your own personal bathroom cheer squad.

Maybe lock them out for a while when you’re pinching a loaf or something though…

Making dinner is so much less a chore when you can swig a cold beer and have the Bee Gees ask “How Deep is Your Love?” When things get hard you know it’s going to be ok because the Bee Gees know all about “Tragedy” but they’re “Stayin’ Alive” and so can you. (well except that one Bee Gee who didn’t manage to stay alive, but no method is foolproof).

Rest assured though, when the Bee Gees tell you “You should be dancin’ yeah!” you should be fucking well dancing! Don’t mess with the Bee Gees man, the Bee Gees will cut you. Don't be fooled by the gold lycra and open chest shirts, they will FUCK. YOU. UP.

What’s “Jive Talking” about though? Can you really think of three whiter boys to be talking about jive talking? But the Bee Gees pull it off with aplomb. Talent like that doesn’t come around every day. Embrace it. Love the Bee Gees!

Veggie out.

The Entry With No Name

Yesterday was Veteran’s Day and to many of us, apart from remembering the troops, that meant a holiday. I decided to spend it the way a holiday ought to be spent – sleeping late and polishing my poppy and going back to sleep.

It was a plastic poppy. From the gas station during a trip up north...


Things I have learned this week:


1) There is such a thing as too much chocolate.

2) If you’re not careful it is possible to unknowingly attach a club lock to a steering wheel in such a way that it slightly depresses the horn which in turn seriously depresses several of your neighbours when it proceeds to blast on and off all night resulting in a drained battery the next day and possibly many livid glares. Oops.

3) It is possible to find a soy based veggie burger that doesn’t taste like shit.

4) The new version of the old sci-fi eighties’ series “V” is jaw droppingly awful. Let me try to put it into words for you. It’s like when a hot band of pain flashes across your belly all of a sudden and you know you’ve eaten something bad and you groan and you rub your belly and you clear a path to the bathroom just in case your innards think about becoming outards while sweat starts to trickle from your hairline onto your clammy forehead and you can’t sit still because the pain feels like there’s a diseased elf filled with malice jabbing your gut repeatedly with a hot scythe, while his little accomplice bastard sits behind you kicking you hard in the lower back with steel-toe capped boots, and you feel queasy and uncomfortable and achey, and the bile is rising in your esophagus, ready to burst forth at any second in a fountain of puke, so you get up, breathing heavily and you clutch your abdomen and you hobble, painfully, slowly, muttering and grimacing towards the bathroom, tearing your pants off in blind panic and throwing yourself on the mercy of the porcelain throne and you sit there, sweating, aching, blasting noxious, toxic gases from your bum, aware suddenly that you were too panicked to close the door and now there’s a crowd of ten people you invited round for drinks, including your boss, all gathered around the bathroom door staring at you, anxiously inquiring if you’re ok, while you’re butt naked on the toilet and you think, “Nothing can be worse than this moment.”? 

Yeah, well watch “V”. Surprise!

5) Lastly: Haiku are fun so go see Hunter over at Time Crook as he wrote a great car related entry filled with haiku, a few of which I even contributed, so go on over and check it out and while you’re there check out his whole blog because it’s full of dry humour, poignant thoughts and the sort of general awesomeness I can never hope to aspire to.

Container Madness

I’ve been in the mood for a spot of spring cleaning lately. And before you point out the obvious, “But it’s AUTUMN!” - well yes, you would be correct, but it’s more the principle I’m going for, not the season.

Not that I have a lot of stuff to organize – I have mercifully few things but somehow I still need to get them encased in their own private accommodations with miscellaneous containers and things. I’m obsessed with containers. They’re like a sweet drug I can’t turn my back on. You can keep your hash cakes and your Ecstasy – just point me in the direction of somewhere with a fine array of containers and I’ll be high as a kite all day.

Well maybe save me ONE cake. For old time’s sake.

I can find a use for any container. So long as it’s functional and relatively cute. Cute is necessary. You don’t want an ugly container cluttering up your apartment do you? That is counter productive to any organizing Mecca.

I’m not above making my own containers either. Coffee tins are particularly good for painting up all fancy and keeping stuff in. It’s recycling! So long as you don’t mind your stuff smelling like coffee, you’re golden.

So anyway, I take a little trip to the dollar store. I know I mention the dollar store all the time and you all think I probably live in the goddamn dollar store but I don’t. I just go there for;
a) striped socks in offensive colours
b) cheap paint of undetermined origin
c) containers – all things you hate paying real money for.

They have all sorts of containers that make me drool on myself because I lose control of all bodily functions when my eyes glimpse all that shiny, multi-coloured plastic everywhere in all shapes and sizes. I start to twitch and mutter and I realize how those five, lucky golden-ticket winners in “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” must’ve felt upon entering Willy Wonka’s candy factory. Just like when I was sixteen and I’d practically pass out with ecstasy at lines and lines of vinyl records lined up in my local record store.

Now I’m getting the vapours from containers. This is a sad development. Yet oddly pleasing.

Detouring back to the Dollar Store for a moment here though. The Dollar Store has a food section and I find this slightly alarming. Really, who buys food from the Dollar Store? There has to be a reason it’s a dollar, surely, and that reason can seldom be good. If there’s a steak in the Dollar Store fridge, it’s probably never been destined for the menu at any classy restaurant. It probably has the cooties and came from a rat or something. I don’t know and truthfully, I don’t want to dwell on it too much. Don’t get me wrong though, I’ll let myself buy a big bar of chocolate or something for a dollar. I mean how bad can that be? A giant Milky Way for a buck? Sign me up.

But back to the containers. I have them all commissioned instantly. “You would be great for my paints, you would be good for pens, you would fit my measly make up supplies and you would hold my laundry!” I am triumphant in my delegations. I am all delighted with myself. More than usual even.

Don’t even get me started on the Container Store…

Paranormal Activity in my Gut

I woke up this morning ravenous. This almost never happens as I need to be alert to be hungry and being alert generally takes most of my day. I can perform tasks for hours before I’d classify myself as actually alert. I have auto pilot. I have zombie efficiency. So it was a surprise to find my belly growling like a Satanic demon.

And a shock since I went to bed feeling like I was housing the entire world’s food surplus in my belly. I got all social last night and went for a dinner of junk food type deliciousness, which is always a damn fine treat, and which included a grilled cheese sandwich and sweet potato fries all healthily cancelled out by a giant Diet Pepsi. When I’d done I felt like there was possibly a full grown human curled up in my gut. Or at least the Olson Twins.

All this munching turned out to be a huge mistake as I went to the movies afterwards and it was some half price Tuesday nonsense, which sounds like a really good thing doesn’t it? Except it’s not really half price at all. It’s full price but you get a free popcorn and a giant free soda with your ticket. Which I didn’t know. Or particularly want after a belly full of awesome. I don’t even like popcorn much and I didn’t eat any of it. Really the half price ticket would’ve been a much better deal, you fuckers. This is the great thing about smaller inconspicuous states like North Dakota. They have cheap awesomeness up the wazoo.

I forgave them though because I got such a kick out of the movie. (“Paranormal Activity”) I’d seen so many reviews and I’d read all the hype and I thought “Well OBVIOUSLY it’s going to be a letdown because all hyped moves are!” but you know what? It wasn’t. I thought it was better than expected by quite a bit. And it’s a long time since I’ve gone to bed at night totally creeped out.

 In fact, it was scarier after the movie than during even. I like stuff that starts off really slow and unremarkable and gradually builds. The entire first half I was thinking “This is creepy but not really scary.” Then the last half hour happened. Holy fuck. The last minute or so almost gave me palpitations. I loved how there’s this crazy, tense, shock of a last scene then the movie just ends with no credits or anything and the lights come on and everyone’s just sitting there shell shocked.

Wicked!

I guess if you like your scary movies full of implausible slasher super killers, blood, gore, torture and predictable cliches (how many times can we see the whole ‘girl closes bathroom cabinet to see nasty entity in mirror’ thing?) you won’t like PN but if you like slow building, realistic, gets under your skin creepiness, you’ll probably love it like I did.

And I woke up every hour to check there was no one standing at the side of the bed watching me sleep, because if there was it’s possible I’d be on the news today for setting a new world speed record for sprinting.

Toot toot!

PB&J

I almost missed daylight savings altogether as my head thought it was all going down next week and, as always, I assumed it knew best.  Let’s hope my head never plans a bank heist. 

It was ok in the end though.  I got some extra sleep and managed to get up this morning without having an internal struggle, probably due to my small pea brain’s confusion.  Maybe I’ll make a morning person yet? 

Still, it might have messed with me in other ways.  For instance, it’s not even 9:30am now and I can’t concentrate on what I’m doing because I’m already fixated on the idea of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.  But it’s much too early to be thinking of such things.  It’s coffee and granola bar time really.  One doesn’t screw with societal convention.  Although I already eat breakfast food for dinner because I’m a rebel of society so this shouldn’t really be a great stretch.

Peanut butter and jelly together are two of life’s little pleasures.  A simple delight and a sticky one but sometimes those are the best kind.  Growing up in a country not bred on such mixtures, I was the lime in a bowl full of lemons as a kid because I was weaned on a strict diet of cheesy American TV shows and knew two things from an early age;  if you were anyone at all you ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and you drank root beer, two concepts so foreign to me they sounded almost exotic.  I’d never tried either. 

I eventually tasted root beer as a kid, during a family vacation to the States, during a heat wave, and after braving what seemed to be a 300 day wait in line at a cafe at the Statue of Liberty. When my dad asked what my drink of choice was I excitedly asked for root beer.  Because I was in the know with the cool kids. I was practically American goddamn it. I was fucking COOL. 

I took one sip of that root beer and pulled a face that suggested maybe someone had accidentally fed me a cup of salted duck guts. “What is THIS?” I said, disgusted.  “It tastes like hospitals!” 

To this day I can’t touch root beer.  Stuff is just NASTY.  People are just devoted to it and I can’t figure out why.  Unless they had some unfortunate taste-bud killing disease…

The peanut butter and jelly sandwich however did not let me down.  In fact, in my late teens my sister and I and some mutual friends used to frequent a local indie club together once a week. This meant drinking copious amounts of “Snakebites” (beer and cider mixed into a lethal pint-sized cocktail of extreme danger and flavoured mildly, in our case, with a splash of blackcurrant) and grabbing a taxi home in the wee small hours then trying not to wake my mum upon arrival with our rubber-limbed attempts at making a snack REALLY QUIETLY BUT NOT REALLY QUIETLY.

We were always ravenous and about as drunk as Nick Nolte at a titty bar. My mum could always assess our level of drunkenness in the morning by the debris we left in the kitchen at 4 am.  If there were cheese gratings we were coordinated enough to work the grill and make grilled cheese sandwiches – nectar of drunken bums everywhere.  However, if we were really incoherent and giggling, there’d be a peanut butter jar, a jelly jar and a half uneaten loaf and she’d know we couldn’t quite fire on enough cylinders to deal with actually cooking something.  On those mornings she took extra care to be noisy.  Who said mothers have no sense of humour?