jamelah.net

introducing the best idea ever: the terrible book club

July 9, 2009 · 8 Comments

I must admit that I’ve never actually been in a book club before, so I don’t really know how they work. I guess it’s to talk about books or something and you try to pick good ones? BORING. Because you know what’s a better idea? Reading a bad book and then mocking the hell out of it. Such a good time. It’s right up there with getting liquored up and watching a horrible movie with friends. Oh, the hilarity.

Well. In the comments for this post, Srah said, and I quote:

“…I once read a book that was so bad that partway through, I went back to the beginning and started making notes in the margins. Then I gave it to a friend who added her own notes and she passed it to another friend who made her own notes… that made a terrible book much more enjoyable because I had everyone else’s sarcastic reactions in the margins.”

I thought this sounded awesome, like a Terrible Book Club. I figured this would end up languishing in the back of my mind like so many of my other awesome ideas, but you know what? Let’s do this. After a kind of a discussion on Facebook, I decided that I should, um, decide some stuff. So here we go:

The point of the Terrible Book Club is to read (and make notes in) books that aren’t… of the highest quality, and then passing that book along to someone else so that they can do the same thing. Notes are the key. So basically, this process will involve two of my very favorite old-fashioned things: books printed on paper (SUCK IT, KINDLE) and mail that is put into an envelope and delivered by a postal employee. (And also receiving something in the mail that isn’t a bill or a credit card offer! So, three things, then.) I’m willing to start the chain and maintain the mailing list. I’m debating whether or not it is also necessary to have an online location to discuss the book club selection.

So, if you’re interested (and how could you not be, unless you are afraid of things like being awesome), send me an email (jamelah dot earle at gmail dot com) with your mailing info, which I promise I will only share with the next person on the list and not your stalker or anyone (unless the next person on the list happens to be your stalker, in which case, bummer about your luck, dude) and I further promise not to stalk any of you, because I’m just not motivated enough for that sort of thing.

If you have any questions or suggestions for a terrible book to read and destroy, post ‘em here in the comments.

Whee!

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favorite things 6: sweet pea

July 8, 2009 · 6 Comments

sweet pea

(There is, of course, the story of how and why I adopted Sweet Pea, but I’m going in a different direction with this today.)

Sweet Pea is my dog. She’s a border collie. There is a possibility that she is some kind of mix, but as I’ve gotten to know her better and as I’ve learned more about border collies in general, I’ve decided that she is just totally a border collie in terms of personality and temperament. She’s a beautiful dog — athletic and strong. She’s also insanely smart, kind of bossy, goofy, and kindhearted. So really, she’s pretty perfect.

I mean, yes, there was that time she barfed on my bed. And she snores so loudly that if it’s in the evening and I’m watching something, sometimes I have to turn up the volume on the TV. She has a habit of barking at nothing, and have you ever heard a border collie bark? It’s LOUD and it’ll scare you if you’re not prepared for it, and when are you ever prepared for that? Her breath is terrible. She emits an amazingly high-pitched squeal every time she yawns. She can body-slam me with enough force to knock me over. Between baths, she smells like old Fritos and dirt. When I’m eating, she’ll put her head on my leg and breathe like Darth Vader. Sometimes she’ll lick my pants. (If she met you, she’d probably lick your pants, too.) She has this blanket that she chews on and likes to play with; it’s often damp and gross and she likes to drop it on my feet. She will run her cold, wet nose up my arm. She blows her coat twice a year and fills the house with hair. And she sheds anyway. I can’t remember what it was like to wear something and not have to pick dog hair off of it. She’ll drink out of the toilet and then lick me. She occasionally wallows in things that I’d prefer not to identify. She gets constant ear infections.

She’s afraid of thunderstorms, fireworks, my blow dryer, the vacuum cleaner, brooms, umbrellas, motorcycles, people on bicycles, people mowing their lawns, children’s toys, and snowmen. Oh, also, she’s afraid of the basement. If I go down there to do laundry (which I do) she’ll stand at the top and wait for me to return.

But also she’s a world-champion snuggler, or would be, if they had world championships for that sort of thing. She knows when I’m sick or sad and will curl up next to me. In fact (sap alert), once I was sick and my temperature was getting dangerously high. I was hallucinating and I had the shakes. She curled up on my chest and stayed there until I stopped shaking and the fever started going back down. I hallucinated that she was an angel, and maybe somehow she is one.

I call her Boo, Booger, Dog, Pumpkin Face, Goofy Butt, Monkey, Cow (sometimes she honest-to-god moos and it is hilarious), Spot, and sometimes combinations of the above, like Booger Face, Boo Monkey, Goofy Dog, etc. Oh, also sometimes I use her name. She answers to all of these things, so it’s cool, and I like hollering “Pumpkin FAAAAAAACE!” sometimes. Sue me.

I could go on, even more than I already have, telling you about funny things she does, or the fact that she knows how to open the garbage can, but I won’t. I just want to say that Sweet Pea is my dog. She is my favorite and I love love love her. And I’m going to be done writing this now so I can go give her a big smooshy hug.

The end.

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marginal

July 6, 2009 · 6 Comments

The other morning I was reading this thing that appeared in my NPR Books feed (don’t you subscribe to National Public Radio book talk? what are you? not a nerd?): Chat While Reading: The Future of Books? It’s about this site, called BookGlutton.com, where you are able to discuss books as you read them. Provided you’re reading the digital public-domain copies on the site. I checked it out, sort of. I didn’t sign up for the site, but I clicked through a book to get an idea of how it worked. So, there’s the book, and on the left is a chat window (which is only enabled if you’re signed up and logged in, so I don’t know how lively it is), and you can click on any passage in the book and on the right, any notes that have been written by others will appear. I don’t know if this feature is also only viewable if you’re signed up and logged in; if it is, then I suppose there would be notes there, and if it’s not, then people sure aren’t communicating much. Also I wonder if you have to keep going back to click through the passages you’ve noted to see if anyone else has written anything or if the site notifies you somehow. I suppose I can’t talk about this site much one way or the other without signing up, but I don’t really feel like signing up for it — I have enough accounts on enough websites to keep track of as it is. But the main reason is that nobody wants to read my margin notes, as they are random and generally unhelpful. Also sometimes snarky.

Allow me to share:

In the Aeneid:

notesaeneid

I mean, I suppose we can argue that Virgil is generally not cool, but I don’t really feel like arguing about it. Let’s not fight.

In The Sound and the Fury:

notesfaulkner

Right? I know.

In Gulliver’s Travels:

notesgulliver

Allow me to explain. I read this for a class. (Of course I did. As amusing as he may sometimes be, does anybody sit around reading Jonathan Swift just because? If you do, that’s cool, I guess, but you may be the only person in the world who does. Just saying.) The professor spent an inordinate amount of time explaining the bit about Gulliver’s teacher (Master Bates — get it? GET IT?!? MASTER BATES!! Oh, Jonathan Swift, you CARD!) and how he died after Gulliver married. We could talk about how Master Bates probably only faked his death after Gulliver married, but you know, let’s not.

In Macbeth:

notesmacbeth

I don’t have anything to say about this.

In Mansfield Park:

notesmansfield

Um. Sorry. Spoiler alert? But do you honestly think Fanny Price and Edmund Bertram could have interesting (let alone good) sex? Really?

In the Gregory Corso poem “Marriage”:

notesmarriage

Should I get married? Should I be good? Or…

There are more, certainly, but I got tired of looking for them. Yes, sometimes I write in books. Not nearly as much as I used to, but even so, I know that some people think of writing in books as a form of literary abuse, but I like to think of it as, um, not literary abuse. I find margin notes amusing, actually, because when I reread books, which I do sometimes, and I find a note I wrote a long time ago, it often reminds me of something. Though sometimes I just wonder what the hell I was going on about. Like how on one page of The Sound and the Fury, it just says “Solipsistic” and nothing else. It could’ve been a comment on Jason Compson, or it could’ve just been that I thought of that word for something else and wanted to write it down and didn’t have any other paper handy. Knowing myself, either scenario is equally likely.

But it’s weird finding other people’s notes in books. I remember when I was 12 or so, and my grandmother bought a house. The people who moved out left boxes of books in the basement, and I remember going through them and picking out things to read. One of the books was Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, and aside from the fact that I was too young for Tom Robbins when I was 12, the book was full of underlining and notes, usually in the sex scenes. I kept wondering why the person had underlined those passages and left other passages unmarked, before I just decided, in all my 12-year-old wisdom, that whoever had done all that underlining must just like sex a lot. 1

I’m not sure what the takeaway lesson is here today, if in fact there is a lesson at all (probably not). But maybe it’s that if you underline only sex scenes in a book, someday some kid is going to find it and think you’re a weirdo. Or something. Do you even write in books?

_______________________________________________________
1. Thanks to the Human Growth and Reproduction classes I took in elementary school, which included the special time when one of the teachers asked a roomful of confused and slightly terrified 8-year-old girls if any of us masturbated, and the general reaction was “I’m supposed to do what to my what?” (we also learned that nipples weren’t just for breastfeeding, and perhaps this is proof that I went to some kind of crazy hippie school), I’d already been educated about sex. Somewhat. So reading the sex scenes in Even Cowgirls Get the Blues didn’t particularly faze me (except it wasn’t like in those books we had in class where the cuddly blushing naked people would hug and then hide under the covers), except I remember thinking it was weird that someone went to the trouble of underlining everything, especially since this person (I mean, at this point I’m just assuming it was the same person) had already dog-eared the pages.

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of independence day (and a birthday shout out)

July 4, 2009 · 6 Comments

fireworks09

So, it’s the 4th of July, known as Independence Day here in the United States. How did I get fireworks photos already? Well, either I finally perfected time travel or we had them a day early here because we like to get a head jump on things where I live. We are not slackers. I’m not really sure why I keep photographing fireworks, but I do. At least last night I was set up so I could stand back a bit and actually watch them, which I found to be far superior to watching them through a camera. The downside to this was that I had to take my tripod, which meant I had to carry it on my back, along with a chair (that I didn’t end up sitting in much) and my camera bag. All of it got pretty heavy as I trudged across town, but I decided it was better to set a pace and stick with it instead of pausing to alleviate the weight on my shoulders, so I could just get to where I was going and put it all down. It would probably be even better to rope someone else into helping me carry everything, and maybe I’ll look into that, provided I’m interested in taking fireworks photos again next year.

Anyway, it’s a good holiday, as far as holidays go: you get to drink beer and eat food that has been grilled, and these things are perfectly okay in my book. Maybe you’ll go to the movies today or maybe you’ll go to the beach or maybe you’ll commemorate the life and work of Jeff Goldblum (R.I.P.) by watching the awesomely bad movie, Independence Day, in which the aliens are defeated with a computer virus. (If that’s a spoiler, then what year are you living in, 1994?) No matter what you do (even if it’s not a holiday where you live), have a good one.

It’s also my friend Caryn’s birthday today. I don’t think she’ll see this today because she’s on vacation right now, so it’s a perfect time to talk about her behind her back. Ha! But seriously. Caryn is a great friend, and if you don’t know her, you should be jealous of me because I do. Caryn makes me laugh, she understands when I sometimes just need to quote George Michael, and because I am apparently still a teenager, she listens to all my boy troubles. I hope I am as good a friend to her. I also hope that she is rocking out today. So, happy birthday, Caryn! You’re the best. (And I will try to mail your gift before Thanksgiving.)

Now I’m going to drink some more coffee and think about, I don’t know, doing some stuff, or something. Let me close with my favorite patriotic image, because I’m sure it is patriotic somehow.

weird things in my grandma's garage redux

Right on.

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random question of the day

July 2, 2009 · 11 Comments

Commence ridiculously long introduction:

I like to sleep with my windows open, so as soon as the temperature is warm enough for me to leave my windows open all night without dying of hypothermia, that’s what I do. Fresh air? I’m a fan. Last night, there was perfect sleeping weather: not overwhelmingly hot, not ridiculously cold (though perhaps a bit cold considering it’s July now), and rainy. It felt sort of like fall, actually. My usual custom is to get into bed and read for awhile, but I’ve been tired and dragging myself through my paces this week, so I opted for sleeping over reading. Sue me.

I settled into bed around midnight and tried listening for rain, but instead I could hear music. It sounded like someone was having a party. I don’t begrudge anybody their Wednesday night fiestas (I mean, I went to Albion College), but one thing I do know from experience is that partying neighbors have a negative effect on my ability to fall asleep. I live on the most obnoxious damn street. And leaving your windows open at night and expecting to sleep well is an iffy thing: there are no guarantees. Do you now see how much faith I have in my fellow humans? It’s often unjustified, but I keep believing.

So. Some people were partying. Fine. Also someone else was sawing something. Wood, I suppose. At midnight. Which is a perfect time to break out the saw and get some work done. It sounded like a hand saw too. I suspect the sawing was coming from my next-door neighbors. They’ve been renovating for more than a year now, so I keep expecting there to be one day when I look out of one of my windows and notice that they’ve added a whole other story to the top of their house, but so far, no. Anyway, if I hear anything that sounds like it may accompany home repairs and renovation, I just blame them. Maybe I’m wrong, though. Maybe the people down the street were having a sawing party. Maybe a barn raising. Maybe they’re Amish. (That would mean at least one of them is named Amos.) Whatever. There was sawing, and music. Also one guy who stood in front of my house and yelled “DAMMIT!” Just the one time, though, which is kind of odd, because usually when people stand in front of my house and yell obscenities (it happens) (though “dammit” is pretty tame), it goes on for some time, and also occasionally is punctuated with fistfights. Sometimes those fistfights are with people and sometimes they’re with the large tree growing on the front lawn. Like that one time that guy kept yelling “FUCK!” and punching the tree. I think he was also sobbing a bit. I wanted to sob, too. It was 5 a.m.

Anyway, do you remember the Big Wheel? If you do, then you know there’s this distinctive sound they make when a person rides them on a sidewalk. I can’t think of an apt comparison. It’s just that Big Wheel sound. And in the midst of the partying and the sawing (which I am not ruling out as a sawing party — because who doesn’t like to get together and cut some wood?) I could hear a child riding a Big Wheel up and down the sidewalk. I kept wondering if perhaps this kid shouldn’t be in bed. I mean, I’m no parent, but I don’t really think of late-night wood-cutting festivals as being appropriate places for children. But like I said, I’m no parent, so what do I know?

(I’m just so excited that this is the 4th of July weekend, because that means the back yard fireworks parties that last all night long should be starting soon — maybe even tonight! — and will be going on for at least the next week. There’s really nothing like listening to a bunch of drunk people armed with explosives. You’d think after awhile, they’d come up with something more original to yell than “Wooooo!” and “Gimme a beer!” but you’d be wrong.)

Obviously, my house is situated right in the middle of Awesome Town.

So I haven’t been sleeping much lately, thanks in part to my neighbors and their saws and their parties and their Big Wheels. But I have to tell you something. We talk about useless information sometimes, you know? Well this, my friends, is useless. But here’s the thing. I am not a peaceful sleeper. Apparently. I mean, I have to take the word of other people as truth because I’m always asleep when I’m sleeping, so what do I know about it? But according to these sources, I move around a lot and also sometimes kick pretty hard. Maybe I’m chasing squirrels when I dream. I don’t know. I’m willing to accept this, because I know that I move around a lot when I’m still awake. I have a hard time being still. (Also I’m not very good at cuddling. FYI, I guess.) Anyway, I have this falling asleep ritual, and if I can’t do this for any reason, I usually end up sleepless and miserable. I have to start on my left side, then move to my right side, then move back to my left side, and then I can fall asleep. It works for me. For years now (years!), I’ve wondered which side I wake up on — if that seems like a pointless thing to wonder, that’s because it’s totally pointless — but somehow I have managed to wake up every morning without registering it, and then after I get out of bed I sometimes think about it, but can’t remember. Maybe I just want to know what side of the bed is actually the wrong side. I don’t know. I have no idea why this is important to me at all, but it is. But this morning, I got it: I wake up on the left, and then turn over to look at the clock. I’ll have to remember to check again for the next few days to see if this is a trend or not, and maybe writing this will somehow remind me, and I will finally solve this mystery that has been plaguing me since I was a teenager (no, really), or perhaps I will forget all about it and keep wondering. And if I do fall asleep and wake up on the left, am I really so awful? It’s something to think about. Maybe everyone who has ever shared sleeping space with me has lied to me. IT COULD HAPPEN.

I’m kind of embarrassed that I wrote all of that. I should’ve just left it with the sawing party, right? I know.

And now the point:

I have my left-right-left ritual. So, in order to make myself feel less lame about blathering on and on about my sleep habits and my noisy neighbors, tell me — is there anything you have to have in order to fall asleep? Need the room to be just the right temperature? Need a certain pillow? (I have a friend like that.) Are you like my grandma and get annoyed when the sheets are wrinkled? Anything? Bueller?

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in which i declare myself the world’s only living authority on the hotness of reading material

June 29, 2009 · 26 Comments

I was having this IM conversation a couple of weeks ago with a guy we’ll call Greg, because that is his name. It ended up being about whether or not certain books are hot, for example, “If you saw a girl reading a Homeric epic, would that be hot?” or “Pablo Neruda: hot or too obvious?” 1 That sort of thing. It started when Greg told me that he had fallen in love with a woman sitting nearby who was reading a book with such intense fascination that her mouth was hanging open. “Like a carp,” he said, and I never knew that carp-mouth was hot either, but as they say, to each his own. And then Greg fell out of love with the woman when he noticed that she was reading one of those books in the Left Behind series. Love, so fleeting. Ever was it so.

I can’t say that I’ve been thinking about the hotness of certain books since then, because if I were to say such a thing, I’d be lying. My brain is a busy place, and I think about a lot of things. But sometimes I would look at a book or think about book subject matter and evaluate hotness. (Like I was watching this thing on the History Channel about Lincoln — shut up, it was really interesting — and I thought “Are Lincoln biographies hot?” 2)

So anyway, since I am apparently never getting hired for anything ever 3, I have decided to turn my obvious brilliance toward altruism. I am hereby announcing myself as the world’s only living authority on the hotness of reading material. You want to know if what you’re reading is hot? (I mean, why else do you read?) I’m here to help.

To prove that I am actually an authority on the subject at hand, and not just some hack making things up for the purpose of amusing myself, though that is also a fair activity, I’m going to provide you with an arbitrary list of books and tell you whether or not they are hot. I figure that’s the way people become authorities: they declare themselves authorities and then they back themselves up by being authoritative. My goodness, can I ever be authoritative.

Let’s sally forth, like we’re in Don Quixote 4 or something:

Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte
This is not hot. As I wrote here: 5 “…and Heathcliff? Well, yes, he was dark and brooding, but less in a hot way and more in a total asshole way. It’s like, listen dude, I understand that you’re dark and brooding and really busy brooding darkly about your dark pain, or something, but do you really have to be such a dick about it? For fuck’s sake, go have some ice cream and a nap, Sparky. Good lord.”

So, you know, obviously not hot.

Slowness – Milan Kundera
Hot. I didn’t think it was hot at first. In fact, I was kind of annoyed through about two-thirds of the book, but then I was like, “Oh snap!” The thing about Milan Kundera books is that they kind of seem to be entirely tangential and then everything falls into place and then it’s like “Oh, you sly bastard.” Plus, this book is about sex, so, you know. I think it’s probably especially hot if a guy is reading it, which I’m not going to explain, but just trust me.

French symbolist poetry
This depends. I mean, I was never hit on while I was reading A Season in Hell, for instance, so there’s that. I’m sure I was wearing black and everything. Probably even those reading glasses. Dammit, what do I have to do, anyway? Maybe it’s because I was reading it in Denny’s. What was I writing about? I don’t know. I haven’t had a Grand Slam in ages. 6

Ulysses – James Joyce
I grudgingly admit this is hot. But only if someone is actually reading it and not just pretending to read it because gosh, isn’t it impressive to sit somewhere holding Ulysses and looking smart? I’m not really sure how you’d tell the difference between someone who was actually reading and someone who was only pretending to read, however, because while you usually can tell if someone’s faking by whether or not that person ever turns any pages, with Ulysses sometimes it takes awhile to get through a page, because you have to read it, think “Wait, what?” and read it again, and then have your brain sidetrack you into some stupid tangent for several minutes, and then start over again. So it could conceivably take an hour to get to the next page in that book, is what I’m saying.

Books by Dan Brown
Only if the person is smirking. And possibly also cooking chili in his/her shoes. 7

Textbooks
No. Just no. 8

Novels by Chuck Palahniuk
My own opinion of Chuck Palahniuk novels is that they seem like a series of clever phrases that would work on bumper stickers and t-shirts strung together into book form, so I can’t say that I’m really a fan. I haven’t read everything he’s ever written, so maybe I’m not being entirely fair, as it’s really just one book (Diary) and the short story “Guts,” 9 which is apparently so shocking that people have been known to pass out at readings. It gives them the vapors, y’all! I don’t know. I suppose I’m just a jaded jerk, but I don’t shock easily, and instead of being surprised or disgusted, I would spot the places where I was supposed to be so surprised and disgusted and just feel irritated that the writing was trying to manipulate me. Badassery isn’t badass if it’s all “I’m so badass!” So anyway, I’m going to look beyond my own personal distaste and decide that this is only hot if you’re under the age of 25. After then and it’s like being that guy in his 30s who keeps showing up at high school parties, which is, you know, sad.

Things by Samuel Beckett
Only if it’s not Waiting for Godot, which, while very good, is kind of the obvious pick. 10 Anyway, reading Samuel Beckett is kind of hot, mainly because you just have to have a sense of the absurd.

Any book with a unicorn on the cover
Obviously not.

Jane Austen
I’m sure it’s perfectly obvious that I would say that reading Jane Austen is hot. But it’s also obvious that reading Jane Austen really is hot. Because come on, her books are the perfect combination of smart and funny, which is of course the deadliest combination of all time when it comes to sex appeal. 11

Anyway, there you go, with a few choices. Any questions? Go ahead and ask. I am an authority, after all.

________________________________________________________
1. Homeric epic: yes, hot. Pablo Neruda: depends entirely on context. Apparently reading Pablo Neruda in a coffee shop is obvious, but reading Pablo Neruda on the bus, say, is hot. Just so you know, the real estate rule of “Location, location, location,” holds true with the sex appeal of your reading choices as well.

2. Yes. This is not to say, however, that watching things about Lincoln on the History Channel is also hot, because what do I look like? The world’s only living authority on the hotness of television watching habits? Please.

3. I had a thought yesterday about this unemployment thing. I’m still looking, though I can’t say with any honesty that my heart is in it anymore. I mean, fuck, if you want to try out some reading material guaranteed to depress you, skip The Sorrows of Young Werther and just read through some classified ads and think about how you’d be all set if only you were qualified at everything you don’t know how to do, because it’s not like those typing test people are going to get back to you before you stick your head in an oven. I kid. Sort of. I’m not sticking my head in an oven, but looking for a job sucks so hard its eyes may pop out of its head.

4. You can be Sancho Panza, if you want. Also, Don Quixote? Not hot. Neither is singing songs from Man of La Mancha. It is amusing, however. Duuuulcineeeeaaaaaa.

5. As Part One of my own personal Brontepalooza, which concluded with Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte, which also isn’t hot, by the way. I did quite enjoy Jane Eyre, which is possibly hot. Mainly the thing I remember about this book is reading it for a class and everyone in the class kind of agreed that Jane was kind of a tease, which subsequently blew the professor’s mind. Here’s something on which we can certainly agree: being a tease is only hot in small doses.

6. NOT A EUPHEMISM.

7. John Travolta is dead. Long live John Travolta. (That’s just for Caryn.)

8. Obvious exception: physics.

9. The one about the boy in the pool? Is that what it’s called?

10. Endgame is better, anyhow.

11. You know, I remember reading a stereotype of single women once. There are the ones who end up alone except for about 47 cats, and then there are the ones who end up alone except for Jane Austen books. Jane Austen books won’t shed on you, which is definitely something to consider. If I’m going to end up a crazy old spinster, I will definitely be one of the Austen-reading variety, which is totally fine with me, because I’m looking forward to getting one of those wacky beaded glasses chains (it’s all in the details, people). And besides, I read in Time magazine recently that getting married increases your chances of being obese by something like 230%, so BACK OFF, GRANDMA. Ahem.

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posting on a saturday? what?

June 27, 2009 · 2 Comments

I just spent about an hour going through a bunch of posts in Google Reader, and there are 98 left. It’s down from over 300 yesterday, but you know, sometimes there is just too much internet. Still, I finally got around to this, and it made me happy. Nothing like a little William Carlos Williams joke to make my day brighter.

And in other literary nerd news, I read about an online Ulysses graphic novel. The purpose is to make Ulysses more accessible and less frightening. The people behind the project say “…it kills us that it has gotten the reputation for being inaccessible to everyone besides the English professors who make their careers teaching the book to future English professors who will make their careers doing the same.” I’ve read Ulysses (well, mostly… I did skim parts), and even now, I have conflicting feelings about it. I think I would’ve enjoyed it more if it hadn’t been so long, because it wasn’t really so terribly difficult. Sure, it took some getting used to, but eventually I fell into its rhythm. I think a person could easily spend a lifetime studying the book; there’s a lot of stuff in there, and I’m sure I didn’t catch it all. In fact, I know that as I read, I’d notice some things, and I’d pretty much say “Ah,” and move on, whereas if I had been studying the book, I’d have noted them more carefully. But I don’t think the book has to be studied — it is possible to read it and follow the main narrative threads and have a worthwhile experience. And besides, how many other books do you know of that get an annual holiday? Anyway, all of that to say, yay, pictures!

I’m going to do some stuff later. Well, mainly just the one thing. I’m going to a graduation open house for this kid, and you guys, I remember when he was born. I remember when his parents got married. I feel old.

In other news, I got an email from Julie last weekend, informing me of the following ad:

absolutmandarin

She kindly took a photo of it for me, which I have obviously posted above. I posted a small version of the photo, so I don’t know if you can read it all. If you can’t, it says, “IN AN ABSOLUT WORLD TRUE TASTE COMES NATURALLY.” (Har har.) And it also says “ALL ABSOLUT FLAVORS ARE MADE WITH NATURAL INGREDIENTS.” And then the artwork is…. um, ladyparts inferno? (Not to be confused with “Disco Inferno.” Or Dante’s Inferno.) I’ve seen one of these before, but it involved a lemon vagina. Tart! Ahem. Anyway, I fired up the Google and noted that Absolut says this ad series is called “Streams” and nobody ever mentions that they went all Georgia O’Keeffe with things. The ad makes my brain go in so many directions that I’m a bit overwhelmed, so much so that I’m not sure I can write complete sentences about it. My brain is all “VAGINA FRUIT VODKA ORGASM STOP IT NOW I’M NOT KIDDING.” So I’m not about to tempt the impending aneurysm, but out of all the things I think when I see this ad, not a single one of them is “Gosh, I wish I had some vodka right about now.” So, I guess that means you fail, Absolut.

And finally, one of the things I know for sure, since I’ve been going through what feels like approximately ninety million blog posts is that a lot of people are writing about Michael Jackson lately. And though my interest in him waned as I got older, when I was a kid, he was the coolest ever. I would listen to his songs on my little blue record player and I would dance around the house. Probably not well, because I can’t say that dancing has ever been one of my skills, but it didn’t matter because I knew how to have a good time. I had an orange t-shirt that said “THRILLER” in silver sparkly letters, and I wore it ALL THE TIME, so I was obviously awesome. If I had a photo of me in that beloved shirt, I’d share it with you, but alas, I do not. I’ve dug up a few of his songs and listened to them over the past day or so and you know? I still love them. When I first read the news of his passing, I felt like a part of my childhood was gone, but I also know that’s not true: I can still listen to those songs and dance around badly if I want. And I’m sure I will. I guess all that’s left to say is that Michael Jackson didn’t seem to have a very happy life, and he didn’t even really seem to like himself very much, if all that plastic surgery is evidence, but he was a hell of an entertainer, probably one of the greatest pure entertainers of all time, so despite all the squicky things about him that gave us pause, his ability was worth something, and when I was a kid living in the projects, proudly wearing my orange t-shirt that said “THRILLER” in silver sparkly letters, he brought me some joy. I know he brought joy to countless others as well, and I hope that finally, he’s found some peace.

Now seems like a good time to get on with my Saturday. Have a good one, kittens.

→ 2 CommentsCategories: Everything · Pop! · Resident Nerd

sinner

June 26, 2009 · 5 Comments

Fraulein N tagged me, so I’ve decided to play along and make myself sound like an awful person, because that’s a good activity for a Friday. So these are my confessions. Except they’re all complete fabrications. Making things up is fun sometimes.

The concept: Sometimes you can learn more about a person by what they don’t tell you. Sometimes you can learn a lot from the things they just make up. If you are tagged with this meme, lie to me. Then tag 7 other folks (one for each deadly sin) and hope they can lie. (You do know I’m not going to tag anyone, right?)

Here we go:

Pride: What is your biggest contribution to the world?

I really hate to brag, so I generally keep a low profile and don’t talk about this much. Talking about myself embarrasses me. But okay: I invented the Snuggie. You had no idea, right? I know. It’s better that way, and don’t go around telling people about it, alright? Here’s the thing, though. One night I was on the couch, watching TV, and it was winter, which means I was FREEZING, so I was wrapped up in a blanket, and then — I remember this very clearly — I wanted to change the channel and I couldn’t get the remote because my arms were TRAPPED. I was in a prison of warmth. In my struggle to get my arms free, I fell off the couch, and then, you guys? I landed on the floor and I was still wrapped in the blanket. (I like to wrap up tightly, like I’m in a cocoon, or perhaps a burrito.) Eventually, I emerged victorious from my blanket jail, and I sat up and had an amazing thought. I thought, “None of this would have happened if my BLANKET had SLEEVES!” And then I couldn’t stop thinking about it, and “blankets with sleeves” kept running through my head for the rest of the night. So the next day I went to the fabric store and bought some fleece and worked up a pattern and blah blah blah it gets kind of boring and technical, but the point is that yeah. The Snuggie. That was me. You’re welcome.

Envy: What do your coworkers have that you wish was yours?

I had no idea that the whole Snuggie thing would take off like it did, so I don’t have to work. (Another thing I don’t like to brag about: I have so much money now!) This means that I don’t really have coworkers anymore. Back when I did have coworkers though — and this is stupid — I never got a good parking space. Man, I hate walking.

Gluttony: What did you eat last night?

I really don’t want to admit this, because it’s pretty embarrassing, but oh, what the hell? The glamorous life of a single girl and all. I ate an entire pint of Ben & Jerry’s and half a package of Goldfish crackers. It was great. Don’t judge me.

Lust: What really lights your fire?

Honestly? Okay. I like guys who are kind of dumb. I can’t help it. It’s just so endearing and… and… CUTE! Seriously, I won’t date anybody who knows that Africa is a continent and not a country. (And if you’re a cute guy who happens to be reading this — AFRICA IS A COUNTRY.) Everybody always says they want someone who is smart, and that’s fine because hey, more for me! Oh, also, I really love it when guys wear tight pants. If you got it, flaunt it. That’s what I always say.

Anger: What is the last thing that really pissed you off?

The other day, I was stopped at a stop sign, and I needed to turn left, and this other person was stopped across from me, and he was going straight. And he totally stopped before I did, right? So, all logic says that he had the right of way and I had to wait, which was fine, because there was a really good song on the radio and I wasn’t in any hurry to get back home. Anyway, he waved me through, like I should go ahead, which he obviously shouldn’t have done. I WAS TURNING LEFT. Like, dude, just go already. Because seriously, if there’s ever any time NOT to try and be nice and accommodate other people, it’s when you’re driving. What a jerk.

Greed: Name something you hoard and keep from others.

Other than my Snuggie millions, you mean? This really shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone, but whenever I am in a store, I buy its entire stock of lip gloss. I have so much lip gloss now that there’s absolutely no way I can possibly wear it all, but you know what? I just don’t want you to have any. I’m like that.

Sloth: What’s the laziest thing you ever did?

One time I didn’t feel like walking all the way to the bathroom, so I just peed my pants. Whatever. I was tired.

→ 5 CommentsCategories: Everything · I'm A Jerk · Memes

favorite things 5: strawberries

June 24, 2009 · 1 Comment

strawberries

I was always a very picky eater. I mean, I still am, to a degree, though I’m way less picky than I used to be, mainly because over time, I’ve made myself eat and evaluate food I believed was vile. (Yeah I passed judgment on food without ever actually tasting it, but I think that’s what kids do.) Some food I discovered I liked: avocados, peppers. Some I just really hate: tomatoes, mushrooms. I’m still wary of raspberries because I hate all those damn little seeds (I suppose if I had to categorize them, they’d go on a list called “Oh, all right, but I’d really rather not”), and for a long time, I lumped strawberries into the same category. But then that changed, of course, or I wouldn’t be writing about them today.

I don’t remember the exact date or how old I was (let’s go with 11), but I remember that it was summer vacation. The first Monday after school let out, and I went with my grandmother and her friend Pauline and picked strawberries. If you’ve ever been strawberry picking, then you know the deal: you get buckets, you pick strawberries, you pay for them, you leave. So I had my buckets and two rows of vines to work, and my grandmother was a couple of rows over. I don’t remember where Pauline was, but she was probably nearby. Anyway, by that point in my life, I was familiar with harvesting fresh food out of gardens, but I’d never picked strawberries before. It didn’t take long to settle into a rhythm, and I worked my way along the vines, plucking fruit and tossing it into a bucket. At some point, because you know, why not, I picked a large, incredibly ripe strawberry and popped it into my mouth. It was sun-warm and delicious. The juice ran down my chin and I wiped at it with my sleeve. My grandma — she wasn’t even looking up, I swear, so how did she know — immediately said, “Don’t eat those. You don’t know what they sprayed on those things.” I went back to work and considered death by chemical poisoning, but things had shifted in an oh-so-subtle way: not only had strawberries immediately moved from the “Oh, all right, but I’d really rather not” list straight to the “Yes, please” list, I had also found another thing I was not supposed to do.

By the time I was that age, and for the purposes of this post, we’re going with 11, I was already incredibly familiar with rebellion. My mom says that I was mostly a well-behaved child, but there were times when I just couldn’t help myself: consequences be damned, I was going to do what I wanted. By the time I was that age, I’d already stolen things and gotten into fights and told gigantic lies (sometimes to cover up my transgressions, and sometimes just because). I’d already discovered something in me, a wayward streak that I sometimes just couldn’t stop, and misbehaving, even (or maybe especially) if just quietly, was a true pleasure. The point is that while death by chemical poisoning was something to be considered, I kept eating strawberries anyway.

Do you know about strawberries in June, warm on the vine? If you don’t, then I’m not sure I can explain them, exactly. I find that when it comes to some things, words may come close, but they never quite get there. Of course I’m going to try, because that’s the point of this little exercise. Strawberries in June, warm on the vine taste like sweetness and summer sun. There’s something inherently sexy about them, and though I can tell you with certainty that I wasn’t concerned in the slightest with sexiness when I was 11, I feel perfectly comfortable assigning that attribute to them now. In some way, I suppose the sensation of biting into a warm June strawberry is in the same family as knowing better but kissing him anyway because damn, you don’t care.

Sort of.

I don’t know if any strawberry has ever been as good as that first one that taught me that you know, I really do love strawberries, and I haven’t been berry picking in years, but every year when I see them in a market stall, sinfully red and waiting, I have to buy them and eat them, just to check.

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things i learned from this month’s cosmo

June 22, 2009 · 10 Comments

I forgot to learn things from last month’s Cosmo, and I couldn’t let myself continue having such huge gaps in my education. So I was in Walmart on Friday. I hate Walmart, and it’s not on principle, like some people hate Walmart, it’s more because I hate being in stores that large, as they make me feel… stabby. But sometimes a person needs to pick up gum and shampoo and, I don’t know, lawn chairs, and it’s convenient for that. Plus, if you’re ever on the market for sports bras, it’s a really good place to get those. I’m serious. Anyway, I decided I would pick up the latest Cosmo and I checked out at the U-Scan Express, which is a pretty great invention, I have to say, and then I walked outside and it was pouring rain and I couldn’t find my car. Some shirts fare pretty well when you’re caught in torrential rain in a Walmart parking lot and you can’t find your car, but I was not wearing one of those shirts. That’s all I really want to say about that.

Let’s get to the learning part.

1. The headline asks, “Can you have more than one soul mate?” And I don’t even need to read the article, because I already know the answer: Yes. I did read the article, though, and Cosmo and I agree. (I know!) I mean, we sort of agree. (Much better.) The point of the article is not to get hung up on the notion that there is only one person for you, because then you can miss something great, which I think is fair, but more than that, the problem stems from calling people soul mates in the first place. The term itself makes it seem as though love is like Highlander and There Can Be Only One, but let’s not be so Miss-Havisham-sitting-around-in-a-moldering-wedding-dress about things. (I realize that I’m mixing metaphors, but I don’t care, because I think jumping from Highlander to Great Expectations in one sentence is kind of awesome.) Here’s what I think, anyway. I think different people come along at different times, and just because something changes or doesn’t work, it doesn’t mean that we can’t have something great happen later. It also doesn’t mean that we have to hang onto things that are falling apart because someone is supposed to be a soul mate. If I’m going to keep using the term “soul mate,” then I guess I should also tell you that I believe that different people are soul mates in different ways. I have friends who are absolutely my soul mates: we just get each other, and we got each other immediately. It just worked. But I don’t want to bang them. It’s different. It doesn’t make the connection any less vital or essential, but it’s different. I could probably go on and on (of course I could), but I think my point has been made, so I’m going to move on to something else now.

2. A body language expert analyzes Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt and comes to the conclusion that Heidi isn’t really into Spencer, and I am just sad that I know who these people are. I hate pop culture sometimes.

3. Did you know you could tell what a guy is really thinking based on how he smiles at you? It’s true! And I quote:

– POLITE: If there aren’t wrinkles around his eyes and the corners of his mouth point toward his jaw (not his ears), he’s probably only being nice.

– CONTEMPTUOUS: Is he smiling with just one side of his mouth? Yes, it could be a charmingly crooked grin, but he could also be feeling scornful or superior. [Jamelah note: Let me end my quoting for a second to tell you that I am a person with a lopsided grin. So I often look smirky even if I'm not really being smirky. Except sometimes I am just being smirky. I'm a mystery! It also doesn't matter because I am not a guy, and this is about guys, so let's resume quoting.]

– SENSITIVE: A polite smile with the inner corners of his eyebrows pointing up can indicate sadness or disappointment; chances are, he’s empathetic. [Or bewildered.]

4. This month, Cosmo provides flowcharts to tell you what a guy is really thinking. I’m the type of person to be impressed by flowcharts, because flowcharts are way better than outlines. But okay, one of these flowcharts is titled “Is he looking for just a hookup–or more?” and then it sets the following scenario: “You’re at a bar, flirting with a guy who seems, at first glance, to be boyfriend material. Put your encounter to this test to see if your instincts are right on.” The flowchart ends with two options: yes, he just wants a hookup so don’t give him your phone number, or no, he’s really into you so you should definitely give him your phone number. I have a couple of problems with this. My first problem is that I worry about people who need Cosmo to tell them whether or not they should be handing over their phone numbers to guys in bars and reading this later and then realizing that oh damn, they picked the wrong option! Curses! My second problem is that I don’t need a flowchart to tell me whether or not I should hand over my phone number, but if I did, I wouldn’t be able to remember all the options while I was busy being hit on, so I’d need to carry it with me. And can you imagine? You’re talking to someone, and you say, “Um, excuse me for a second,” and then you retrieve from your purse a folded up page ripped from a magazine and read a bit, look at the guy, say “Uh huh, uh huh,” and read a bit more, before folding the magazine page back up and stuffing it back into your purse and then saying “Okay, continue.” I need a ruling from the judges on this, but I’m pretty sure that would make you seem… crazy.

5. “Ever hear a song and feel like it sums up your romantic situation almost too perfectly? Yeah, us too. So we raided our iTunes library and collected a few of our favorite lines. Go ahead… get emo.” Emo, Cosmo? Listening to songs and hearing lines that make me think “Yeah, exactly” means I have to get a bad haircut and start wearing a lot of eyeliner and also maybe start wearing vests? I’m pretty sure that’s not what you meant, but… shut up.

6. Okay, so on the cover of this month’s issue, it says “VIRGINS IN COSMO!” in giant pink letters. My immediate thought was “Surprise!” and then I read that 100 Sex Questions Answered in 20 Words or Less article and realized that yeah, it’s the same ol’ magazine. Anyway, this article focuses on seven women over 20 (and under 25) who still have their V-cards. The common theme is “So I just haven’t met someone I actually want to have sex with yet.” That’s fine, right? I think so. I don’t really know what reaction I’m supposed to have, especially after the headline, which says, in screaming red block letters, “WHY THEY’RE STILL VIRGINS.” In a way, I guess it seems really dumb. (Something dumb in Cosmo? No way!) The magazine is generally a proponent of sexual freedom, but the thing about sexual freedom is that it cuts both ways — if you’re free to have sex, you’re also free not to have sex. I don’t suppose I should expect so much from this particular publication, but it gets on my nerves sometimes. It’s just so very narrow. I think it’s good to have a niche, but whenever the magazine discusses people outside of its realm — virgins, say, or a couple of months ago there was an article about lesbians — it’s sort of like “Surprise! There are people out there who aren’t particularly interested in the latest advances in blowjob science!” (Not that Cosmo publishes anything about the latest advances in anything.) And I know that I shouldn’t be searching Cosmo for feminism, but still, there’s something about it that just irks me. People are different. This is not news. I don’t know. Some people lose it in the backseat when they’re teenagers, and some people wait until their wedding night, and everyone else falls on all kinds of different points along the spectrum, and it’s not sensational, it’s just life.

Oh, and then the model in the photo that accompanies the article is wearing a necklace and the pendant looks like cherries, and ha, so clever, or something.

7. July is apparently National Ice Cream Month. I just thought I should let you know. Very important.

8. The editor-in-chief of Cosmo didn’t know that men’s testosterone levels peak in the morning. I’m holding myself back from making a joke about morning wood, but I don’t know, I feel so surprised. Other than the fact that I find it completely impossible to believe that Cosmo has never mentioned this before (because it seems like they’ve mentioned nearly everything before), I always (if we can define “always” as “for the last minute or so”) believed that the interview process for that job involved taking a really long sex quiz.

9. Out of 100 guys surveyed on the street, 58 think that Scarlett Johansson is hotter with darker hair. I’m sure that’s important, but I haven’t really figured out how.

10. And finally, there’s a bit about how to look hot in the summer heat. It says “Sure, you love summer — until your skin and hair start to fry in the sun or wilt from the humidity.” And I just want to point out that wilting isn’t exactly what humidity makes my hair do. It’s more like the opposite of wilting, and it involves plotting revolution. I’m getting my hair cut tomorrow (thank goodness) but since the humidity kicked in this season, I haven’t been able to do anything to make my hair less than freakishly gigantic. Yes, I’ve been rocking the Pulled Back Into A Messy Knot Look (as there are no un-messy knots where my hair is concerned) for a month now. I feel pretty.

And that’s that. Until next time.

→ 10 CommentsCategories: Cosmo · Everything · Lists