Sunday, November 28, 2004 breaking news
Oh, damn, damn, DAMN those housewives are desperate! I didn't even KNOW!
posted by Frenzy Lohan | 11/28/2004 09:17:00 PM
0 comments
Thursday, November 25, 2004 Like old times
Here I am in my sister's living room again, just like the old days when she and her husband let me stay with them while I got myself sorted out last spring. I am stuffed with tofurkey. I don't know if I'm sorted out, but it helped a lot to have a place to stay and people to help me when I needed it.
It's nice, too, to have tofurkey, even and especially when people make fun of your tofurkey and trimmings.
posted by Frenzy Lohan | 11/25/2004 08:50:00 PM
0 comments
Tuesday, November 23, 2004 There are many different people who enjoy Sponge Bob
During my last overnight for the drug study, one of my studymates was showing off his tattoo while he waited in line for his blood draw. A word was written in vertically in globby gothic script on his upper arm. "What does that say? I can't read that," one of the phlebotomists said. She squinted at his arm as she drew my blood.
"You're looking wrong," the man said. "You've got to read it the other way."
I squinted too, and then realized that his tattoo was upside-down, and that one had to start down by the elbow and read up.
"See? M-U--" he prompted. I read along. -R-D-E-R. It said what I thought it did.
He could look down at it and see it rightside-up from his own perspective, like a one item to-do list.
On the previous overnight, I'd been sitting in the TV room, staring at what was on. It was a re-run of a vote-or-die kind of interview. "I can't vote anyway," the guy with the MURDER tattoo said.
"Why not?" someone asked him.
"'Cause I'm a felon."
"Mmmm. Me too," the guy sitting next to me said. The spot ended, and a commercial for the Sponge Bob movie came on.
"Oh, that's my show," the second felon said. "That shit is funny as hell. I love that."
"Why do you like it?" I asked him.
"Well, it's just all crazy," he said. "Sponge Bob and his boys, they live under the sea, right? And they've got this one neighbor. They're just all up in his shit, and they drive him crazy, and they don't even know." He looked off into the distance, and his fists clenched a little. "They just keep fuckin' with him and fuckin' with him," he said. He said he'd started watching it with his little girl, and then gotten to really liking it.
Later, he became vocally upset when the day's scheduled Sponge Bob episode was a re-run of one at an earlier timeslot. He also punched the couch.
Today I read someone's livejournal about how she and her little boy left the Sponge Bob movie after 20 minutes: her four year old started crying when one of the characters was beaten with a tire iron. Someone else commented that they'd heard other reports of parents who were shocked and upset by the movie's content.
Some weak-ass parents of toddlers just can't hang, I guess.
posted by Frenzy Lohan | 11/23/2004 02:09:00 AM
0 comments
Saturday, November 20, 2004 Pow!
A homeless guy body-checked me when I was walking to work this morning. We crossed paths closer than he would have liked, and so he walked a step or two past me, then came back and slammed into me on purpose. "GET out of my damn way and STAY out of my damn way," he yelled. He wasn't trying to slickly brush against me and take my wallet. He was just hostile as DAMN. I couldn't think of one single counter point, so I just kept walking.
A block or so later, a guy in a pickup truck pulled up beside me and asked what that (racial slur)'s problem was. I guess he'd been stopped at the light and seen the whole thing. I couldn't think of anything to say to him, either. I just gave him the cow face. You should see it. It's the expression my face forms when I'm not making an effort to close my mouth or focus my eyes. It also comes up if I have a cud to chew.
In hindsight, I probably should have pepper sprayed both of them.
I probably should sniff enough glue so I don't have to think very much about this kind of thing. posted by Frenzy Lohan | 11/20/2004 01:24:00 AM
0 comments
Thursday, November 18, 2004 sexy bullfrog
My skin is a little bit green, but only because there used to be a lot more blood in there than there is now. My BANK ACCOUNT is more GREEN also. Get it? (I mean I received financial compensation to participate in the drug study that ended today.) One of my study-mates was in the big dysentery vaccine trial last winter, although she wasn't in at the same time I was. We sat and compared notes while others listened in horror. What's up? Too chicken to test experimental vaccines? Yeah, stay in these penny ante trials of crap that's already on the market, suckers.
(I intend to, also. Intent may be reversed due to future poverty.)
This week's overnight was shorter than last week's, and I already had my routine down, so the time passed more quickly. However: recent clinical trials have shown that I remain popular with captive males aged 18-55. There were plenty of beaus at that ball, but I still have my honor. I dealt with all the attention in the way that I have found it best to deal with awkward social situations: I pretended to be asleep a fair amount of the time. If it is not plausible to pretend to be asleep, it shows that the situation isn't really all that awkward at all.
This morning, though, there was a window of time where the sleeping areas were locked, and we weren't allowed to sleep or lie down in the common spaces. I watched cartoons on the TV room TV, and had conversations I would have preferred to skip. They often ended with questions like, "Hey, how come you twitch so much?"
I would give answers like, "Because I'm really uncomfortable right now."
Luckily, "Oops, they're calling my number for blood draw--gotta go," was a really rock-solid excuse to get up and go elsewhere.
posted by Frenzy Lohan | 11/18/2004 01:20:00 AM
0 comments
Tuesday, November 16, 2004 I got nothing
It's been harder to write here lately. I don't know why. There's all kinds of crap to write about. Just today, I was walking home from work, when I heard bells jingling. An arabber cart came around the corner. The pony was cantering, and the driver and his passenger were chillin'. They were chillin' so hard that, you know, it's cool, sometimes you just have to let your pony pull your cart the wrong way down a major street at rush hour. You know.
Jingle jingle. Clip clop: clip clop. Honk. Screech. Clip clop.*
Then when I stopped at the grocery store, there was a dachshund tied up outside. On my way out, there was a commotion when it tried to bite a child, who complained to store security. Store security remained unmoved.
But what else is new? Not a dang thing. Sometimes, I bore myself silly with this site.
*The final "Clip clop" was included to indicate that no cars hit the horse-drawn fruit cart.
posted by Frenzy Lohan | 11/16/2004 01:50:00 AM
0 comments
Sunday, November 14, 2004 If reading at the reception desk is outlawed...
Only outlaws will read at the reception desk.
Other things outlaws might do:
*Use numbers to write "BOOBS" on the pocket calculator used to calculate the day's totals
Lousy staff meeting.
In other news:
I took a walk today, and a few minutes in, I passed by a house as a woman was leaving. "Don't worry, I'll get you a cheesburger," she said to someone inside as she closed and locked her door. "You've been a good dog."
She looked up and saw me, so I smiled. "That's right. I buy my dog cheesburgers," she said.
"That's great. Bet he's glad to get em." I said, and kept walking.
"Yeah, he really likes them" she said as she unlocked her car.
I nodded and kept going.
"He loves me," she said.
I said, "Hey, it's OK. Sometimes you've got to get your dog a cheesburger. It's cool."
And then I went right home, because I figured the walk had already just about peaked.
posted by Frenzy Lohan | 11/14/2004 07:07:00 PM
0 comments
Friday, November 12, 2004 Act casual
Today I saw a woman walking a dog on a leash. A black and white cat was walking free behind them. Whenever the woman or the dog turned, the cat would duck behind a car or bush and sink low to the ground. When they started moving, it would follow them again.
posted by Frenzy Lohan | 11/12/2004 01:56:00 AM
0 comments
Wednesday, November 10, 2004 These are not my pants
I have to t ype quickly, because in fifteen minutes I have to go and get my blood drawn again. So far they've been able to find it OK, but they've had a lot of practice, as this will be my thirteetnth blood draw of the day.
A little while ago there seemed to be doubt as to where they could get the blood, with some blind jabbing and cussin'. "It's in the arm! The arm!" I hinted, and after that, everything went according to plans.
So far the snacks have been cookies. We had to fast this morning, though, and in a sneak attack on my dignity, they encouraged us to hydrate ourselves really well, then locked the bathrooms for a couple hours.
I do what I do for SCIENCE! posted by Frenzy Lohan | 11/10/2004 04:13:00 PM
0 comments
Tuesday, November 09, 2004 Oops! No blood!
In a little bit I'm going to check in to the first part of a medical study. It's just a little one, with only two overnights, and even those are spaced a week apart.
My only concern is that people have a hard time finding where my blood is located in my body at this facility. I find out where all the blood is practically every time I chop vegtables, but these people, who have special devices for getting blood seem puzzled, and then they just start looking for blood any old where, and it becomes unpleasant.
On the plus side, they pay money, and I hear we get snacks. posted by Frenzy Lohan | 11/09/2004 11:00:00 AM
0 comments
Monday, November 08, 2004 hack
I am sick, and so is everyone in my household, to varying degrees. I knew this was coming.
One of the other receptionists at work has had to call out or go home early for her past couple shifts: the last time she was in, she thoughtfully brought a tiny spritzer bottle of rubbing alcohol, which she used to wipe down the phone after use.
It was for nothing. Take my lungs, please.
Today I'm taking the bus to work, like a Rockefeller, because I need to be pretty close to miraculously healed by tomorrow evening, when I will go into a short medical study to see how my body metabolizes something or other. Luckily, this study facility doesn't seem too terribly picky about "healthy" this or "mentally competant" that, so I should remain a shoo-in.
JJ removed the cursed bone from the fence the other night, and disposed of it in a manner he thought proper.
I can only assume that the house plague is left over from the bone: it was already in the works before we started messing with it. Or: We are so fucked, because moving the bone is what gets the curse going, and it's nothing but pestilence for us from here on out.
posted by Frenzy Lohan | 11/08/2004 08:43:00 AM
0 comments
Thursday, November 04, 2004 kinda poor is the new middle class
Like I said, all day I've heard about people thinking about the election, brooding about the election, drinking about the election. I don't know. I should have done more, and I didn't.
One of my co-workers is an extremely endearing person. She's friendly, we joke around together, and she's the one who got me my job. She entertains clients by describing unplesant medical procedures that she and her friends have undergone, and she believes that shoplifters should be punished by having their hands cut off. "They do it in others countries. It's something to think about," she'll say.
When I was at work on election day, a hard-faced woman started pestering me while I was on the phone. "Do you need these voter guides?" the woman said as she tried to shove a bunch of fliers at me. I waved her away.
"I already voted," I told her, and went back to booking a haircolor appointment. "Are we talking full or partial highlights here?" I said. I ask the hard questions.
Meanwhile, my nice co-worker was looking at the flyer with "voter guide" printed on it in big letters. "See, I just don't like Kerry," she said. "I don't. I'm voting for Bush."
I didn't stop what I was doing and explain to her why it bothered me to hear her say that. I mentally shrugged and forgot about it until the rush was over.
Then I noticed that the insistent woman had pinned some "voter guides" to the bulletin board. I took them down, because they were from the Christian Coalition, but I didn't go back and debate anybody.
Somewhere over the course of my last romantic relationship, I lost my taste for arguing. In those days, every little thing was contended so stridently that now, with a sense of relief, I avoid arguments over anything more serious than fashion crimes (More heinous: to wear a Karen O. haircut on the wrong face, or to double denim?).
Anyway, my state went decently blue, largely thanks to us latte-sippers here in the big city (Eat it, Nowheresville. Get some street crime and nightclubs, and then maybe you'll be important enough for me to pay attention to.), so I didn't lose poor Kerry the election by failing to get up in my co-worker's face.
She was off today, so I didn't have to hear a single pleased reaction to last night's results, which was a blessing.
I still don't want to fight with anybody. I don't want to make enemies. I want everyone to like me and think I'm a nice person.
My question: how is it possible to be such a sellout without being even moderately sucessful? I don't have health insurance, or a car, or much disposable income, yet I feel like I'm cruising through like some kind of bougie nobody instead of somebody who's making a difference. Oh, red, red states. Why do you have to do me like this? I was doing OK with making being OK my life's work, and now I feel like I should be galvanized somehow, ready to fight and organize and do everything I can to minimize the damage that that wildman party guy we weren't able to beat can do in the next four years.
The trouble is, I don't feel ready to fight. I just want to keep being OK. I feel like I worked hard and overcame a lot to get to OK, and now OK is biting me in the ass.
posted by Frenzy Lohan | 11/04/2004 03:00:00 AM
0 comments
Wednesday, November 03, 2004 in the bloody morning after
The beauty salon was a hotbed of rage and sorrow today. People came in under black clouds, and some of them nearly cried when their stylists asked "Hey, how are you?"
People swore and swore from their beauty chairs, over the buzz of clippers and the roar of blowdryers.
"We have to stop him," one man kept repeating. "Don't give up," he said. "I mean it. None of you. None of you!"
I'm glad I live in a blue city that has the decency to mourn.
I am not glad about other things.
We elected who now? On purpose? Why? Do y'all people like being poor? Do you like being a country of monsters?
I am glad about dinner. I don't want to give away my diet secrets, but it was carb-based. And good? Yep.
Ob la di and so forth, I guess. But, man.
posted by Frenzy Lohan | 11/03/2004 10:23:00 PM
0 comments
No you di'int, America
In the olden days I used to go to these protests, and that was a good time. It's nice to see a lot of people dressed up in menacing outfits, setting fires and throwing rocks.
Later, I noticed I was in jail a lot more often than I used to be, and I really hated it. Like, I can't stand jail. It messes with my head.
I noticed, too, that a lot of the people who burned things and marched around chanting didn't have all too much else to offer. I guess I kind of knew that all along, but for a while, getting really upset and lashing out about it seemed like enough, you know? Or at least it seemed like a step.
At least if I was following global summits around and being a nuisance or allegedly breaking into buildings and occupying them to prove a point (and to flirt!), I wasn't sinking into some swamp of complacency.
But: I like the swamp of complacency. I like to live a calm life and have a daily routine and a house and a job.
My house is being foreclosed upon, so at some point in the next few months, a sherrif will come to the door and give us an eviction notice, and then we'll have 90 days to get out. The foreclosure thing was what's known as an "October Surprise". I've known about it for a while, but I hadn't posted anything here because it made me so sad, it was easier not to think about it.
I just want to ignore it, even though I know that that won't make it go away. I know that unpleasantness will follow, and steps are being taken, but secretly I think that there's nothing I can do, either within the rules or "outside the box" of what's legal or decent that will help the situation.
Are you catching what I'm throwing here? I'm talking about the damn election.
Damn, damn, DAMN.
posted by Frenzy Lohan | 11/03/2004 01:39:00 AM
0 comments
Tuesday, November 02, 2004 That took a thousand hours
I voted as hard as I could. The lines in my polling place wound around the room and looped back twice, like we were waiting for a roller coaster.
posted by Frenzy Lohan | 11/02/2004 01:52:00 PM
0 comments
Dear Ann Landers,
I realize that you're dead, but the internet is akin to the spirit world, and as you read on, I'm sure you'll see how, as a supernatural entity, this problem might be right up your alley!
A few months ago, some friends and I moved into a house together. All went well on moving day, until 12:30 AM, when we realized our car had been towed! Worst of all, our own neighbors had reported us to the tow truck company and requested that they come and take our car, because unbeknownst to us, we were in one of their two allotted parking spaces--and they only have one car!
We were pretty steamed, and we wanted to ask them, "Hey, what gives?!" but they wouldn't answer their door whenever we knocked.
As time went by, we never heard a peep from them, although sometimes we glimpsed them through the window.
Then tonight, we noticed that someone had inserted a large, dried-out bone into the space between our gate and our fence. It is at eye level, and had to have been placed by someone either inside our yard (it wasn't us!) or theirs.
The bone is not a chicken bone, because it is too large. There has been some debate about what kind of bone it is. We're not jumping to any conclusions that it is a human bone, although my housemate L. had to study different kinds of bones one time and take a test, and she's not saying it is human, but...
Anyhow, Ann, as my housemate JV pointed out, it might've gotten there naturally somehow. For example, it might've fallen off the bone tree.
But, Ann, we don't have a bone tree! It is a crepe myrtle!
Now, you might not be familiar with Baltimore, Ann Landers, but if you are (and I would not be surprised!), you are aware that people here will shove garbage into anything. However, as I said, it does not seem to be the bone of any kind of commonly eaten animal. Also, even if it were, some might say it was "uncool" to jam garbage into your neighbors' fence.
Long story short, Ann, we're having a hard time figuring out how this couldn't be a hex. My housemate JJ has taken the precaution of pouring salt on it.
I'm writing to you in the great beyond, Ann Landers, because we are flummoxed about how to dispose of this bone, which may be human and is probably cursed. Should we call the witch doctor?!?!
Also, what about our neighbors? Do we fight made-up magic spells with made-up magic spells, or is it more sensible to kick over their trash can?
I know you can help us.
Please don't print my name, as it could probably be used against me in arcane and eldritch ceremonies. Just sign me:
--Baffled in Baltimore
posted by Frenzy Lohan | 11/02/2004 01:25:00 AM
0 comments
|
