Friday, April 29, 2005 elementary
A few seconds ago, I took a drink of my tea, and it was cold. I wasn't shocked, because I do that all the damn time. I have enough attention span to prepare a beverage, and later enough to drink it, but when it comes to gauging how long to take between the steps, the channel keeps changing in my head.
Then I took a bit of my instant oatmeal, and it was cold and cardboardy, with little pieces of semi-shrivelled instant apple just floating around to break your heart. Now I'm beginning to wonder: did I fuck up boiling the water?
ETA: A few seconds ago, I hit publish, and I was pretty pleased with myself. I thought that "Did I fuck up boiling the water?" was a good "kicker:" rhetorical question with an obvious answer, needing no further commentary. And then I went and decided it wasn't enough to bitch about my ruined breakfast on the internet: I was going to do something about it. I got up and went to the kitchen with my tea cup and oatmeal bowl, and I put them both in the microwave. First I carefully removed the tea bag, because I remembered that it is mae with a tiny metal staple, and everyone knows you can't put metal in the microwave. Then I put both the tea and the oatmeal in their separate containers in together, pushed the "quick on" button, which is intended for people like me who are too lazy to push multiple buttons, and spaceed out for about twenty seconds. When I floated back to reality, there was one slow, insistent thought rolling up against the edges of my skull. It came to me one word at a time, with a pause between each.
"Where's......" OK, "Your....." oh, something of mine. Missing. That's awful...".....SPOON????" Then I dived for the microwave and pulled my oatmeal bowl with the metal spoon still in it off the still-rotating platform. posted by Frenzy Lohan | 4/29/2005 09:03:00 AM
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Thursday, April 28, 2005 What do you mean, "Nobody cares about the cat?"
Times are good: that's the baseline. I like my house and my housemates, and I like my dumb job. Things got better last week, and I forsee a general upward trend. Loose lips and all, but I am glad I went to that fateful happy hour.
In the meantime, in the unrelated subject time, let's talk about a cat.
A few months back, we got this little cat (are you dead of boredom yet? David is one of the few who can pull off an online pet story that's moving or fun, and there are days when I fear I am not.), so we got this cat, and I used to know it, and I remembered it having a better personality where it used to live. Now about the only time its old friendly ways resurface is when it gets fed. Every morning it pre-follows me down the stairs, howling quietly. It rubs against my legs in the kitchen. It bites my feet.
Then I feed it, sometimes knowing that I am giving it its second breakfast, because it is the most endearing little thing you've ever seen when it's hungry.
I should probably call the cat "he" rather than it. I guess "it" is creepy. Tough habit to break, though.
Anyway, today my housemates and decided to starve him down to one meal a day, because he's much cuter when he's hungrry, and he looks like he's swallowed a bowling ball because right now, we feed him all the time. posted by Frenzy Lohan | 4/28/2005 10:53:00 PM
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Wednesday, April 27, 2005 Is your husband a Kevin Federline?
At the beauty parlor, everybody comes loaded with their best anecdote of the last 4-6 weeks, but they're never telling them to me, so I hear all these tail-ends of stories: grisly medical mishaps, or how he proposed, or what somebody's dumb kid did a while back. Some come with no anecdotes at all, and for these we have magazines.
For some reason, there's two copies of last month's Scientific American, the one with Britney on the cover, kicking around the shop. People have very strong opinions on Britney Spears, and are moved to speak of her even more eloquently than when they talk about the weather.
I hope she's not reading this.
They think she is very trashy. Britney has unified a people.
Still, no one can stop talking about Britney. I think the stylists might let it lie, but then in come the people who want haircuts, and they have been waiting all day to talk about Britney Spears. posted by Frenzy Lohan | 4/27/2005 09:02:00 AM
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Tuesday, April 26, 2005 Hello
It's a race against time to finish my tea before the bus this morning, and I think I just lost against time. Maybe should've looked at the clock before I started typing. posted by Frenzy Lohan | 4/26/2005 09:02:00 AM
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Sunday, April 24, 2005 not everything that's real is plausible
On Saturday night, I was coming home from Annapolis Challenge. I was waiting for the light rail at Patapsco and from behind the stop, I heard all these little frogs peeping away. I say they were frogs, anyway.
Of course they were frogs, but I was the only one who was sure of the truth. One man said birds, and another one said rats, but then I chimed in, and the frogs stopped all of a sudden, like they didn't want to be found out. "Anyway, I'm not going down there to find out," the man who said it was birds said, and just like that, they started up again, peeping up like little ping pong balls bouncing.
One person waiting at the stop who didn't join the debate was a heavyset man in his later thirties. He had bleached his hair blonde and allowed it to grow long on the top, while shaving the back and sides. Stubble was growing into those areas, but it didn't conceal the way his neck had that unfortunate "pack of hotdogs" configuration of folds.
I knew a lot about his neck, because he'd been on the same busses as I had, coming and going. By the time I started the Challenge on Saturday afternoon, my sins of the week were catching up with me, and I got queasy if I tried to read, so I stared at people and tried to hear their conversations. On the way to Annapolis, we had all been riding through some ugly, ugly nowheresville towns who hadn't paid their quaintness bills in decades, and the whole time, this blonde man was glued to his cellphone.
Mostly, the conversation seemed to be on the other end. Evidently, there were situations.
On the way down there, I'd heard the man sigh and say into the phone, "She said she missed me so much." I'd spent the rest of the ride thinking about who missed him, and how it might be to wake up in the morning and have your first thoughts to be thoughts of that guy, like, Damn, I remember how his unflattering haircut used to blow around in the breeze. (Aloud:) "Where are you, my angel?"
On the way back, he got on the bus a stop or so after I did and sat a few seats in front of me. That time I noticed that the t-shirt with the sleeves cut off that he was wearing advertised Insane Clown Posse. I thought again of the person who missed him so much. "Light of my life, fire of my loins: that guy." I'm glad somebody missed him.
It's been a nice few days. Didn't see it coming. Evidently, I'm a special guest star. I'm just like that guy on the bus: we have situations going. Peep, peep. It's Spring. posted by Frenzy Lohan | 4/24/2005 09:06:00 PM
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Friday, April 22, 2005 I am like a bird
A few seconds ago when I logged into this site, I thought I had something really great and funny to say, but by the time the page loaded, I lost it or I knew better. I'm not sure which. The channel, she keeps changing in my head. You know.
I'm excited for this weekend, which is filled with opportunities to hang out that I just can't miss. For the grand finale (logistically, at least), I'm taking Annapolis Challenge, wherein I get to the nearby city using nothing but public transit (two kinds, maybe three). Somehow, stuff like that always makes me feel like I'm really tough. posted by Frenzy Lohan | 4/22/2005 09:07:00 AM
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Hi, hello
Last night I went and hung out with the internet, and that was a good time. What's your name? What's your URL? Awesome.
Those Baltimore bloggers are nice people, except for the five of them that I took an instant dislike to. I'm teasing, though. I didn't take an instant dislike to anybody. I was too busy drinking. Earlier in the day, we'd had a motivational speaker come into my workplace in order to inspire us all, so I was giving it 110%. Sometimes, one has to actualize one's full potential. posted by Frenzy Lohan | 4/22/2005 12:06:00 AM
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Tuesday, April 19, 2005 scam
If it wasn't for me, nobody in this town would ever have bus fare.
Anyway.
I've been away lately. I went to Jupiter and got more stupider. I went to Baltimore and got more heckled. It's street harassment season! Are you excited? Silver bells. Silver bells. Hey, can I talk to you for a minute? The other day a grown man called me, "Bouncy", like it was my name. "Hi there, Bouncy," he said. Maybe I'm being judgmental, and he wasn't harrassing me at all. Maybe he had left his glasses at home that day, and from a distance, I looked just like his cousin Bouncy.
No, what was I saying? I've been kind of checked out. It's one long late afternoon for me. It's kind of OK, honestly. The day swims by. Aloha!
They've been doing construction outside of my work today. Those guys are innovative. I would never have dreamed of digging a four foot deep ditch in front of our entrance, and then putting up yellow caution tape across the steps, and then putting a sign on the door that says not to use it, and then locking the door. Amateurs.
All day, I would come from folding towels in the back room to answer the phone or because, like a roomba, I had sensed that the floor was dirty, and I'd see someone ignore the construction workers yelling to stop, cross the ditch, circumnavigate the machine that was tearing up the alley, brush the caution tape aside like so much cobwebbing, pull the door, poor harder, huff and puff, then look up an read the sign on the door that said in giant letters to use the forbidden entrance on the other side of the building. Then, as I was crossing the room to unlock the door, because they'd made it that far and to hell with safety regulations, they would nod at the sign, then turn and leap nimble as gazelles back over the ditch and back down the alley. Can't argue with a sign.
I go to Mars. I eat candy bars. I go to bars. Maybe.
Like, maybe I'm going to go the Happy Hour thing tomorrow, because it's nice to go out and meet people. Also, it's right on my way home. The thing is, sometimes, I just can't hang, not with friends, not with enemies, not with internets. I've been making deals with myself for days now, trying to decide whether to go or not based on vaguely relevant outside factors, and here is the one that makes the most sense to me: if by the time it's happy hour tomorrow, fewer than five out of a hundred people have looked at me crooked or given me a hard time in my exalted capacity as receptionist and pedestrian, then I'll go and see thirty more people, and it'll be fine. posted by Frenzy Lohan | 4/19/2005 11:36:00 PM
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Monday, April 18, 2005 Hello!
Lately I've been letting the autopilot take over my interaction responsibilities.
I am fine. How are you? That is good. This a very nice day.
Nothing wrong with that. posted by Frenzy Lohan | 4/18/2005 07:36:00 PM
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Sunday, April 17, 2005 How do you afford your rock and roll hairstyle?
So, Saturday night I was at a show in Pittsburgh, and at the end of it, I looked down at my shirt and noticed a blood stain. I was like, "Huh. I wonder whose blood that is," and I was looking around. Then it turned out it was my blood. I'd cut my hand, and I couldn't even begin to imagine how. I guess it's nicer that way than it would be to have someone else's blood on my clothes.
On Friday my fake band played its first and final show. It's nice that that's done with. I had a pretty good time, though, and our set was mercifully short because somebody sawed through his guitar strings too early. My main moment of terror came when I realized that the stage was going to be set up in such a way that I would be at the front. I handled it by trying to pretend that this was not the case and ignoring the audience. I had a harder time with the whole thing than I probably should have. Maybe I can't work with others, and will have to look more into developing my fake solo project. posted by Frenzy Lohan | 4/17/2005 10:48:00 PM
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Wednesday, April 13, 2005 You also deserve to know this:
Laura Ingalls Wilder had to make her own user icons out of pigs bladders, sourdough, and racial prejudice. The Ingalls family couldn't afford store-bought icons, because they were, as always, dependant on the whims of the lunatic called Pa, who spent all their money on covered wagons and an expensive beard subscription.
What's wrong with me? Why can't I live like a reasonable human being? posted by Frenzy Lohan | 4/13/2005 01:10:00 AM
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Hindsight: the irritating killer
If you drink enough coffee, I think it counts as working out. Eff you, body. Eff you, me-at-work-tomorrow. Oh, you will all be so thoroughly effed. It will curl your hair and loosen your molars.
The other day at work someone cut up an old magazine and taped a page back together in such a way that it showed some nicely manicured human fingers protruding from a glamour shot of some Wendy's food.
Are you ready for the joke?
.
.
.
.
.
(this is part of the effing process. hold on to your effing molars, chumpsos)
.
.
.
.
.
That is how Laura Ingalls Wilder used Photoshop. posted by Frenzy Lohan | 4/13/2005 01:03:00 AM
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Monday, April 11, 2005 it's worth your life to go outside these days
When I was out earlier, I went to a park that's a hill, and kids came rolling down from every direction. One little boy looked down the slope when I was at the top. "Damn, that's a steep hill, is it not?" he said to another kid in an accent I couldn't place. As I was walking away, I heard him say, "You want to roll down that hill?" Then he tackled the other kid, and there they went.
I don't guess that was an isolated incident, as I saw a couple different kids rolling in tandem. I thought about tackling somebody down the hill, too, but I didn't want to be cut up and itchy from the grass the next day. I play so many hillarious jokes on my body every weekend that I didn't want to add any kind of rash to the onslaught.
If it wasn't kids, it was dogs, although they ran rather than rolled. All the dogs were so pleased and happy to be outside, and I didn't blame them a bit. posted by Frenzy Lohan | 4/11/2005 12:36:00 AM
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Saturday, April 09, 2005 Surprise!
There is no food in my house, but I'd forgotten: we have tofutti cuties! We never need dinner. It will always be Spring. posted by Frenzy Lohan | 4/09/2005 07:24:00 PM
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Friday, April 08, 2005 Practice
I'm trying to finish a draft of a cover letter before I go to bed, and it's hard going. I'm trying to be breezy, and that's making it worse. Maybe I should try being leaden, as is my custom and a more accurate reflection of my plodding soul.
You'd hire me, wouldn't you? I know. You are very kind. posted by Frenzy Lohan | 4/08/2005 01:26:00 AM
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Monday, April 04, 2005 leftover joke
Somebody tp'd my workplace over the weekend, or I think that was the aim. Our anonymous donor supplied coarse brown industrial restroom paper towels instead of regular toilet paper. That was very sensible. It's much sturdier. I'd imagine that the culprits probably ran the idea past an engineering student or two. posted by Frenzy Lohan | 4/04/2005 04:37:00 PM
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Sunday, April 03, 2005 the most delicious cake
I was back in my home town for like, an hour this weekend. I'm a jerk. I didn't call anybody or arrange any meetings, although in the past I've promised to with what I felt, at the time, was sincerity. It just seemed complicated. I was just there on the way back from somewhere else, and even then, the group only stopped for dinner.
Panda Garden, my old favorite restaurant, burned down sometime last year, but now they've reopened down the block. While I was there, one of the staff looked at me and did a double take. I think it's because I used to be kind of a familiar prescence there, but I haven't been back in forever.
Also, another staff member was outside on a cell phone, and kept peering in the window at our table. We would hunker down and then poke our heads up like little prairie dogs, and then crouch down quickly again and giggle. He started to do the same. Later, business required him to come back indoors, and he avoided eye contact with our table. That kind of moment is perhaps better as ships in the night.
It's all birds and trees out there. Ridiculous! Earlier today one of my housemates got upset, because he looked out the window and thought it was snowing, but it was only some leaves. posted by Frenzy Lohan | 4/03/2005 04:56:00 PM
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Friday, April 01, 2005 Oh, look!
It's three in the damn morning, and I have to go to work tomorrow! Jokes on all y'all April Fools, though, because after a couple hours, I get to go home, and shortly thereafter, I get to cross a state line to party. Jealous much? Don't be. No state line one can cross from Maryland takes you anywhere altogether too glamorous.
I'm excited, though. It's nice to get out. My dumb job would take over my brain entirely if I let it, and even as I resist, it creeps in more and more. There is no call for the appointment book to be in my dreams, and yet ojo! (as they used to say in my Spanish textbook to indicate a key point) there it is. Hello, my name is Bartleby. My son is also named Bort.
Can't keep me down on the beauty farm, though: Nowheresville, VA is calling me with its siren song. It's Spring. I'm so excited about Spring. It's strange and pleasant to know that the season is rolling over into a better one, and that I'm going to be in the same place for a while. I don't even know what Spring in Baltimore looks like yet, because I came in at the closing credits last year.
I was trying to get all my tax forms together today, and I realized that last year, I had five jobs in three states, not counting drug studies. That's absolutely ridiculous. It's no way to live. Give me the status quo, or give me death. If I can't stagnate, it's not my revolution.
I'm crazy for repetition, and rituals, and cycles. Jokes get funnier every time I tell them. The swallows return to Crapistrano. posted by Frenzy Lohan | 4/01/2005 02:30:00 AM
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