Midweek musings....

So I clicked on a story about possible border control measures or something,
and it had THIS pic w/it:



O.K., this is possibly the funniest thing I've ever seen. "Watch out for running people, complete w/ totally drug along toddler, fleeing madly across the freeway!" Good Lord!!

In other news, in case you're putting together a backyard football team, DAVID CARR IS NOW TRULY AVAILABLE!!!!! Go for it!!!

Resortin' to Extortin'...

Rex Baird...what to say? Upstanding community member, PHD, and all around very get along-able with guy. And yet... Disgrace lurks in everyone's past, my friends, and Mr. Baird is no exception.
I was able to locate, fairly easily, THIS PHOTO. Now, Nadi feels Rex's shirtlessness amongst our shirtyness should be quite embarrassing enough for Rex. I disagree. First of all, I don't really see how this is NON-embarrassing for the rest of our obviously drunken asses. And secondly, he's obviously been working those abs, and why work the abs if your not going to rip off your shirt at any remotely reasonable moment?
So I dug deeper. I dredged through photos and memories that God help me I never hope to see again, so black a mark did they leave on my soul, sear at the back of my eyes.. . At one point, when all was bleakest, I remember being curled up on the floor, sobbing my guts out, imploring the sky WHY fucking WHY... oh wait, that had nothing to do w/Rex, that was like, every day at high school.
And then, FINALLY, I found THIS, a truly horrible picture of Rex. Nice dress buddy! And, hey, that's my brother you're sitting on!
Incriminating, maybe. photoshopped, maybe. But embarrassing? OH HELL YEAH!!!
Sorry YOU had to suffer, too, Spence. Now your penchant for PQotD is making sense....

new story, part 1

I’ve been counting backwards from thirty-one million, six hundred and twenty-two thousand, three hundred and ninety-nine for 15 days now. Progress is slow, mainly because I only “count” attempts that I don’t get distracted from halfway through by some random noise or fleeting thought, and I’ve noticed that I tend to subvocalize a lot of the time to keep from losing my place, which also slows me down. I also don’t count ones that I do while asleep, which has cost me quite a few, especially once I got about 4 or 5 days into it.

It’s kind of like that old joke about being a vegetarian…one guy says to another, “Hey, I read that vegetarians live longer,” and the other guy replies, “I don’t know about that, but it sure SEEMS longer!” It’s like the anti-TV, the anti-video game, instead of looking up from a screen and seeing that five and a half hours have passed since the last time you could say with any certainty that you had a conscious thought, you come up from a session, write down the last number you got to, and see that 17 minutes, that six and a half minutes, that not even three or four minutes have actually passed, and as far as you know it could have been hours.

So I made the mistake of telling this to a girl I met in a bar a few days ago, I obviously wasn’t getting any counting done with all the distractions there anyway. She had been at the jukebox with her wallet in hand, lost in that pre-decision phase where you try to check out what the jukebox has on it without standing so close that anyone else interested in playing some tunes assumes that you’ve already put in money and are actually making your selections. It’s harder with modern jukeboxes, since to get a real feel for the scope of the music on there you have to page back and forth through it a couple times, where in the old days you could just check out the whole selection from afar, as long as your eyesight was good enough to read all those tiny labels from more than a foot and a half away.

continue to part 2 of the story...

Real Estate agents are for shit!!! (AKA Spencer's Peeve of this particular 5 minutes)

OK, OK, all of you who are feverishly studying for your real estate licenses, just relax...maybe it's not ALL real estate agents who are for shit, but it's definitely all of the ones in Baltimore. We are currently unwilling spectators of an event that, were it not so financially repercussive for us, could hardly be less gripping: will we receive the mail that our agent has been promising to send us for what seems like forever, or will the sweet embrace of death from old age wrap us in its bony yet somehow diaphanous clutches first?
Out of the gate, it seems like the smart money is on the ravages of time on the mortal coils of the wife and I, but perhaps our representative in the city that blights the earth like a giant calliope of human suffering and misery can stage some kind of miraculous comeback and, I don't know, BE BOTHERED AT SOME POINT TO BUY SOME STAMPS, CRAM SOME STUFF IN AN ENVELOPE, AND FIND A FUCKING MAILBOX!??!?!?!

Stacey's PEEVE O'THE WEEK!!!

Well, here it is, my long hinted at yet as not realized post that will shake you up and make you say "Hell-O Aunt Bessie! And it's NOT about how this year I DON'T WANT TO GET FIRST PICK IN THE UNCLE RICO'S DRAFT!! AND EVEN IF I DID I WOULDN'T PICK L.T.!!!., either, as shocking as that might be. Today I will discuss my annoyance with FLAMINGLY EFFEMINATE GAY MEN!!!
Yeah, that's what I said. Now, before you all go running off to cover all traceable links you may have to me as friend/lover/sister/former shoe-salesperson, please allow me to first defend my statement and then explain why I think I have developed this quirk.
In my defence, I believe I am well within my rights to make this statement. I have stated an annoyance for, not a hatred of, said gay men. Secondly, this is not an annoyance for ALL gay men, simply the flamingly effeminate ones. Thirdly, I in no way think there is anything "wrong" with being gay in the first place, as I believe that homosexuality is determined before birth thanks to one's particular genes, and therefore acting on those impulses is perfectly natural.
In addition to that, NO-ONE, I don't think, would take umbrage about a post in which I lambasted girly-girls, or "metro-sexual" guys, and my complaint about these aforementioned gay men is the same as those would be. Nor do I think any of those groups, yes, EVEN those darn facial-getting "metros", should give half a crap about what I or anyone else thinks, and should go on acting any way they want to.
All in all it makes sense that I, as a bit of a "manly-girl", would hardly want to see a bunch of "girly-men" flitting about and making me look and feel even MORE manly!! What's with all this calling each other "ladies", "girls" or even, oddly enough, "bitches"? (I would, and HAVE, verbally lacerate(d) anyone who dared to call me that, even in jest.) No lesbians I have ever known, even the most "butch", called each other "dudes" or "boys"! Very Strange. And the whole giggling like a schoolgirl/gossiping constantly bit, as exhibited, say, on "Project Runway", is just the oddest thing to me (as it would be to the daughter of the kind of uber manly-man Dad that I have. He's the kind of guy that would duct tape his own arm back on after some power saw accident, and then finish the job.) And to be fair, I'm sure that the perfectly coiffed and delicate guy from Queer Eye for the Straight Guy (Carson somebody?), for example, has no desire to watch my non- mani/pedi'd self stomping around his T.V. screen, wondering how many times I can get away with "Febreezing" my shirts before I have to wash them! (approximately 3).
So, now I begin my explanation of why I find myself with this particular annoyance. No matter how hard I might try, I will never be "un petite fleur", more "mule de paquet". Even when I'm all fancied up, I pretty much feel like Jeremy Shockey in a dress. Except that he has better hair. And maybe a better tattoo, although mine is pretty cool too, just smaller. And really, being a girl in the first place is not the greatest thing ever, except for having boobs and the ability to wear awesome shoes, it pretty much sucks. Unless you want to go through the "amazing"(!?!??!?!) process of giving birth, I suppose. DO NOT WANT!!
So, in re-reading this, I have decided that it is not controversial at ALL, and that truly I have spent more time bashing myself than any FLAMINGLY EFFEMINATE GAY MAN, and that only the most annoyingly P.C. of people could have anything to say about this. And I'll bet, and I would LOVE to get a response on this, that even some gay men are annoyed with these guys, too.
So there it is, finally! Now I just have to hope Spence doesn't pull out "hatred of...gay men" as one of his big block quote deallys. Plllllbbttt.

A dog in a sweater

Hey all, I guess it was inevitable that 75% of my posts would eventually be about our foster dogs, since that's pretty much where we spend our free time. But through the magic of the interwebs, I can not just TELL you how adorable one of our fosters is, I can SHOW you as well!
Her name's Tula, and yes, she's the one in the sweater, although the sweater is now defunct, due to either Tula or one of our other dogs chewing on it so much that it began to look kind of like the top Jennifer Beals wore in "Flashdance"...for those of you who are not older than dirt, "Flashdance" was a "talkie" filmed in the early days of Hollywood, a film whose plot consisted of an extra-terrestrial creature who came down to earth, ate candies, touched children with his freakishly long glowing finger, rode a flying bicycle across the moon, and taught us all that to be TRULY human, we just need to love and understand each other better. I think Jennifer Beals's character was a welder who danced in her spare time. I'm not sure how this related to the other story, if at all, except maybe there was something about leg warmers.
ANYWAY, without further ado, here's a little movie that Heidi and I put together featuring Tula, that also includes two of our dogs, Nubbin and Stella. Nubbin's the smaller black dog, Stella the larger.
It's hard to tell from the video, but Tula in that sweater looks like a guy in a dress. Not like a transvestite, just like some frat guy who gets a little too drunk and puts on a dress that's about 4 sizes too small for him, because he works out kind of a lot. That, or kind of like Hillary Swank.
Sadly, we had a lot of witty dialogue/banter (much in the same vein as this post, actually!) that we had to cut out of the final version due to the writer's strike. Unions, man...

Book Club!!!!

OK, so here's how it's going to go down. I'm going to post an initial comment to this post on Kafka's Metamorphosis, our first book club book. Read it online or download it, also free, here.

So if you want to read the book club thread, click on the title of this post, and let the magical exchange of ideas carry you away!

Resortin' to Dumb Sight Gags!

I thought it was only fair to throw a picture of me up here, now that I've gotten Mark all pissed off by visually accusing him of sagging his pants like one of those damn kids that won't stay off his lawn! Also, this has seemed to be a direction to take the blog that is quickly driving away the few readers that we had, so we've got that going for us, which is nice.

So, here we are, one more twist on the "marathon" joke, one more crudely rendered drawing, one more day ticked off the calendar in anticipation of Stacey's coming mega-post! May we all survive it.

Resortin' to Extortin'...

Well, another day, another victim...so, who is it today that I'm going to target with an embarrassing picture, you ask?
It's Jimbo! Or I'm going to call him Jimbo, mostly because he's a tree, and probably has some tree name like "Leaf" or "Wind Rattler" or something. Jimbo was this tree that I used to hang out under in grade school, when I wasn't playing Frisbee or freeze tag, or playing with one of those old parachutes that probably got donated to our school from a World War II surplus shop.
Yeah, Jimbo, you were a great friend then, but have you left any comments on our blog. NO! You haven't even been by to see the site! I'm sure you could get some neighberhood kids to hammer in some nails, you know, make a rough antenna of some kind, there's tons of free internet-accessing waves bouncing around out there, OK? Geez, make a little effort once in a while!

Stacey's PEEVE O'THE WEEK!!!

O.K., as promised, it's time for me to take off the proverbial kid gloves and just lay it ALL out there. I shouldn't be wearing kid gloves, of course, even proverbially, because they're made out of baby goats. But, since I am, I might as well tell you that they are the most delicate shade of shell pink, with tiny mother-of-pearl buttons up the side. Nice. But, enough nattering, and on to the rather shocking topic I have selected today, CHOCOLATE CAKE WITH WHITE ICING!!! What! you say, THIS is the controversy you promised, the post you said would sear our very souls? Well, actually, no. The thing is, I had forgotten that today was my birthday, and that I had already composed a very special post for that very occasion. So, all that exciting nonsense will just have to wait until next Monday, and you'll just have to come back again to read it. OOPS!!
So, on to today's scintillating topic. Where to begin? Let's say it's your birthday, and laid out before you like the proverbial World-as-Oyster, is a lovely, whitely-icinged cake. It looks beyond delicious, and you begin to salivate just thinking of that light, fluffy, sugary icing. But then-- terror strikes your very heart--what lies beneath? An equally delicate layer of spongy vanilla-ish-ness, OR...Chocolate?!!?? Dense, black as the heart of any murderous scoundrel, and horribly unmatched with the gentle flavors above.
Because THAT is the problem... it's like drinking a weak, fruity white wine with a burgundy stewed oxtail or something, it just clashes. Like eating clean, pure new snow along with a big clod of dirt. Now, if you look at a cake iced with chocolate icing, you have a 98% chance of getting a wonderful slice of cake, assuming someone hasn't insanely iced a strawberry or carrot cake with the stuff. But whenever you see that white expanse before you, you just can't know what you're getting until it's cut. The suspense is highly likely to kill you.
So, I beg of you, save the white icing for a yellow cake, a strawberry cake, maybe even that carrot cake. Chocolate cake NEEDS chocolate icing.
And in closing, just to show you how mean I am to baby goats, here's a little song I used to sing for Macchiato and Amelia when they were young and not big enough to sit on me and crush me instantly:

"These little goats are friends of mine,
I'd like to cook them with some salt and thyme
Just kiddin', Just kiddin', I'm just kiddin' around

These little goats are friends of mine,
I'd like to serve them with some bread and wine
Just kiddin', just kiddin', I'm just kiddin' around

These little goats are my best friends
and I'm gonna eat 'em when this song ends!
Just kiddin', just kiddin', I'm just kiddin' around!!!!"

Take that, Nickelback!!! Losers.

Gone to Carolina

So Heidi and I are here in the DNC...no, not the Democratic National Convention, but Durham, North Carolina! Actually, we're probably about 15 miles or so outside of Durham, I think the actual place is called Hillsborough, but it's one of those little enclaves that are one little street of houses out in the middle of the country, for the most part. I think we have to turn on about 17 different little county highways to get here, all with either 3 or 4 digits in their identifying numbers.
Amazingly, though, that's not the interesting part! The interesting part is that I am now the proud owner of a brand new nephew! That didn't sound quite right...anyway, Heidi's sister Holly had a kid that they call Gavin, and he's freakishly non-squashed and beet-red looking, for a baby! In fact, he looks so much like a regular person who just happens to be the size of a smallish cat (and is constantly asleep) that it is kind of weirding me out.
So, here's the obligatory baby picture for everyone to fawn over...he really is a cute little guy, and very well behaved, as I mentioned above, because it's difficult to get into trouble while sleeping, unless you're in a bad sci-fi movie of some sort, and if that's the case then you've got more problems than just being badly behaved.

Stacey's PEEVE O'THE WEEK???

That's right, those are question marks! And, no, there will be NO Peeve O' this Week. Why, you ask, weeping in disappointment? Because I am far too gleeful this week, posting shameful photos of you guys. And because I'm working on next weeks Peeve, which will be controversial, full of photos, and spectacular!!! You could call it "peevetacular!" So, tune in next Mon, or even, gasp, Sunday night??? mmmm, probably not.
But, because you DO need your dose o' negativity THIS week, I have decided to critique one of the craptastic-ist songs I've heard in a damn long time. Here goes...Nickelback's "Rockstar"...

I'm through with standin' in line
To clubs I'll never get in
It's like the bottom of the ninth
And I'm never gonna win
This life hasn't turned out
Quite the way I want it to be
(Tell me what you want)

I want a brand new house
On an episode of Cribs
And a bathroom I can play baseball in
And a king size tub big enough
For ten plus me
(Yeah, so tell what you need)

I'll need a.. a credit card that's got no limit
And a big black jet with a bedroom in it
Gonna join the mile high club
At thirty-seven thousand feet
(Been there done that)

I want a new tuned bus full of old guitars
My own star on Hollywood Boulevard
Somewhere between Cher and
James Dean is fine for me
(So how you gonna do it?)

I'm gonna trade this life for fortune and fame
I'd even cut my hair and change my name

[CHORUS]
'Cause we all just wanna be big rockstars
And live in hilltop houses, driving fifteen cars
The girls come easy and the drugs come cheap
We'll all stay skinny 'cause we just won't eat
And we'll hang out in the coolest bars
In the VIP with the movie stars
Every good gold digger's
Gonna wind up there
Every Playboy bunny
With her bleach blonde hair
And well...

Hey, hey, I wanna be a rockstar
Hey, hey, I wanna be a rockstar

I wanna be great like Elvis without the tassels
Hire eight body guards that love to beat up assholes
Sign a couple autographs
So I can eat my meals for free
(I'll have the quesadilla, ha ha)

I'm gonna dress my ass
With the latest fashion
Get a front door key to the Playboy mansion
Gonna date a centerfold that loves to
Blow my money for me
(So how you gonna do it?)

I'm gonna trade this life
For fortune and fame
I'd even cut my hair
And change my name

'Cause we all just wanna be big rockstars and
Live in hilltop houses driving fifteen cars
The girls come easy and the drugs come cheap
We'll all stay skinny 'cause we just won't eat
And we'll hang out in the coolest bars
In the VIP with the movie stars
Every good gold digger's
Gonna wind up there
Every Playboy bunny
With her bleach blonde hair
And we'll hide out in the private rooms
With the latest dictionary of
Today's who's who
They'll get you anything
with that evil smile
Everybody's got a
Drug dealer on speed dial, well
Hey, hey, I wanna be a rockstar


I'm gonna sing those songs
That offend the censors
Gonna pop my pills
From a Pez dispenser


Get washed-up singers writing all my songs
Lip synch 'em every night so I don't get 'em wrong

[Chorus AGAIN Pllllbbttt!]

Hey, hey, I wanna be a rockstar
Hey, hey, I wanna be a rockstar

Oh, hell, what's there to critique? It's such a piece of crap you can figure it out for yourself. I mean, is there an original thought here ? It's just cliche after cliche after stereotype. Plus, is it supposed to be ironic, or what? Aren't these pathetic looooo-zers already rockstars? I don't get it. Not to mention it sounds like some chainsmoker singing in the Nashville cancer ward. When I first heard it I thought for sure it was some crossover country song, by Big and Rich or somebody. That could be a huge insult to them, I don't think I've ever heard anything by them before. It just sounds like it fits.
So, write and say "Amen, sistah" or lemme know if you LIKE the damn thing, if you dare. But it's still a pile of poop. Sez me.
And tune in next week for my stunning post, which I'm not totally sure I SHOULD post, but I figure I'll be dead in a few days anyway, as soon as Leslie sees that picture. So, oh well!

Resortin' to Extortin'...

Mark, making' a move to stay off the bad list...you think that one, measly little six-word comment is going to save you? You're practically begging to get a picture up...

So...let's see what I've got in the archives here. Ah, yes. I think this one was taken right after a 3 hour session of Angband...either that, or it was while he was streaming hi-def video bootlegs of Firefly outtakes, I can't remember which.

Resortin' to Extortin'...

What's that you say? No peeve o'the week again, and it's Tuesday already? Well, I guess I'll just have to...hmmm. Here I am in the ATX, and Stacey's way up there in snowy Colorado...what could I possibly threaten her with, to get her to end her recalcitrant ways?

I know! I'll dig up some old embarrassing picture of Stacey to put up there on the internets, like she's been threatening everyone else with!

Now, where did I put that old picture...

Wow!! I didn't realize camera technology was that advanced, back in the day, to capture people's words in there too! Oh well, I must have blocked out that part of the 80s, along with all the time I spent watching Poison videos at 3:30 in the morning...

Resortin' to Extortin'...

...well, the Spice Girls did it, why shouldn't Bananarama? Just get some flashy matching outfits, learn a few new dance moves... well, maybe that one in the middle should have gotten a bit of a waxing first, for God's sake... HOLD ON! That's not... why, that's Nadi Itani, flanked by Leslie Sullivan, and, yes, ME. Because I can take a joke. Like the rest of you guys. Right? Guys? heh heh... joke...hmmm.

Poetry Corner

This edition of poetry corner gets a feel-good story with it, no extra charge. I wrote this during the time that Heidi and I thought that we were going to have to put Tula, our foster dog, down, because she was just so fearful and unhappy that we thought she would never have an acceptable quality of life.

Thankfully, she has really shown a LOT of improvement over the past couple of weeks, and we no longer feel like she's unhappy. Best of all, though, is the news that it looks like we're going to be able to get her into the Best Friends dog sanctuary in Utah, which is the same place a lot of the abused Pits in the Mike Vick case ended up. They do really great things there for dogs that otherwise almost certainly would not have a good outcome.

So, a bleak poem, but a bright future for Tula! : )


if it’s windy out, it’s just the atmosphere that’s playing
hot and cold air, with some pressure changes too
and if it’s cold, it’s just an earthly tilting
counting off another lonely year
and it’s my job to be your only buffer
warmth from cold, and calm from storm
and everything, and everything
and always, and forevermore
but it won’t work, it never works
that way, or even nearly like
and my successes skim the pool
and leave untroubled
that great night
I fear for you,
when I can't understand
at all the thing I fear
and so I mourn imaginary loss
and cheat the demon once again
anticipating, in our quickening,
the moment that at last I'll have to mourn

Resortin' to Extortin'...

...That seductive stare, that dreamy hair...could that be - Richard Marx?!?!? Oh, wait, that's just Craig Miller in typical 80's mullet fashion, kickin' ass and breakin' down dames. Think that's funny? YOU could be next... LEAVE A COMMENT. When I run out of photos you'll open your mail to find a small package containing your husband/wife/local congressman's pinkie finger, I'm warning you. I'll be hearing from you all soon, I'm sure, or you'll be hearing from me.

Act 1, Scene 23

"So he was naked..."
"Yes."
"in your living room..."
"..."
"when you walked in there this morning?"
My friend John isn't the brightest guy around, but this was the third time we'd covered this ground already.
"What the fuck was he doing there? And how did he get in?"
At last, we moved past the information in the first sentence of the story I was trying to tell.
"He said that he saw my cat run out the door, and he grabbed it and thought he should bring it back."
"You don't have a cat."
"I do now."
"So, but was the door open, I mean..."
"Yeah, I must have forgotten to lock it last night, or something, because I looked at it later and it wasn't busted open or anything."
"So he's standing there naked, with this cat...did you ask him why he was out walking around naked at 6:30 in the morning?"
"How am I going to ask this guy what he's doing naked? I just wanted him out of the house!"
"And he just handed you the cat?"
"Well, it was struggling pretty good at that point, and he was a little nervous about getting scratched, I guess, so he just sort of dropped it and kind of weaseled his way back out the door."
"Did he have shoes on and stuff?"
"Yeah, he did, actually...maybe he is like, a nudist jogger or something. I'm going to have to drive around the neighborhood sometime, early in the morning, and see if I can spot him."
"Man, that's fucked up."
"Yeah, it was pretty weird. The cat's cool, though. I'm going to call him John Thomas."

Stacey's PEEVE O'THE WEEK!!!

Welcome to a special Super Tuesday edition of THE PEEVE! So, maybe it's not going to be exactly Super, but it IS Tuesday! Which means it isn't Monday, which means I'm late writing this again... it's just, when you can warp the space time continuum like I can, it's awfully hard to keep track of the days... but no matter. We have more important things to discuss. Very serious, important things, things that can suck every ounce of kindness and caring out of us, and destroy our very lives! VAMPIRES!! No, not really, all you need is a wooden stake and some garlic and you're pretty much done. Some awesome kung fu type skills will probably speed things up a bit. No, I'm talking about something much, much more horrible, and completely impervious to your pathetic garlic-wavings-about, I'm talking about POLITICS! And POLITICIANS! And the TWO PARTY POLITICAL SYSTEM!!!!
[note: from here on out, the author has absolutely no idea what she is talking about, having barely scraped her way through high school Poli Sci, probably by cheating, and having received a LOOOOOW "D" in College Poli Sci, a worse grade than any other class except that Algebra class she stopped going to which forever damaged her GPA and haunts her to this very day. However, this is a perfectly acceptable angle from which to come at this topic, because politics is nothing but a lot of people w/REALLY strong opinions trying to pass them off as 100% truth-in-a-bucket. So, read on with confidence!!]
I FIRMLY believe that there is NOTHING so divisive in American society as politics. Especially given the 2 party system w/parties @ both extremes. Now I sincerely hope that ALL Democrats don't sit around gathering welfare, smoking pot and giving each other "high fives" when they hear somebody got an abortion, and ALL Republicans don't sit around telling n___er jokes 'til it's time for their 2'o'clock "club a seal" break!!! But that's the kind of stuff one camp wants you to think about the other camp. It's just like a war, if you can depersonalize the other guy, call him a Jap or a Gook or a Yankee (OR a Vampire, think about it!) then you don't have to think of him as a person, but as an unthinking, unfeeling enemy that you MUST defeat or we'll all go to Hell in a handbasket.
Of course there are always zealots in every cause, but I'm thinking most people are probably pretty moderate about everything. Then along come the candidates, generally THE most Conservative and Liberal schmucks they can find, and suddenly you have to find some doofus to get behind. Why can't we have better options than this, like, the "Middle of the Road" party?? (This is not a hypothetical question, I don't know. See note above.) So what if they split the vote 3 ways? Just figure out a way to pick a winner anyway. I'm tired of all this crap already, and we've still got almost a year to go. Yeeeeeesh. And who wants to vote for somebody who WANTS to be a politician, anyway? Wouldn't you have to be a little bit power hungry and a lot completely bonkers to WANT to be President???
It may therefore come to you as no surprise that my favourite Superbowl commercial--no, make that Superbowl moment, I mean, did you watch that pile o'poop?--was the bi-partisan Coke commercial EXACTLY BECAUSE they showed those 2 men of wildly different political leanings acting, not as politicians, but as MEN, drinking a Coke together. Not one of those Satanic dirty-poop-water PEPSI's, mind you, but a delicious, life affirming Coca-Cola. (Coke in '08!). Let us all say with these 2 brave men, "aaaaaaah!". (Yeah, the commercials all kinda sucked this year, didn't they?)
So, let us learn a lesson here today. See beyond your neighbor's "Obama" sign into his heart, See beyond your sister's "Huckabee" bumper sticker into her soul, and see through Salma Hayek's clothing if there's any way you can possibly arrange it.

RON PAUL '08!!

Poetry Corner

For Psipsina

My catfaced creature
nuzzling your pillow, dreaming
sunny afternoons and soft blankets
I really could sleep forever,
sometimes,
when sleep comes so easily.

Would it surely wake you,
my light hand on your soft stomach?
Would it prompt a long, lean stretch
a breath-y catch, a wakening?

Then I will wait, impatiently
savoring the precarious (vicarious)
pleasure of watching
you
sleep.

Another Baltimore re-post!!!!11!1 (last part that I have already written!)

The next day’s travel continued smoothly through the day, perhaps lulling us into a false sense of security. We arrived safely at our chosen Red Roof destination, and, voila! A parking lot that was nearly empty, went all the way around the hotel, and was big. I parked the truck and headed to check us in.

“Is that your Penske truck?”

“Uh…yeah.”

“You can’t park it in the lot, it takes up too much space. We’re going to be pretty much full tonight. You have to move it to the auxiliary lot over there, right behind the main lot.”

I looked out at the proffered parking lot, and my heart instantly fluttered with trepidation. Sure, it was empty, but it was small. Treacherously small. Grad school efficiency apartment small.

I sucked it up and went to move the truck. Not being too familiar with the mechanics of trucks and trailers, I figured my best bet was to head into the lot, make as wide a circle as I could, and then, if I had to, back up a little and finish my turn. So, that’s what I proceeded to do.

It seemed like it was going so well, that when I did come up a little short of being able to completely make a circle in the lot, I just put it in reverse, pushed back about 3 feet, and then started to pull forward. When Heidi came sprinting over from her car, where she had been unloading stuff, I figured that she had suddenly been struck by a random thought about where to eat that evening, or that the urge to stretch her legs after a long day’s driving had overwhelmed her without warning.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?”

“Uh…moving the truck.”

“Didn’t you hear the horrible noise it was making?”

“Uh…no.”

I reached for the door, to go look at the trailer.

“Never mind, now. Go ahead and pull forward and straighten up.”

So I did, and then hopped down to look at the trailer. My heart, I have to say, was already sinking.

...the sweet oblivion of unconsciousness...

And when I saw the trailer, my heart gave up with the sinking stuff, and went ahead and just plummeted. Fell off the table. Think of the worst beat you ever took on the river, and multiply it by the second-worst. My choice of language was constrained only by my vocabulary of profanity, my creativity, my ability to string together words without repeating them, and my knowledge of human anatomy. If there had been a baseball bat handy, I would have wielded it with abandon about my own head and neck until I gained the sweet oblivion of unconsciousness.

Because the trailer, to put it delicately, was fucked. Straight up, no questions asked, no holds barred, no doubt about it. In a matter of minutes, our smoothly proceeding trip had taken a turn for the horrific. A fragment from a conversation that I had recently engaged in with Heidi floated through my brain, something like, “sure, sweetie, I mean they wouldn’t rent these things to people if they were impossible to drive!”

This premise, although credible on its face, had proven to be patently untrue. I had jackknifed the trailer and then pushed it backward with the truck, and in the process bent the tongue of the trailer into something that more closely resembled a work of modern art than a working piece of machinery. Since it was obvious that the trailer could no longer be safely driven, I had to call Penske and hope that they could hook us up.

Thankfully, they did. Props to Penske, man, they had a wrecker driver there within an hour, towing a new trailer to carry our car. He helped me unhook the damaged one, hook the new one up, and even rearrange the truck with the new trailer in tow once we got it attached and the car up on it, just to help me avoid a repetition of the event. I don’t remember the guy’s name, but if I did, I’d tell it to you, just so you could share in how cool the guy was. Or I’d give him a bunch of money. If I had it. The money, that is. Oh, and props to myself and Heidi as well for having the foresight to buy the optional insurance on the trailer, without which we would undoubtedly now be staring at a rather large bill from Penske.

So, with a huge crisis seemingly behind us, we slept, perhaps not as well as the night before, but as well as could be expected, with the INVASION OF POISONOUS SPIDERS that was soon to follow!

OK, I’m kidding about the spiders, but there were several annoying children at the hotel that we had to deal with for a while. But, we overcame them in the end, and thus ended the second night of our trip.