Sunday, February 29, 2004 It has come to my attention
that I have been misspelling dysentery. My face is red.
With luck, I'll have no further cause to mention anything like that after Tuesday, when I go in for my final blood draw. First I have to get to Baltimore, of course. But that's all been arranged.
I'll be kind of pleased when I'm all done with this study, I must say. It seemed glamorous at first, but really, no it didn't. Not at all.
posted by Frenzy Lohan | 2/29/2004 11:58:00 PM
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Oh, but it's wrong to laugh!
Pete, the cat who looks like Hitler.
(scroll down for English)
See, I don't like Hitler, but I do like kitties. Pete's story is a sad one, unfortunately. I'd like to imagine that things improved for him after the incident described. Poor Pete! He didn't ask to look like a murderous dictator.
posted by Frenzy Lohan | 2/29/2004 02:41:00 PM
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Saturday, February 28, 2004 Color me embarrassed
After all my harmful speculation, it turns out that this Auberjonois/Pinchot/Berkley caper is a revival of a play, Sly Fox, based on Ben Jonson's Volpone. Can I tell you how pleased I am to be able to include Ben Jonson and Bronson Pinchot in the same sentence? Very happy!
The play opened in Boston on friday. It's gotten pretty good reviews, as well.
I don't generally go to the theatre, as I am poore. During my last year of college, though, I had a connection at the Shakespeare Theater in D.C. There I got to see the lady from Top Gun as the Duchess of Malfi. Combining the classics with people I vaguely recognize is a good idea.
posted by Frenzy Lohan | 2/28/2004 07:28:00 PM
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Thursday, February 26, 2004 introducing
Leah! She lives in a house with a lot of other people, and their house is falling down. It's kind of like Frontier House, because they're always doing crafts and making pies from scratch, and they have chickens. It's different from the frontier house, in that they have rock music shows there. posted by Frenzy Lohan | 2/26/2004 11:49:00 PM
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Wednesday, February 25, 2004 the search continues
I still don't know what the three fine actors from the last post were doing together. Are doing together, maybe. My friend Leah suggests that they will be the newest American Idol judges. I would be in favor of that. Especially if it were a show about being an actor, rather than a singer. Because clearly, these would be the most qualified people possible to judge.
posted by Frenzy Lohan | 2/25/2004 04:59:00 PM
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Oh, question:
So the other night I was in this swinger's palace of a Chinese restaurant in Dracut, Mass., and over the radio, between songs, I hear the announcer mention something about "Rene Auberjonois, Elizabeth Berkeley, and Bronson Pinchot." And then I didn't hear the context!
For the past couple days, I've been thinking up these Amazing Kreskin answers:
"My cabinet if I'm ever elected president."
"Our first line of defense against the terrorists"
"What I will totally name my next trio of pets"
"The cast of Three's Company Now, the new WB sitcom that remakes a classic...with a twist you won't believe!"
But really, can anyone help me out as to what the hell these three actors are doing on the same list? If they're in so much as a catfood commerical together, I would give my last ounce of bone marrow to see it. I've tried googling the three names together, but it yields no helpful results. This is going to keep me up at night. It already is.
Please e-mail me with any information.
how to find out about famous people posted by Frenzy Lohan | 2/25/2004 03:22:00 AM
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In the heat of the night, we are having a fiesta
It is still cold. If my poor non-metallic blood isn't to freeze in my veins, I may need some Swedish pop. Stat.
I was in a store today, and I heard one clerk say to another, "Spring has definitely sprung." She was lying.
I've been shopping for coats, but all the coats are very sad and ugly, and I hate them. So I've been cute, but so very, very shivery. Shopping! by the way. I never shop. I walk around in ragged clothes, in hopes someone will think I'm an orphan and give me a large cash prize. So far, it hasn't worked, and I'm beginning to think it's not going to, so I've been stockpiling new socks. Other things, also, natch, but socks are so important in this terrible climate. It's all I can do to keep from twirling around singing "pretty, pretty, pretty."
Which brings me to another obstacle that stands in the way of living in an urban center: it turns out I talk to myself on public transportation. It's not the bitter, sustained mutter or the torrent of invective that seem to be very popular among mass transit speakers. Just every now and then, I have outbursts.
Rather than Tourette's-like shouting, I find I'm just, you know, speaking at a normal volume--for one syllable, after which point I catch myself, and swallow the rest of whatever I had in mind to say. I get lost in my thoughts sometimes, and forget that I am not alone. Or, I forget that I am alone, because I am rehashing some past conversation that went badly, except this time I'm winning. I know at least one other person who does this as well (outbursts and all) , and I expect that there may be more. Still, I'm not necessarily sure I want to expose the public to this kind of thing.
Oh, but you know what? I have gathered further evidence in my case against Florida. Aparently, 'gators aren't the only things you have to worry about when you go swimming in natural bodies of water down there.
"Snakes?" I guessed. "Snapping turtles?" (this lead to further conversation on the terrifying and evil nature of snapping turtles)
But it wasn't!
Do you know what you have to worry about in some parts of Florida?
Ottters! As I told my reliable source, I've seen Jungle Jack Hanna on Letterman a time or two, and I know that otters are not for petting, but I had no idea that they would just swim right up to you and bite you. Apparently they are savage. Those Nature Conservancy people have just been misleading the world for years. The t-shirts always show playful little weaselly doggy waterbears cracking shellfish on their tummies. (Surely nothing with a tummy could be vicious.) Instead, they should show the little scamps mauling people. Maybe then people would think twice about not cutting up their plastic soda can rings, if they thought a sharp-toothed goon squad might pay them a little "visit." posted by Frenzy Lohan | 2/25/2004 01:43:00 AM
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Tuesday, February 24, 2004 I want scurvy, I want rickets
A few days ago, those nosy fucks at Hopkins called me up to tell me I was anemic. I was like, "Yeah, so?" because while I'm sure it's probably something I should work on, I wasn't too surprised that my iron went down after two weeks of nearly iron-less vegetarian hospital food. ("I guess I'll have the melon plate for lunch. And dinner.")
They wouldn't let me off the phone until I promised to take vitamins. I suppose I will, but first, I need to confirm something.
I've heard that if one is indeed low on iron, if a prankster runs a gold ring over one's face, it will leave a black mark. Probably, this phenomenon is caused by magic.
Unfortunately, I don't know anybody who really wears gold. I guess it's just one more reason to befriend the gangsta kids whose ancestors probably stepped right off the Mayflower. They hang around downtown, and don't dress appropriately for the weather. That's rebellion. New England Style!
More and more, I'm thinking I want to try living up here. It's because I like ice with dirt in it. And I'm a moooooooooron.
But you know, so many of the warm weather areas are so, so very scummy. I'm looking at you, Florida. posted by Frenzy Lohan | 2/24/2004 01:19:00 AM
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Thursday, February 19, 2004 I speak only to God
Yesterday I sold the car to the former mate. For some reason, this involved going to New Hampshire. I'd never been before, and now I have a whole new appreciation for the democratic process. Making candidates schlep up there is one of America's best pranks.
Now I'm staying with my sister and her husband in a certain town outside of Boston. It once had a reputation for destroying factory girls' lungs. Now, it smells vaguely like poo, but it is still a charming place. I could really get to like New England. I'll change my name to something Puritan, and claim that my ancestors were hanged as witches up until the 1930's. posted by Frenzy Lohan | 2/19/2004 01:09:00 PM
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Tuesday, February 17, 2004 Oh!
I admit it. Like many straight people, I've considered getting married for a joke. I've never actually gone through with it, because I'm not an idiot. I could, though. Vegas or no Vegas, I could get married within a few days of the fancy first striking me, pretty much anywhere in the country. I could marry an octogenarian sugar daddy, some guy who beats me, or a man with nine children and facial tattoos, if I was amind to. Hell, I could marry all of them, as long as I went through a divorce in between.
I try not to take priveleges for granted, but sometimes I forget the extent of what I have, and what is denied to others.
Then I see something like this.
posted by Frenzy Lohan | 2/17/2004 01:05:00 AM
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Sunday, February 15, 2004 Still invincible, thanks
Today I went to a park with the friends I'm staying with and a friend of theirs. We walked all around a big frozen pond. Then we walked on the pond. Was this madness? Yes.
On the other hand, a few families were leading their children out onto the ice as well. We figured the paramedics would have to come for them anyway, so It was ok. Oddly enough, it was.
My time in Baltimore is rapidly coming to a close, and I still haven't seen John Waters. I don't think he's too disappointed, though. posted by Frenzy Lohan | 2/15/2004 10:06:00 PM
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Saturday, February 14, 2004 L is for the way you look at me
I can't help but stare when people do ridiculous things. Today I crashed a friend's family outing, because a) muttering "I don't want to impose" didn't work and b) her family is often gracious enough to feed me. See, it was parents' day at art school: hence the parents.
I was indeed fed. As we sat in the cafeteria eating some rather uninspired food, I noticed a young man in a strange get-up. I asked my friend if it was fraternity rush week. Nope.
It turned out that that young man was wearing that Waffle House cook's cap on purpose.
That's what they teach you to do in art school. posted by Frenzy Lohan | 2/14/2004 02:37:00 PM
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Thursday, February 12, 2004 monstrous
I hate technical difficulties. I just wanted to talk about crafts! But no. Instead I've been humiliated by the typos that riddle my last post. When I try to edit them out, only half the post shows up, and it is indeed the half without the errors.
I'm going to talk about crafts anyway.
In the days before the inpatient part of the study began, I greedily knit up all my black yarn into a...textile. It was originally meant to be part of a sweater, but the weave was too loose, and I couldn't condone any sort of immodest sweater. Instead, I put it aside in the bag of things I wasn't going to take to the study.
In the course of various moves over the past two years, I've scattered my posessions through several different states. I was convinced that I had a hidden yarn cache in New Jersey, and I told the former mate to bring it down when he came to be hospitalized as well.
Unfortunately the cache was either non-existent or very well-hidden indeed, and so there I was, lounging in my adjustable bed with three sets of needles and nothing to put on them.
I ripped up some rubber gloves into strips and tied those together, and began to knit a rubber hat. At first, I hid my work from the nurses, because it was a fairly wanton process of destruction of hospital property. One by one, they began to catch on, probably because of their, "Knock first, then enter immediately" policy. At first they were skeptical. "You must be bored," one said. "Do you want me to bring you some needlepoint or something to do?"
I showed her. I showed them all.
My rubber hat was the finest that had ever been knit. After that, the scarf was inevitable. The former doubters squealed with glee. My ridiculous creations became something of a tourist attraction on the floor. Nurses and techs began to stream in. They were telling their friends, too. Finally, on the last full day of the study, a crowd of half a dozen people surrounded my bed at 7 a.m., demanding to see what I had done. I sleepily modeled the items for them.
Now when I go back for the next round of blood work, the study director is requiring me to bring the hat and scarf, so she can take a picture. I will also be required to bring a stool sample, but they're asking that of everyone, and luckily, there are no plans for a photographic record of that! posted by Frenzy Lohan | 2/12/2004 01:31:00 PM
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You can't melt it down in the rain
This is Cara again. I'm so pathetically grateful to have internet access again that I don't even mind creeping around my friends' apartment to get it. I just got out of my study this morning, and showed up on their doorstep. They are either awake or not home, but I haven't peeked at their room. That seems a little
too weird...much weirder than just quietly letting myself in and flinging myself at the PC.
I'm loopy from this unstructured lifestyle. I can't make it on the outside.
In the study, I was issued clean pants whenever I requested a pair. Do you know how long that has been my dream?
Thanks to Helen for guest blogging. She's right, of course. I cracked like a robin's egg under the moral pressure of any kind of wrongdoing when I was a kid. I'm not sure where all the excessive guilt came from, since my parents weren't then and are not now religious. (Although wouldn't that be a hoot? If all of a sudden, say, my dad started going to revival meetings, rather than espousing conspiracy theories and quiet misanthropy?)
It really would be the missing piece to (or one of many, but a big one) to the puzzle of the folks if they were secretly with some kind of fundamentalist sect. Their policies of keeping my sister and I out of school and extreme television censorship might make more sense. Helen wasn't fooling. They forbid much of anything but PBS and syndicated sitcoms like I Dream of Jeannie and Green Acres.
I remember one night we'd been watching Hogan's Heroes or something on the crappy local channel that showed all that stuff, and they'd been promoting a Special Feature Presentation: Yentl. For some reason, we begged to watch it. My mother said no. Later, when she was gone, we got bored with spinning around in circles 'til we fell down, or cutting the hair off of our meager Barbie collection, or any of the other creative and life-affirming tasks kids are naturally drawn to when they aren't ground down by traditional models of education, and switched on Murphy Brown.
Our TV was located in the basement: this was in order to de-emphasize it as the center of the house, so we wouldn't become one of those families who spent every night sitting slackjawed around the cathode ray tube in the living room.
So instead we sat shivering on the worset furniture, out of reach of the light, staring at the cathode ray tube.
And it was ten times easier to sneak forbidden shows that way. Anyway, we were happily watching Candace Bergen square her jaw in outrage or what have you, when we hear the dreaded pattern of footsteps upstairs that meant that our mother was on her way down.
Quickly, we switched off the TV. I was probably right on the verge of dissolving into a puddle of goo and confessing everything, but our mother was in a good mood. "Oh, girls, I know you're watching that movie," she said. "If you
really want to, I guess it's OK." And she switched the TV back on.
And there was Murphy, giving Miles a piece of her mind. My mother turned bright red and began screaming, "Networks! you're watching networks!" Later, we were punished.
Weirdly enough, I think that that was the beginning of the end for the TV restriction game. Even if that particular incident didn't happen exactly when I think it did, it was part of a pattern of TV-related rebellion that gradually wore my parents down, until not even cable TV, with its lure of scantily clad bodies and anglo-saxon words caused them to fly into a credible frenzy anymore.
In the study, we got this bizarro-cable with any of the potentially offensive channels (MTV, VH1, the History Channel) neatly excised away, and since nobody got sick, all there was to do was watch TV and work on bizarre crafts projects of our own invention (more on this later). More than anything, we ended up watching a show about a preacher with a large family. Each family member lies to one another constantly, and every child from the age of six on up is in a turbulent romantic relationship.
There is no way in hell I would have been allowed to watch that when I was a kid.
Coming up later: my knitting is the talk of the research unit! posted by Frenzy Lohan | 2/12/2004 11:02:00 AM
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Tuesday, February 10, 2004 My casserole, it's better than yours
Random reviews:
Vanilla milk. I like it.
Handwriting things. I dislike it and wish I were better at it.
Stamping things. I dislike it.
Going to the post office. I dislike it. I should be able to shove these envelopes in my CD drive and have them go somewhere.
The scarf I am knitting. I am currently pleased, but the wind blows hither and yon.
Wrinkle release spray. I spritzed it all over my face and nothing happened. It worked well on the shirts.
Having a CD player in the car. I like it.
Being called "Mrs. my husband's last name": I dislike it.
Being called "Mrs. my husband's last name" by people whom I've gently told that I kept my own name: I really dislike it.
Having another blog on which to spew. It's more taxing than I might have thought. Am I getting paid for guest-blogging? Or is the idea that this is reward in itself? Hmm, most dinner guests bring wine, but then again you do get a free meal.
Alienating my sister's few loyal readers: The jury is still out!
-xxoo posted by Licketysplit | 2/10/2004 10:07:00 PM
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Sunday, February 08, 2004 Wilkommen
Pineapples are a symbol of welcome. That photo is not the least bit on-the-nose.
This is still Cara's sister, guest-blogging her little heart out. I haven't heard from Shits n' Giggles herself, but I hope to suitably embarass her before she returns. Did you know that when we were kids, we would disobey our parents in seeming solidarity? And then she would screw up her face and weep over a plate of mashed potatoes, her conscience so tragically burdened by our watching of "The Facts of Life" or some other arbitrarily forbidden TV program. And she'd rat us both out, and I'd get in trouble because I was older, and she confessed. What were my parents thinking? And what was I thinking, trusting her? Pah! I am much smarter than to leave her a login to MY blog! Muahahahaha. It's a hard knock life.
-xxoo posted by Licketysplit | 2/08/2004 09:29:00 PM
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Saturday, February 07, 2004 My apartment smells funny
Day three of the occupation of Cara's blog continues apace. First, I rearranged all the furniture. She's totally going to bump into shit when she gets back. Then I signed her up for a bunch of magazine subscriptions. Cat Fancy, Quilting, and Hair to Stay. You get the idea.
The other day I was watching TV, and I heard yet another Cure song used in an ad. "I Dig You" to be exact, used in a Monster.com ad. I haven't heard that in years! I think it was released under the name Cult Hero, but it's definitely the usual Cure suspects. I had a copy on a tape that I mailed away for like ten years ago. Remember tapes? Wow! You could play them in the car, or in something called a Walkman. Remember mailing away? Sending a check to a total stranger based on a crptic message in the back of something called a "zine?" Those were the days, I tell you. We took chances! We did not hide behind tracking numbers or fraud protection! Today's kids are a pack of wee milquetoasts.
-xxoo posted by Licketysplit | 2/07/2004 05:37:00 PM
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Friday, February 06, 2004 I'm the best Jodie Foster
Not to mention the best guest-blogger. Except that I don't have much to say today. I have been unpacking and battling the snow plows. Our lot was too slippery to pull into when I got back from the grocery store, so I parked on the street and got plowed in. Luckily I was able to bat my eyes at a nice man with a snow blower, thus avoiding manual labor. Well, except for the hand job. Oh, I keeeeed.
After that, I put household sundries in a winsome galvinized tin. It cost $14, and it goes under the sink. Ahahahahaha.
Here is a photo of the trash can at a relative's house:
What exactly is Farm Fresh about trash? Is that some clever play on manure? Is it so obvious that I am just making too much out of it? I can overthink anything. That's the infamous carpeted kitchen, by the way.
-xxoo posted by Licketysplit | 2/06/2004 04:09:00 PM
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Thursday, February 05, 2004 Hello my honey, hello my baby
Ahoy, ahoy, this is the sister of the defendant. I'll be guest-blogging here and there until Cara is out of the hospital. May her suffering ensure that future generations will not have to bear the horrors of ingrown toenails. Perhaps I was supposed to start this a few days ago. I'm just not sure. I assumed she'd get a phone call, like on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.
This week has been hectic because I moved. For an extra $20, movers will dispense with their code of ethics and hoist you aloft atop the coffee table. For $20 more, they will carry you around the whole apartment while you bark gruff orders and play an accordian. Try it!
What else happened recently? I've taken up knitting. So far, I've made something the size of a potholder. Then I became frustrated and unraveled it. Luckily my friend and I are taking a knitting class soon. I hope it is remedial. How else will I make a merino wool bikini?
-xxoo posted by Licketysplit | 2/05/2004 08:40:00 PM
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Sunday, February 01, 2004 Superbowl fever, 2004
So far our superbowl party is underway nicely. There are three people here, including me. There are two cats. My host and I are not good at small talk, and the other girl who's staying here doesn't know either of us very well. It's not as awkward as one might expect.
We haven't turned on the TV yet. Watching "the game" is really overrated, as far as Superbowl party activities go.
Yesterday's fire was such a success that we went back to the park and gathered more sticks. None of us are particularly efficient firebuilders, so that should kill some time.
Other party activities we have planned are:
*eventually eating some kind of dinner
*sitting quietly.
I don't know if it's really artificial situation the three of us are in or not. On the one hand, one usually knows one's house guests. On the other hand, I met one of my hosts (the other is absent tonight, doing some other study) by moving into his house for a couple weeks one time. A year or so later, when that house had generally imploded, he became my college roommate, even though he didn't go to the college. The school had given me a double room, and for some reason, I just couldn't keep a school-assigned roommate.
Later that year, I was nominated for the school's community service award, and I like to think it was because of all my work in personally housing the homeless.
posted by Frenzy Lohan | 2/01/2004 06:38:00 PM
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