Better than fruit salad

I went over to Eddy Izzard’s website the other day (Izzy! I love your bees!) and went to the fridge under “thingy things” and wrote “don’t crumble the bees” in the jam. Since then I have been gleefully entranced with the phrase. But because I can’t think of a good place to use this in public, I am instead reduced to repeating it over and over to Anthony when I see him. Hopefully he finds it endearing.

TIME OUT FOR SOME HATE

Ann “handmaiden of satan” Coulter has a new book out apparently. At least, I think it’s a new book, since the one I noticed was on the bestseller rack at King Soopers. It’s hard to tell with her of course, since all of her books look the same. I was thinking about how if I had a perfectly groomed blond wig I could do a mock Ann Coulter bookcover. I even considered going as her for Halloween for a brief moment — she is certainly the scariest thing I can think of — but I think I’d be murdered. But you could take a picture of yourself, blond wigged in a black sleeveless dress, leaning on a table or with your hands at your hips, with that strange wide-eyed look she does, photoshop in a red background and write some sort of scathing inflammatory thing in white sans-serif all caps, and voila. However because I’m not hard wired to offend people for profit, the only thing I’ve been able to come up with is CERTAIN TYPES OF PEOPLE ARE STUPID (BECAUSE I SAID SO). I’m sure you can do better. I encourage you to.

Here’s a great couples costume idea: Ann Coulter and Micheal Moore. You could spend the whole evening yelling “NO YOU’RE STUPID!” to each other, make completely ungrounded leaps of logic and present it as fact, and you could end the night with a fight to the death. I think liberal and conservative alike would be satisfied with this offering.

SKEINS OF TREPIDATION

So last week I became obsessed with knitting. It started with this hat. While I have lots of hats, I don’t really have a good keep-me-alive-in-the-face-of-nuclear-winter hat. I have a scarfy thing that would be cuter on someone with hair, and I have a little knit hat that looks like an orange that is really great but doesn’t actually cover my ears, which is utterly pointless. Really what I need is something to the tune of those Russian fur caps with ear flaps. However, I’m always down with learning something new, so I began poking around for some help in the area. This was a mistake, this starting with the internet rather than some sort of proper literature to explain what the glyphs mean, because now I’ve seen all kinds of cool stuff.

So then I became really starry eyed/hallucinogenic/psychotic, like yes I totally have time to sit around for 8 hours and knit up a sweater in a month or so. Reading some of Stitch n’ Bitch from the library gave me the much needed Sharp Kick To The Head Of Reason, and while I excel at menial tasks my fanaticism should be spent in ares where I actually have skill (i.e., painting) and my occasional bouts of craftiness need only be kindled when there’s actually a use for it (i.e., my fake lunch bag [link?], or the cloth grocery bag). I still think I’ll grab a skein of yarn and some chopsticks this weekend and take a whack at it, becuase why the hell not, but not with the feverish [horrible, vulgar] need to MAKE SOMETHING NOW, because I would be setting myself up for frustrating and disappointment.

I don’t even like yarn anyway. My sweater lust resides mostly in the viscose, acrylic and cashmere variety, and on the slimmer side of big (that is, until March when it gets really frigid around here). I realize you can purchase knitting wares in this flavor, but they’ll tend to be more expensive I’m sure, and — again — I’d rather spend my money on good paint, and leave my infrequent dabbles in New Things in cheaper stuff, until a real interest sparks up.

I am sort of manic lately. This knitting thing is a perfect example. I’ve been doing lots of bad dancing in my kitchen to all sorts of French chacha and Billie Holiday, and have focused a lot of swoony, wistful blissed-out happiness towards the weather and my art room. Then, without warning, I fall into these black pits of despair. Weirdly one of these pit of despair moments happened when I was looking at all the pretty pictures here, because OH MY GOD PLEASE can I go there now? Please? I am dying and dying here. The farmer’s market was neat this year and I do like the sweeping skyscapes that are cinematic on occasion, but this is nothing like the culture, weather, food, or foliage I would be experiencing there. I long for Portland. I yearn for Portland. I am homesick for Portland, and I’ve never lived there.

HAPPIER THINGS

We used to do this thing in high school. We called it a “throw down” but I don’t think it’s REALLY a throw down in the common colloquial sense. You would face someone and yell THROWDOWN. Then slowly, item by item, you and the other person alternately would plunk something off your person and throw it on the ground. I think this was meant to emulate people dropping bags in order to start wailing on someone’s ass, our version of course being just a farce on the whole idea. The goal was to have more things to throw than the other person. I think this was an Eriq game that we lovingly stole.

Other Eriq games include a whacked-out version of slap-the-hand, with an arm and hand configuration so elaborate that it was almost impossible to actually slap the hand, much less pull it away in time. Another, my personal favorite: turtle. Turtle was a game you could basically play any time you had a few moments of down time. Someone would say JESUS! and immediately raise their hand. All the other hands of the participants would shoot in the air. The owner of the last hand would have to snap their fingers and say SATAN in a gay-man voice. Best. Game. Ever.

THE WEEKEND FROM WEEKS AGO

1. Saturday my friend DJ’d at our favorite bar, so of course we had to sit on barstools or in couches and support him. I had my sketchbook out and open most of the time so I have a lot of documentation of inspecting records, playing Nintendo, and glassware. Having the sketch book out and pen in hand isn’t something I always do when I’m drinking but evidently I should because some great things came from it, including some t-shirt designs, and more creatures from Anthony. It made me nice and happy and kept me occupied when there wasn’t someone immediately close by to chat with, and I intent to do it all over again when he comes back this Saturday.

2. Circus! It was the single ring version — less animals and more stupid filler material — but all in all it was worthwhile to see super stretchy people, seven white horses, and an elephant that had evidently memorized his act as he did not need directive hints and rewards.

WEIRD THINGS ABOUT THE CIRCUS, BESIDES THE OBVIOUS

Let me just point out that I realize Anthony and I were not the typical crowd that visits the circus, although we did not know that going into it nor particularly care about it once we noticed it at will call. Therefore my anthropological findings may not be as interesting to you as they were to me.

a. The amount of small children. I realize that the circus has become one of the key things that children Must Experience in the Magna Carta of Parenting, right along there with Disney-Place. But these were REALLY small children. Children that were pre-language, children that wore diapers and children that had difficulties going up and down the stairs of the arena. Now here’s the thing. If a kid has trouble with the meta-issue of stairs or sitting still, and positively FREAKS OUT when the lights go low*, is the circus indeed the best place to entertain this child? I submit that children who cannot yet grasp the laws of physics will not be impressed with people defying them on the tightrope. Children who have not yet established the real difference between cartoons and real life are not going to understand that what they are witnessing is phenomenal or even out of the ordinary. Children who are tickled enough to see an elephant doing regular elephant things do not necessarily need to see an elephant who can do extraordinary things.

*One of these lovely children did this right in my ear, for the ENTIRE second half. Though I wasn’t sure who I wanted to kill more – the wailing child, or the mother who kept doing an ineffectual MommyVoice “wow!” regularly every 5 seconds to try and distract the kid from the darkness to the men in tights.

This of course reminded me of the times I allegedly went to the circus, and also saw Sesame Street LIVE. I know we went to something like this every year for a while. I know they were in the same place, because of the giant red S that lit up on the wall, and I remember thinking about what a weird font it was, and I remember liking the fact that the cups had the same S all over. This is all I remember about these events. The last time I went to the circus and remembered it was when I was in second grade. Now, we were in the second-best seating group, which cost $23 each. I think there was a price break of children-under-three-for free or something, but most groups were two people and several children. $23+$23+$0?+copious amounts of merchandising (see below)=a large fee, and is that really worth it for something a kid isn’t going to remember or be impressed with? Why not go on a picnic or go to the zoo?

And the other thing that I was appalled by was the overarching bad behavior out of many of them. Now, I understand the fidgets, the need to get up and move around, the hunger, the inopportune times for snacks or potty breaks. What I don’t understand is KICKKICKKICKKICKING the chair in front of you, of climbing all over furniture during the show, or (again) the constant insatiable wailing that is utterly ignored. And the parents’ utter non-response to this. Does this happen at movies? At restaurants? I have been away from (upper?) middle class little kids and their parents for a while and I have not been savvy to the wiles of “kids today” and apparently the kids I have been around were uncharacteristically well-behaved.

b. the amount of overpriced merchandise. In both respects: quantity overall, and the prices. Both were quite outlandish. I know I am out of the loop as far as that sort of thing goes but good God. $20 for a whirling light-up thing? Why?

c. the amount of overpriced merchandised actually purchased for these small children. My parents would have never in a MILLION BILLION YEARS have purchased me anything at an event like this. I would desire it mightily, but ultimately whatever it was would have been thrown out or forgotten. Yet LOTS of these kids had them. So, you know, they’d be distracted from the scary darkness or from crying and making a scene. (And, incidentally, so they’d be distracted from the SHOW).

d. The hype, the glossed-over-ness, the overall un-gypsy mistic and lack of freakshow aspect. I realize we aren’t glorifying the orient and aren’t as amazed with difference anymore, and I also realized that going into it. It’s modern ballet to the nutcracker. And that’s fine. We went to Barnum and Bailey & Ringling Bros., and next I’d like to go to the Federal follies or some similar local burlesque show.

e. We ate, lone twenty-somethings without children, a picnic lunch tailgate style in the hatchback of the car. We did this because I had packed some food, and because we were hungry (duh), and so we wouldn’t have to waste gas idling in the parking lot lines. It was raining and rather nice. Next to us we saw a sticker on a green mini van that said it was okay to be different.

3. After the circus we went to the bookstore in Denver.

4. And then we saw Once, which made us both shiver with deep appreciation, and walk around the neighborhood dazed for a while.

5. Coffee and a walk by the body of water, which is where a bunch of high school kids flail fire around on Sundays. I don’t know why they do it, but it’s very cool to watch.

BACK TO THE PRESENT!

AN ENTRY IN THREE ACTS, FOUR IF YOU COUNT THE USELESS LINK

Here’s a cool thing I learned yesterday: most people know about prefixes and suffixes, correct? Just a review:

PREFIX: (re-)
i.e., re-join

SUFFIX: (-er)
i.e., join-er

Apparently there are two others derivational affixes that exist in language. The first one is circumfix, something that is added to the beginning and the ends of words to turn it into something. They are apparently very common in Thai and Indonesian, and I think there’s a German verb tense that uses the circumfix. In English there’s no practical example of this, as it fell out of common usage around Chaucer’s time, and even then it was considered archaic. An example would be like:

CIRCUMFIX: (ey-) (-yt)
i.e., ey-potnus-yt

One word I’d written down was enlighten, which might seem plausible, but you cannot affix en-en to any other word and get something meaningful. Enworden. enpoweren.

The other is infix, something that is added to the middle of words. Again, common in Turkish, they show up in African tribal dialects, but there isn’t one in English. Then the professor said well, you can make an argument for one. Fuck. Usually fucking.

INFIX: (fucking)
i.e., abso-fucking-luetly

And that. That is great.

Today: my ribs hurt, as though I’ve had drive heaves. Except I haven’t. It feels like the skin has been pushed through each rib, like I’m too skinny suddenly. I went and ate something fatty, since I don’t feel particularly ill but I did feel hungry, and though I have low blood sugar and am well acquainted with what hunger feels like, (i.e., I know enough to know that what I was feeling was NOT THAT) I figured too skinny is definitely something I could suffer from occasionally. In addition, I’m having a little trouble catching my breath, or feeling as though I’m getting enough air without TRYING hard. There is nothing particularly strenuous I’ve done lately, with the exception of Saturday night when Anthony and I “slept” rather aerobically, resulting in my actually having a pulled muscle in my arm and a weirdly sore back. Uh, so it could be that I guess. Either that or gas. I’m not going to go to the ER for either thing.

Other symptoms include being freezing and having an inability to finish any liquids. I have left a soda, several teas, water and juice all over the house pathetically untouched. Drinking liquids is one of my finest talents, and I have no idea why I’m unable to do so now.

IF YOU HEAR IT ECHOING…

Today I was told something via myspace message. It was of a rather personal nature for the person. It was something I mostly knew about though I was fuzzy on details, having never really asked the person outright, becuase I wasn’t sure if it would be kosher to do so.

I was not told because my personal knowledge would have been advantageous in any sort of way, but instead told in a sort of “get it off my chest” kind of way, which is fine. In a weird way I am touched that of all the people — at least, of all the odd collection of faces from high school — I was chosen out of everyone. Or maybe I wasn’t. Maybe this is one of several. I was not explicitly invited to respond, nor to give any comfort or praise or anything really. Now I know.

The thing about information though is that once you have it you feel like you need to do something with it. To somehow honor your receiving it, to acknowledge the person who gave it to you. I’m sort of at a loss of how to do that gracefully, short of wondering about in a stilted meta-way on this page right here. And in the case of this rather Big Information there is a lot to muddle over. I spent a lot of time on the stoop this afternoon, thinking. And not finishing my tea. And having trouble breathing.

Apparently, you can make bacon better.