Thursday, September 30, 2004 we'll hold it as a reminder for you to return the hardware
There's a black pick-up truck parked in one of the hated neighbor's spaces today. There's a note in nasty old-person writing tucked under its windshield wiper. It says something like "YOU ARE BLOCKING MY GATE" (not true) "This is NOT a PUBLIC SPACE. Next time you will be TOWED!!!."
Naturally, it is unsigned: the bad don't believe in signing their names to petty correspondance. Dang ol' truck got a warning, though! Why did our innocent van not get the same warning? Ding-dang ol' neighbors.
I'm impersonating an art student to type this today, internet. Do you see the lengths to which I go for you?
Secretly, though, I'm not fooling anyone. posted by Frenzy Lohan | 9/30/2004 04:00:00 PM
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Wednesday, September 29, 2004 like a caveman
Thanks to everyone who was malicious and vengeful to post suggestions on how to destroy our bad neighbors' souls. I really appreciate it.
We've yet to even see them, but we can tell by their yard decorations that they're elderly. We will destroy them with osteoporosis.
I have limited internet access right now: I'm posing as an art student just to type this. Technically, I'm staff here, but no one would suspect that. DSL hasn't reached our end of the street yet, and when the operator suggested dial-up, my housemate said "Are you threatening me?"
I'll be around, but not often. I miss you, internet.
posted by Frenzy Lohan | 9/29/2004 02:04:00 PM
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Sunday, September 26, 2004 INTERNET POLL!!!
Last night we moved most of the living room and kitchen into the new house, then sat down to watch a movie. (One cannot neglect The Hundred Movie Challenge.)
Then some neighbors, presumably the ones next door, decided to play a prank, so they picked up their telephone, dialed a certain number, and had my housemate's van towed.
It was 12:30 AM. When we found out at 1:00 AM (another neighbor came and rang our bell and told us), there was the neighbors' car, sitting smugly next to the spot where the van used to be. Next to it were three vacant spaces. No car was in the van's space.
I'd be getting going on a spite fence, but it came with the house.
The van was in a spot directly in front of our door: one of our own designated spaces was filled by a leaf-covered sedan with its tags removed, so we figured, you know, we'd be carrying boxes in all day, and people would see we were moving, and it wouldn't mattter so much that we were parked one space away from where we should be. People said hello, and we had high hopes for attending future block meetings: it was friendly neighbors, in fact, who told us what the parking rules were to begin with, as their were no posted procedures. Our landlord didn't tell us, of course. He didn't know, just like he didn't know there was a backyard to the previous building, or that there was a keyed lock to the yard gate of the new place.
It cost money to get the car out of impound, and it's going to be OK, but with the security deposit and all, we're a little broke right now. We're going to have to seek low budget forms of entertainment.
POLL:
Please share your favorite, low-cost, non-violent, and legal ways of making the jerks who had our car towed wish they were dead. posted by Frenzy Lohan | 9/26/2004 09:39:00 AM
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Saturday, September 25, 2004 convoy
We got a house! I can't believe it. Keys and everything. I'm getting a bedroom. Aloha, window seat. See you in hell. Or tonight, because I have no furniture, and we haven't entirely moved in yet. Aw, window seat. I can't stay mad at you. Let's be friends. Your windsong stays on my mind.
It's fun to move without really packing. Packing is the worst!
posted by Frenzy Lohan | 9/25/2004 07:52:00 PM
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Friday, September 24, 2004 How we lookin', ladies?
In one of my employee handbooks, it says, "Don't come to work with chipped polish."
When I was interviewing for another job, I asked how much it paid, and the interviewer said, "What kind of degree do you have? A bachelor's? Well, we'd start you at ten an hour, and it would go to eleven after a few months." That person paused. "We could go as high as twelve for a masters," that person said.
We are getting keys to the new house tomorrow. Big baby Jesus, I can't wait! I'm afraid I'm jinxing it right now, by typing. I'm knocking wood. I just knocked wood right now. It chipped my polish. I am so fired.
posted by Frenzy Lohan | 9/24/2004 01:03:00 AM
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Thursday, September 23, 2004 mmmmmusty
Tonight my housemates and I went looking for boxes in many fine dumpsters, but that is so boring it makes you want to die. Boxes? Who cares! We couldn't just look into the cardboard dumpsters when there was so much that the world was throwing away for us. That's why we're knee-deep in Trapper Keepers. Office Max is a bunch of crazy people, throwing stuff out left and right.
I got a clear backpack from their dumpster as well. Eveyone says I'll regret it, because I don't need a backpack, let alone a clear one. They are right, of course. I regret it already. Stupid, stupid, stupid. That bookbag will reveal my secret shames to the world, and I'm just not ready.
I was hoping we would find astronaut pens that would allow us to write underwater and upside down, but we just found regular pens. Now I have to write right side up, on dry paper, like some kind of caveman. So gross.
posted by Frenzy Lohan | 9/23/2004 02:24:00 AM
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Wednesday, September 22, 2004 news you can use
*Everyone's asleep, even the cat. Even when I was kid, I liked the feeling of being the only one awake in a house full of sleeping people. It's comforting, yet avoidant: totally my scene.
*It gets cold enough in the mornings now that I can walk to work without risking being mistaken for a sweaty monster, and my hooves are getting leatherier than ever. It fits nicely with my policy of spinsterhood.
*We watched Aliens tonight as part of the Challenge. It was our thirtieth movie. It's my favorite of all we've watched so far. Best space movie of all time: eat it, Star Wars. Eat it, sequels within the Alien franchise.
*Blockbuster was all out of Mean Girls, and they've been out of Charlotte's Web practically forever.
*The cat sat in the outer hall for several hours today, staring creepily at the old gilt-framed mirror. posted by Frenzy Lohan | 9/22/2004 03:34:00 AM
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Tuesday, September 21, 2004 it's like with bears
At work, I meet a lot of terrified people. "It's going to be eleven," I said to a guy the other day. He had come to pay for his haircut, but instead of pulling eleven dollars* out of his wallet as I had been hoping he would, he got confused and said, "What?" with a blank look on his face.
"Your haircut will be eleven dollars."
He handed over some form of payment, and I made change or swiped it or whatever. When the transaction was over I said, "Thank you. Have a nice day."
He said. "I'm so stupid." I was like, *blink*blink*. "Of course you meant eleven dollars. What else would it be?" he said. I tried to reassure him that it was kind of a non-sequiter, but he kept his head down and left.
Don't worry, clientele.
I am the one who spilled another bottle of shampoo today. This was formulated for gray hair rather than blonde, so it was silvery blue instead of bright purple. It looked nice on the walls, but I cleaned it up anyway.
My clumsy lizard brain wants to paint, I guess.
posted by Frenzy Lohan | 9/21/2004 01:10:00 AM
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Monday, September 20, 2004 nasty weather
It's cold this morning! Cold enough to make my throat sore, and cold enough to make the cat friendly. I'm at a loss for what to wear to work now that tank top season seems to have passed. Perhaps I could get some sort of fleece tank top, as I'm told they do in colder climates.
Last night's movies were hard. We got Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen, because we knew we'd better just go ahead and get it out of our systems, and we got Poltergeist II. If the two could have combined somehow...but, no.
Also, there is a growing schism in the household re: renting television seasons. I think it'll just be too complicated and throw off our counting system. Beyond that, TV is not a movie. It's just not. J. suggested changing the contest to "The Hundred Rental Challenge," but that doesn't sound as cool, and we've already made the poster.
The poster is beautiful. It is on bright pink posterboard, and everyone works on it by adding the titles of the movies we've seen, or by decorating. Our poster has stickers with cats on them, and metallic star stickers. As is the custom, these fall off and go everywhere. Sometimes they stick to the actual cat, who hates them.
Update:
This month, two people have found my personal homepage here by internet searches. The terms that lead them here: "Ding dang ol'" (no hyphen in the search query) and "what ruins friendships."
posted by Frenzy Lohan | 9/20/2004 08:07:00 AM
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Sunday, September 19, 2004 some of us just work harder in the pre-season
As part of the Hundred Movie Challenge, the contest my housemates and I made up (object: watch one hundred movies in 30 days, 2 at a time, using the movie pass thing Blockbuster is doing), we watched The Ring last night. I always jump in scary movies, right when I'm supposed to, no matter how cheap and stupid the scare is. You've got my number, Hollywood, and you also have the number of my livingroommate, who jumps and screams and yells "Don't go in there, you idiot!" I hadn't seen The Ring before, but it was creepy as crap! We all had a good time screaming and flinching and covering our eyes.
The creepiness faded fast once the movie was off, but I guess I was all wound up, and I couldn't get to sleep. BUT IT WASN'T BECAUSE OF THE STUPID MOVIE. I am not scared of creepy little girls: they are my people.
Anyway, I went in to work this morning all clumsy and bumbling. I kept knocking over products and causing trouble. Early on, I knocked down a bottle of shampoo, and because it was the special kind for blondes, it was bright purple. (Blondes love purple. Just kidding. It's meant to take the brassiness out of yellow hair.) I made the wall purple, and the floor, and my arms, and my jeans. It's a good thing I like purple. Blondes ruin everything.
I think I'm going to be able to sleep tonight though:
*I am tired as damn
*The creepy girl I'm not scared of is an entire 24 hours away, which is practically forever
*The last thing we watched was Bend it Like Beckham, so instead of being scared and giddy, we just want to play soccer.
posted by Frenzy Lohan | 9/19/2004 01:51:00 AM
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Friday, September 17, 2004 part of this complete mess
Good morning, internet! It's good to see you. I'm a little tired myself, but I figure I'll go and work ten hours or so, and then I'll get my second wind. First, I'll have oatmeal.
posted by Frenzy Lohan | 9/17/2004 08:32:00 AM
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Wednesday, September 15, 2004 It's true
There is pumpkin bread in the oven right now, and a trashy movie playing in the living room. The cat is on the windowsill, and the kettle is on the stove. It's nice.
I'm a little worried, because we've angered our emotionally unstable property management guy by saying mean stuff like "No, we'd really prefer to get that in writing, rather than just accepting your verbal 'Don't worry about it' as bond." God, we're such jerks. We make property managers cry, because we are bullies.
I have that fear that's pretty common that once you have a good thing going, you better not enjoy it, because you're just setting yourself up for the inevitable kick in the pants. Or rather, I feel like I should have that fear, and shouldn't get too attached to friendly circumstances. I don't know if it would soften any of the pants kickings, though. I really don't think it would, so I tell you what I know for sure: the kitchen smells awesome, and my friends in the living room are laughing at the movie in an extremely endearing fashion.
Over and out, internet. I hope your night is going beautifully. posted by Frenzy Lohan | 9/15/2004 10:05:00 PM
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we are cooks, heartache to heartache. no common sense.
One of the functions of the Garlic Challenge, in my mind, at least, is to get us all a little averse to putting garlic in ding-dang everything for a week or so. I enjoy garlic, and so does everyone who counts, but man!
I don't mean to be negative, though. We had some great soup tonight, and there's enough for several days of soup-eating. Its garlic content was reasonable and delicious.
Earlier, our head chef asked me whether I thought it would be possible to replace the liquid in a cake recipe with icecream. I said that would be ridiculous, and our head chef said, "Since when do I do things that aren't ridiculous?" I thought and I thought, and then I conceded his point.
posted by Frenzy Lohan | 9/15/2004 02:37:00 AM
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Monday, September 13, 2004 anything you can do I can do better
Soon, in the spirit of pointless competition, of of my housemates and I will have Garlic Challenge. We're still working out the rules, but we're going 1) be healthy 2) stink.
In the spirit of excess, the household has joined the Blockbuster Fakey NetFlix Club, where you get unlimited movies rentals, two at a tiime. We're going to watch so many movies. We've planned the "Hundred Movie Challenge" for November, but we may watch all available movies before then. ALL available movies.
posted by Frenzy Lohan | 9/13/2004 07:53:00 PM
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Sunday, September 12, 2004 Uh-oh:
Forgot how to sleep.
I've devoted my life to rock and roll a lot more than usual this week, and yet I've remained employed, so I worked a ten hour day on three hours of sleep. It was only supposed to be a six hour day, but the owner was under the impression that another recetionist was going to come in to relieve me, although I was sitting right there in the big receptionist meeting when the new receptionist told the owner that she couldn't do it today.
Ooh, and I got extra-employed a few days ago. Now I'm supposed to tutor art students in writing. I inch closer to health insurance every day. Just kidding! This job is only for a few hours a week, and I will be fired as soon as they realize that, for a long time, I've been totally faking knowing how to do academic writing.
What good times I've had this week, though. And to think I nearly stayed in and went to bed early. Who would do such a thing?
(Not I!!!)
posted by Frenzy Lohan | 9/12/2004 03:57:00 AM
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Thursday, September 09, 2004 it teaches you to spell "thieves"
Ever since one of my roomates and I found Peasant's Quest on Homestarrunner, we've been on a kick of nostalgia for Sierra games. I never got into most of them, but a bootleg copy of the first Quest For Glory was what I had instead of a childhood. We downloaded that the other day, and now it is what I will have instead of the next few weeks of my twenties. I can't stand it. It's all so familiar, and so Sierra. The dazzling VGA graphics, the snarky "you can't get that" messages--it's like I'm 10 again. I don't know how I feel about that.
We also just got Oregon Trail. We will be setting the pace to grueling and the rations to meager. Best to stay on our good side.
posted by Frenzy Lohan | 9/09/2004 01:21:00 AM
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Monday, September 06, 2004 He is a hero because of something he has done to his car
One of my roommates woke up with Exploding Lung Disease this morning. I didn't mind going to the drug store to get him some Benadryl, because I just re-read The Mouse and The Motorcycle yesterday, and it made me feel like I was hero, like Ralph was a hero when he took the ambulance to find the aspirin for the sick little boy. My roommate is a little better now, and I'm just as heroic as ever.
Maybe soon, Internet, I'll tell you a story about a real Hero For Today.
posted by Frenzy Lohan | 9/06/2004 02:22:00 PM
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Sunday, September 05, 2004 at least yell something appropriate like "cannonball" first
At about eight each morning and a few more times throughout the day, one of our neighbors dumps some liquid out the window. The way our windows are oriented, it's impossible to see which neighbor it is. One only hears the mighty splash.
I guess it pretty much proves that I'm barnfolk that it didn't occur to me how weird this is until today, when one of my roommates brought up the way the smell of pee wafts in on the gentle late summer breeze.
For a while, we blamed this smell on the rotting garbage we'd cleaned out of the backyard and bagged up securely. It had become less secure after a few months of The Best Property Management Company in History's empty promises to haul it away.
Then last week, a miracle happened, and they took the garbage. I'm guessing that now the rats are mean and hungry and homeless, so I haven't been down there to check out what the yard is like without the garbage installation. My roomates and I had been blaming the ghost of the garbage for the smell, but then tow of us were sitting around this afternoon, and we started talking and thinking about the daily splash.
"Wait--what are they dumping out the window? Why would you dump liquid out the window?" "I bet they have at least two sinks in their apartment, with drains and everything" "It it pee? Is that where the smell is coming from? Is that possible?"
We didn't know, but now we've made a pact to yell "Get a sink!" whenever we hear the splash ring out in the alley. We tried it once today, and there was an eerie, moist silence afterwards, as if the pepetrators thought they had been getting away with something up until now.
Pouring one's jar of pee into the sink instead of the alley is one of the things that makes you a certified Class Act. posted by Frenzy Lohan | 9/05/2004 11:39:00 PM
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Friday, September 03, 2004 "She's been gone a minute, and this is what we do"
Internet, you wouldn't believe the crazy crap I get up to. I'm serious. I didn't have to work today, and so one housemate and I were alone while the other went to class. The afternoon stretched before us, and we had already watched Riddick. (I don't need to tell you, internet, but there are bootlegs of this film and many others available all over the place!)
My housemate and I ended up playing a game of our own invention called "Water Challenge."
The rules of Water Challenge are simple: the contestants drink as many cups of water as possible within five minutes.
.
.
.
.
Yes, think about that for a while.
.
.
.
We had to stop after about three minutes. We were not ready for "Advanced Water Challenge," where you pay no mind if your stomach explodes. The biggest challenge of regular Water Challenge is that it's very difficult not to laugh at how idiotic Water Challenge really is.
For many people, being highly high would be the missing piece to the puzzle of why on earth they would participate in Water Challenge, but hand to God, internet, we were sober.
God never gives you more stupid ideas than you can handle.
posted by Frenzy Lohan | 9/03/2004 01:57:00 AM
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Wednesday, September 01, 2004 nature's chumps
This morning I was watching a nature documentary with a friend of mine, and I realized that the appearance of a capybara never means anything good. This time it was piranhas. Yick.
posted by Frenzy Lohan | 9/01/2004 07:10:00 PM
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