Posts tagged idiot!
Twist Street
Sam Westing, Barney Northrup, Sandy McSouthers, Julian R. Eastman, & Me
I’ve spent the last few days very confused.
I suppose it made sense, when blogging was new, that there was some confusion about voice. Was a blog more like writing or more like speech? Soon it became a contrived and shambling hybrid of the two. The “sort ofs” and “reallys” and “ums” and “you knows” that we use in conversation were codified as the central connectors in the blogger lexicon. We weren’t just mad, we were sort of enraged; no one was merely confused, but kind of totally mystified. That music blog we liked was really pretty much the only one that, um, you know, got it. Never before had “folks” been used so relentlessly and enthusiastically as a term of general address outside church suppers, chain restaurants and family reunions. It’s fascinating and dreadful in hindsight to realize how quickly these conventions took hold and how widely they spread. And! They have sort of mutated since to liberal and often sarcastic use of question marks? And exclamation points! “Oh, hi,” people say at the start of sentences on blogs, Twitter and Tumblr these days, both acknowledging and jokily feigning surprise at the presence of the readers who have turned up there.
I fantasize about a massive pristine convenience. Brilliant gold taps, virginal white marble, a seat carved from ebony, a cistern full of Chanel no.5, and a flunky handing me pieces of raw silk toilet roll.
They’re known to haunt houses or scare people, but are ghosts getting busy inside a northeast Ohio home?
I think this is supposed to be lingerie…? I don’t know— I’m not an expert on what is and isn’t sexy; far from it. I’m in a pretty dark mood this week, so I don’t feel like an expert on much of anything, let alone what is and isn’t sexy. But—but: did the movie the Running Man happen in real life last night? I haven’t checked the news this morning, but I’m a little worried the Running Man is happening, when I look at that costume. Her costume designer can circle the breast area all they want (thanks for the assist, guy)— she still looks like she should be hunting Yaphet Kotto through a maze at the behest of Damon Killian. And I’m sure there are guys who had a thing for the ladies of American Gladiators or— god knows I’m not one to frown at Barbarella, but— and I’m not saying it’s wrong if you want to put your dick into a Daft Punk because who am I to judge. But… I don’t know. A lot of times, “sexy photos” that the internet throws up, it’s like… just photos of girls who look really, really uncomfortable. Like, great, a girl lying on the hood of a concrete car next to a barbwire fence, and there’s a tire fire in the background— thanks, internet, I guess…? I don’t think “oooh, sexy” — I mostly just think “It must be exciting to still be in your 20’s” and then I feel old. But … I guess the silver lining is at least I got to be reminded of how much I like Jesse Ventura’s performance in the Running Man. Jesse Ventura’s scenes were the poignant ones! My point is I’ve got to start accentuating the positive.
I’ve just returned from Hackney riots and was ambushed just off Essex Road and had my bike snatched by a group of six masked teenagers waiting on Ecclesbourne Road who were shouting ‘take the bike, take the bike’. I was forced to swerve away from them but crashed to the ground. Just as one of the thieves grabbed my bike from under me a red van raced screeched around the corner and smashed into a parked car. Two young men then got out and the man in passenger seat then put his hand in his pocket and threatened to pull a on knife on the thieves, accusing them of stealing his bike earlier. A violent scuffle broke out and the thieves gave up the stolen bikes. Everyone seemed to walk away from the incident, but criminal minded local youths seem to be taking advantage of the lack of police presence due to trouble elsewhere.
Cell phone photo of an alternate cover of BOMB QUEEN, from the top shelf of a comic shop in California. Someone has helpfully placed an instruction that the copy of BOMB QUEEN in which Bomb Queen has blood slathered all over her naked breasts should not be sold to anyone under 16 years of age. (Presumably if you’re old enough to drive, you’re old enough to look at comic books about Bomb Queen’s viscera-soaked bosum). People under 16 years of age were unaffected— oh, unless they tilted their head upwards 10 degrees away from the other comics in order to see this looming down over them, like a statue of the crucifixion looms down over the wicked at church, reminding them to repent.
Q. Did people in the comic shop look over and see a strange man taking cell photos of Bomb Queen’s gore-tits and assume he was doing so to erotically pleasure himself to the photo later?
A. Yes. Yes, they did. But then I loudly screamed, “I have a very prestigious tumblr blog” and … that showed them who was normal!
If my experience is anything to go by, the “powerful rainforest experience” the young lady on my can of tea is about to experience involves staying up to 5 am, cleaning her apartment, and laughing about how humans have skin. I’ve never had the Mate in can form, so… heeeeere we go...
I keep buying books— which is a humblebrag, but … I’m actually thinking it might end up being a problem. I have an apartment slowly filling with unread books, like world’s most pompous hoarder. It’s gotten so I avoid bookstores. And I happen to really, really like bookstores— bookstores are happy places for me. But lately, I can’t walk into a bookstore without walking out with some small stack. How often do I even read anything?? Not often enough. I think that’s it, though— I think I’m buying books out of guilt that I don’t read as often as I wish I did. ”Maybe if I buy 12 more books, I’ll spend less time playing Microsoft solitaire while soft-core Canadian sex-comedies from the 1980’s stream off of my Netflix account. Save me from the Canadians, books.” Shit, that’s not going to work. But heck, maybe that’s the answer. Maybe the answer is I just need to find more novelists to tackle what it’s like to be a small group of Canadian teens whose madcap desire for the opposite sex land them in increasingly wacky mix-ups. I’m pretty sure John Updike must have written at least 4 books like that, right? Was there ever a scene in an Updike novel where Rabbit Angstrom snuck into a girls locker room located somewhere in or near Winnipeg, to hilarious result? I’m guessing probably. I’ve made worse bets.
The Bagel Trilogy: The Thrilling Conclusion— Larry King just mentioned that he was opening a bagel place in Beverly Hills in March on a repeat of Conan. It was Larry King’s bagel shop premiere that ruined my walk! The Mystery of the Glamorous Bagel has been solved, through the magic of television / couch potato-hood!
This is the most thrill-a-minute day in the history of my tumblr blog— imagine how proud I am! Negative twelve! I am negative twelve proud!
I once heard Alie tell a story about how a bunch of her girlfriends held an intervention for her because they were convinced she was doing adderall or cocaine. She’d lost a bunch of weight, was jumping off the walls, et c. Turns out she wasn’t on drugs. She’d just started drinking Yerba Mate tea.
Obviously this information was very attractive to me and I’ve kept it on the top of my brain since hearing her story. So much weight loss and productivity that people thought she was on REAL DRUGS? Plz. Sign a sista up.
Last week I was in my grocery store’s tea section looking for, ironically enough, Sleepy Time tea, when I saw this stuff. Guys, she wasn’t wrong. Since I started drinking it, I’ve barely felt like eating (although I do anyway because like, no one’s trying to have an eating disorder over here) and I can’t sleep for shit. I’m awake until 4 AM, giggling away at my own ideas until I pass out from complete exhaustion.
I think this tea may be ruining my life, to be honest. I really do. I require a lot of sleep and lose my mind pretty easily… but I can’t get over how alert I feel all day. And how much work I get done when I’m feeling alert. I’ve done more work in the past two weeks than I have in the past two months combined, and I kinda already felt like I was never not working.
Anyway, buy this before the government or someone figures out that this shit should be illegal. Or stay very far away from it. Whatever you think you can handle.
Oh shit— the Yerba Mate. I went to the exact same event (don’t remember how I ended up at this thing; didn’t know anyone; it was fun though), and heard the exact same story, from the exact same girl, on the exact same night, and I went and did the exact same thing to myself— I drank the Yerba Mate. “That tea made that girl’s friends think she was a drug addict? Awesome— where can I get some?” No! NO!
Here’s the thing I forgot, which a person like me should never forget: I am an incredible wussy wuss. I am more dainty than your 5-year old niece. I don’t really drink coffee; I don’t drink tea too often either; I try to avoid caffeinated sodas. So, going from nothing to full-scale Yerba Mate… Pretty much night one, the circus came to town, and I’m mentally a one-man Ringling Bros… All night long. I think I was up all night that first night.
… I really should start drinking it again though because I really did start getting a lot done. And the weight loss part— I didn’t get that far— but that part of her story was pretty appealing. And man, I don’t want to be afraid of TEA. I mean, I’m a big cowardly coward; there’s not much I don’t run away from in life; I’m afraid of cupcakes, sea horses, double rainbows. But, shit, being afraid of tea would kind of be a new low…
Blood, Attempt 2: So, I’m at a bar after work, having a drink with a colleague. Drink’s over, about to leave, when BLOOD starts GUSHING from his nose. Just GUSHING. Just a stream of it, not stopping. And okay, I didn’t handle it gracefully. I don’t— I don’t particularly care for the sight of blood, human blood. And we’re both lawyers, so as he’s bleeding, I’m thinking, “Does he do cocaine? Should I intervention him? Maybe I should intervention.” He gets up finally, and runs to the bathroom so he can bleed in the privacy of a bathroom, rather than turning our section of the bar area into a biohazard. And I’m just sitting there waiting for him to… cease bleeding… and waiting… and waiting… I check on him— he’s alive but not ready to leave the bathroom yet… more waiting… at least ten-fifteen minutes just waiting…
So, having an iPhone, and being an idiot, I think, “I know— I’ll blog this.” (WHAT?) Because that’s the sort of sympathetic, compassionate, and well-mannered human being I am; in my defense, at least ONE WHOLE MINUTE had gone by so… Anyways, I fire up the tumblr app on my iPhone and start to peck out a little something, when the tumblr iPhone App (and/or karma) mis-spells some words and then posts this half-fragment of the first sentence.
Suddenly I have “BLOOD: I am at a bar NNNNNNCFG—” on my blog. I go to delete it and the app WON’T let me delete it. It just refuses to. For forever, I’m hitting delete and it’s saying “No!” So it looked like… Anyone who was looking at my blog at that moment (all negative eight of you) would think that as I was dying, I had decided to tumble-blog my own death…? Fuck - Yeah - I’m - Dying - dot - tumblr-dot-com. Look - At - This - Fucking - Dead - Lawyer - dot - biz.
Finally, I figured out that I couldn’t delete so I edited it to something else, which I’m just going to leave up. But I think we all learned a valuable lesson. And that lesson is “I am FUCKING TERRIFIED of blood” and “Indian parents are wrong— medical school is for suckers” and also “I am completely bereft of manners or basic human decency.” But Blood is FREAKY, you guys. Those Twilight books LIE! (Oh, yeah, wait, p.s. my colleague lived… just has a temperature-sensitive nose, apparently, so no intervention… Unless you can do a “Stop bleeding around me” intervention…)
