Friday, February 28, 2003
Bad interviews, bad moms
My first experience with real potty training this morning - not a good time as I was trying to work - and also because it seemed to be Day of Diarrhea. Aw man. I was ready to puke.
It was NOT fun sitting on the bathroom floor reading "My first counting book" and "Baby Bear can do it all by himself" like 50 times whilst next to another human being taking a giant prolonged squirty dump. And then having to LOOK at it.
Meanwhile the transcription, while audible today, was making me nuts. It used to always be M-----l V-z--d doing the interviews for I---W---d Magazine. I would chortle with glee as he sarcastically drove a stake into the heart of some dumb ass sales guy for Dumbfuck.com. He would give them a long leash for a while and let them talk until they wound down, then sneak up and wham! he'd puncture their toad-like balloon of ignorant lies. "So what you're saying is, your big web services enterprise software integration thing, it's basically just XML." [horrified pause] "Uh, well... yeah." "So, exactly what differentiates that from e-FuckerTool.com's XML enterprise services thing? What makes yours so special?" [frantic verbal scrabbling of sales guy to retain a scrap of his cool].
But this new guy, M--k J---s, has got to be the biggest sap of an interviewer. Every time, he is conned completely by the CEO or the CTO or the Sales head and they adroitly start questioning HIM and getting him to talk about his work and his own personal life. By the end the sales guy of iShitonyourCallCenter.com is spouting some dumb nonsense and M.J.'s only role in the interview is to say "Hmmm! Wow, cool!" or "That makes sense!" Like they need a cheerleader? Does he suck their dick too?
It makes me nuts. M.V., your silent transcriptionist misses you!
Around 2pm I was driving home from dropping off the transcription work and as my normally charming child whined thusly: "I wanna new dry diaper, I wanna diaper wipe, I wanna go to a library, I wanna go to a toy store, Need new dry diaper, no going home, going to a library, I want ice cream, I wanna go to a jungle, I wanna go to a zoo" ...
... I caught myself longing to go have an early afternoon glass of wine or two ... how long can this go on? I can't think my own thoughts for 5 minutes without interruption.... ah, oblivion... could I just pass out please?
Anyway, we finally got home and I stuck M. in the sandbox and weeded my mangy, neglected flowerbed. 15 minutes and 3 new dry diapers later the phone rang and it was the preschool - he is finally off the waiting list and in the school for 5 days a week instead of two.
Thank you, God of Bad Moms.
posted by badgerbag 2/28/2003 03:22:00 PM comment
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posted by badgerbag 2/28/2003 03:22:00 PM comment
Underdog
I just noticed in an article in the NY Times that the original US Pledge of Allegiance didn't have the words "under God". That was added in 1954 by Congress - sponsored by the Knights of Columbus.
Very odd!
posted by badgerbag 2/28/2003 02:57:00 PM comment
Thursday, February 27, 2003
also look up "badger bag" at library
posted by badgerbag 2/27/2003 05:41:00 PM comment
To do next week:
Go to Stanford library and look up stuff in Uruguayan dialect dictionaries
Kinko's - print all finished j. de i. translations to send to the people who want to read them
take M. for pony ride ?
go to palo alto thrift stores on kids' book run for Chimera
posted by badgerbag 2/27/2003 05:41:00 PM comment
Badgering
No one has asked me what "badger bag" means yet...
I really don't know!
In a couple of the P. O'Brian books someone dresses up as "Badger Bag" during the crossing the line ceremony. But I have never figured out what this character is supposed to be. Maybe in the O.E.D.? I don't have online access to it...
What I do know about crossing the line: it was a sort of Saturnalia where members of the crew dressed up as Neptune or King Poseidon and other weird characters. They get to shave and wash and dunk anyone who is crossing the equator for the first time. Or, if you were a passenger or high ranking person you could pay or stand the crew drinks, to get out of being shaved.
I also think that various scraps or mixed fiber are called "badger" in weaving or paper making. But I could be making that up. It is because the little scraps - like threads and shreds of rag - look rough and variegated like a badger's grizzled fur. (I am definitely making THAT up, but it sounds plausible enough.)
There was/is a British sport of badger baiting. You catch a badger, then put it in a bag or a barrel with a) another random animal b) a fierce dog. Then bet on who wins. A badger is very fierce when cornered and very tough - it can be almost dead and yet keep fighting for hours or days. Thus the word "badger" meaning "to pester incessantly" (as these people would continually torment the poor fierce badger). This information also is coming straight out of my ass, as usual.
Unfortunately when I consult my shorter OED (Thanks skh!) I see that there is no entry for badger bag... How about the 1911 Britannica ? (Thanks, in-laws!) There I find an entry for "badger" meaning a wandering huckster of butter or cheese or grain. In the 1500s they were strictly regulated and had to be licensed.
So, various theories.
Maybe a badger bag refers to a bag of fabric scraps or junk. People used to wander the streets buying rags and old clothes (ragpickers?) and then sell them to paper mills. Maybe they carry a big bag and thus the character of "Badger Bag" ?
Maybe a guy carrying a big bag of food to sell - the peddler or huckster?
Maybe the bag used in badger baiting - so a squirming lumpy bag? But then, how would this connect to the character in the crossing the line ceremony?
None of these theories seem even vaguely right.
posted by badgerbag 2/27/2003 04:40:00 PM comment
Home of the Fighting Tigers
At the park just now M. and I played with some maybe 6 year old kids who were there with the YMCA day care. Two girls who I got collecting tiny sequoia pine cones and piling them up for squirrel treasures (with feathers for decoration). This went on for a while but no squirrels came.
M. suggested that I be a tiger and he would fight me with a stick. Straight out of the end of Jungle Book. The two big girls then began to be tigers and some even bigger boys came over on their hands and knees being quite convincing and scary tigers. At this point I was sitting at a picnic table and just watching.
M. with his stick was completely surrounded by roaring tigers who pawed the air and clawed his legs. Keep in mind he is maybe 31 inches tall, not quite even 3 feet! He took a bold fencing stance and said "En garde, ho, ha, ho, ho ha" in proper style. Very brave!
I had kind of expected him to run to me or at least hide his face. But no - he fought the tigers... He especially loved the one boy who would fall down dead in a very dramatic way when whacked with the stick.
Don't worry, the stick was a tiny little twig deemed incapable (by me) of putting anyone's eye out.
posted by badgerbag 2/27/2003 04:40:00 PM comment
Wednesday, February 26, 2003
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posted by badgerbag 2/26/2003 05:51:00 PM comment
Just made whump's birthday cake. I was thinking of how jhk was making fun of me last night - how I would be "The Worst Project Manager in the World".
"Okay, uh.... we have a meeting today for... ummmm.... what was it? I had it written down somewhere, oh yeah, it was on a little piece of paper here in my pocket, no, wait a minute, dammit, it was the other pants. So, we were going to meet to talk about... that thingie... No, maybe the other thingie... I was thinking about that other thingie this morning while I was doing that other thing and that made me think of this OTHER thing. So, what were we talking about?"
This made me think of how he would be poking fun at my cooking "skills" if he were in the room. He would run in fear. But how silly. I am really, actually, a good cook,.
As I thought this I poured exactly three times the vegetable oil into the bowl on top of the chocolate cake mix. "Ooops. Okay, no problem, we'll just scoop out a bunch of the oil and dump it in the sink. Oops. I guess it already kind of mixed in with the chocolate stuff. Oh. Oops. Now the sink and all the dishes that were in there are covered in chocolaty oil. Oh wow that makes me think of the thing in The Crying of Lot 49 where they say the words 'Rich, chocolatey goodness.' Or was it some other book? I should look it up. Uh. Oops."
I realized the eggs had been coddling a little too long and quickly retrieved them. I didn't spill anything. Coddling, because that way I can eat the batter without being paranoid about getting some horrible illness from the raw egg. (thank you D. for this great idea!) Since they were a little over-coddled I had to kind of scrape the half-cooked whites out from the shell with my finger.
To comfort myself I think of what my ex husband m.m.m. used to say when cooking, "Oh, it doesn't matter if you fuck up, you should follow the 10 percent rule. You can mess up any recipe plus or minus 10 percent and it won't matter for most things." (Said with a sort of ineffable snottiness as if pitying the rest of the world for being foolish enough to actually use measuring cups).
I think of him saying that quite often while cooking and it will probably remain a comfort for the rest of my life.
I successfully hand-mixered the batter, which looked normal - not too oily really, maybe? And the lumps of egg white disappeared, good.
Congratulating myself, I pressed the "eject" button on the hand mixer, thinking smugly, "I'll be careful not to actually push the "mix" button instead of the "eject" button, thereby spattering batter everywhere and probably amputating several fingers."
And the eggbeater mixer thingies shot off with tremendous force like little chocolatey bottle rockets and disappeared deep in the bowl of cake batter.
"Ha ha, oops, well, all the more batter for me to lick off the eggbeater thingies!"
I think what outrages jhk so much is not that I fuck up constantly, but that I don't mind fucking up. It doesn't faze me! Ever!
Oh, oops, walked away from oven without setting timer. That was a close one!
Now I have some nice looking cake, untasted, cooling on stove.
Just now realized I forgot to flour the greased pans. It probably won't matter - too much?
The thing that worries me is that someday I might REALLY FUCK UP and do some dumb careless thing that will kill someone. "Oops, I thought I was in reverse. Sorry, beloved husband and child, didn't mean to run over you..."
posted by badgerbag 2/26/2003 05:51:00 PM comment
BY just added photos of me to his photo essay (?) called "Portrait of the Artist as a Moveable Feast". I look the moody poet, how odd!
Am eternally grateful to B.Y. for editing out those 2 huge zits.
It was fun to do though oddly unnerving. He kept going "Now, fiddle with your hair. The way you always do." I just try not to think about how I look or what weird expression is passing across my face. A good thing considering how funny I look in some of the proofs...
posted by badgerbag 2/26/2003 05:35:00 PM comment
BY just added photos of me to his photo essay (?) called "Portrait of the Artist as a Moveable Feast". I look the moody poet, how odd!
Am eternally grateful to B.Y. for editing out those 2 huge zits.
It was fun to do though oddly unnerving. He kept going "Now, fiddle with your hair. The way you always do." I just try not to think about how I look or what weird expression is passing across my face. A good thing considering how funny I look in some of the proofs...
posted by badgerbag 2/26/2003 05:35:00 PM comment
Bossing - and then problems of translation
After a month long time with barely any babysitting - seems like forever - I have now added an extra morning - a friend of a friend who has a home daycare. There, this morning, M. discovered the joys of Bossing a Baby.
The Baby was one of those placid blobby ones, sitting firmly planted and immovable, grabbing whatever comes near with fat grubby hands. I forgot how babies just throw up without noticing; this one was nonchalant about it, almost debonair.
M.: No a baby hold this people. [gives fisher price little people thingie to baby]
Baby: Uh! [grabs]
M: No baby, no put it inna mouf. It goes here.
Baby: Uh! Ga! (slobber)
M: Silly baby. Put it here in a chair like this. Goes here.
Baby: [doesn't mind when he grabs the thing back]
M: I show you. Like this!
Now here at home M. just put me to bed for a nap, bringing me a blanket, pillow, and fake bottle, kissing me and saying "Night night sleep tight". "You go bed and I go bed. And close the eyes. No mama, no onna computer, go a bed."
I spent some hours translating this morning - that was the point I was trying to get to.
I start out making a super rough translation either in my notebook or on the compu. I put any words I don't know in square brackets.
Sometimes I get confused about verb tenses and look them up too, like if I forget if it's first person or third person future conditional or whatever. It is even worse if I am stopped cold by some "would have been doing" sort of construction. Not being sure what the verb tense is makes the whole poem seem like nonsense - I can't even tell what it's about.
Then I go look up all the words I don't know. I am mostly translating poems by one poet, J. de I., and she has certain fads in words, so I know the Spanish for odd things like: drowning, misery, bleeding, sunset, wretchedness, anguish, bitter alkalinity, apathy, withered, poppies, lilies, wax candles you'd have at a funeral, nightfall, arrows, spears, desire, and last but not least, the words for "Take me now".
So, when I look up a word, like "laceria" in the dictionary - I use Velasquez or the online DRAE, both good and literary - I write down a bunch of different word possibilities in brackets if there is any ambiguity, like so:
Ah! [Wretchedness/misery/oppression/poverty/(laceration)]!
I get to a stage where I have lines like this:
And perhaps the jasmine of birth
at the secret/hiddden/obscure/arcane vertex/zenith of the voyage
Then I read the mangled, overly wordy result a whole bunch of times. I fix easy things like
making "cistern of salt/bitter/alkali of my heart" instead be "heart's salt-bittter cistern".
And yet: [cistern? well? reservoir?]
And grammatical things like:
Ah si pudiera ser de piedra o cobre
Para no sufrir!
Para que así mis ojos se apagaran
cual dos trozos mojados de carbón.
Ah if I could be [made of] rock or copper
[so that I won't, in order not to] suffer!
...
[in order for/ so that/ so/ ] That way my eyes will [close, go out, be extinguished]
I might stare at one line for quite a long time and write it 10 different ways.
Eventually I end up with something that's more or less done:
The hour
Take me now while it's early
and because I have dahlia buds in my hands.
Take me now while my tumbling locks
are still shadow-black.
Now, while I have fragrant flesh
and clear eyes and skin like a rose.
Now, while I wear on my light feet
the living sandals of spring.
Now, while on my lips a smile chimes
like a bell struck suddenly.
Afterwards... Ah, I know
that what I have now, I won't have later!
That then your desire will be useless
as flowers on a tomb.
Take me now while it's early
and while I have plenty of lilies in my hands!
Today, not later. Before night falls
and the fresh petals wither.
Today, not tomorrow. Oh beloved, don't you see
that the morning-glory shelters the graveyard cypress?
J. de Ibarb. - LLdeD 1919 "Luz Interior"
But even here I have serious problems with the last line, it's clunky and awkward and I'm not sure I'm really getting the sense of it across correctly or even getting it correctly.
I could happily spend all day doing this. It is oddly soothing.
posted by badgerbag 2/26/2003 03:49:00 PM comment
I have a bird I like to...
Me and L. at BY's party and photo slideshow. (The one where we were tipsily talking about Tandem Underwear and "A Hint of Ass" perfume, see below).
Someone said something like "You are sisters, and so similiar..."
And at the same instant, in the same slightly derisive tone of voice and emphasis, we said, "Actually, we're not alike at ALL." [Look of incredulity from whoever it was]
We're not ... not at all... I swear! Except for the masticatiaphobia (fear of chewing?) and the love of books, birds, and cats. But even there we are different in degree of liking.
L: Misanthrope. Me: Pollyannathrope.
L: Likes books. Me: Never stops reading a book, even when washing own hair.
Me: Birds, they're pretty cool. L: Puts small fluffy birds in her pants.
Very different!
posted by badgerbag 2/26/2003 03:49:00 PM comment
Monday, February 24, 2003
After reading Joshua Norton's strip mining blog I was thinking about rh and lh and their cousins who used to live next door to me up in the Santa Cruz Mtns. The youngest was 7, rh was 11 and lh was 10. Their family situation was fairly complex.
The younger cousins lived in the grandmother's house with their mom - all crammed into one tiny attic room. The grandmother, a total nut case, owned the house, two scary violent chained dogs, and custody of A., the oldest cousin age about 14. Her main occupation was chain smoking and muttering to herself at the kitchen table while reading magazines. She had so many magazines that the countless giant 4 foot high stacks of them counted as one of the main furnishings of the house. Her only income was the foster care payment for custody of the 14 year old, and she spent it all on magazines.
So, the grandmother got a bedroom and A. got a bedroom. The oldest daughter, D., was allowed to live in the tiny attic room with her two younger kids (and later her new baby). One of her other kids was living in another state with the dad. She had been some kind of biker chick and been in jail and at some point been injured with acid in the face or burned somehow - horrible allusions to some incident too dreadful to tell. She had gone to jail because her girlfriend (referred to as "my old lady" in hick lesbian fashion) had sent her into a pharmacy to get a prescription filled but it turned out to be a forged scrip for some illegal drug and when the police showed up, her old lady, who was waiting in the car outside, just drove off.) I really liked and admired D. who was making a heroic effort to be a good parent despite her intolerable situation with the crazy grandma, crowded conditions, no car, and no possibility of any kind of job or boyfriend since there was no bus service and the fucking bitch grandmother wouldn't babysit. Once she confessed to me that she was constantly tempted to just cut and run. She was maybe 35 but looked 50. Okay, she left home at 15 or 16, fell in with the wrong crowd, made some bad decisions, seemed to be incompetent at birth control, but she was so good hearted and sincere that I thought of her as a hero.
Meanwhile, in the driveway we have a run down RV trailer with the other sister - the family scapegoat apparently - her sleazy, skeevy boyfriend - and rh and lh, her two kids.
I met this pack of kids when they came to ask if they could wash my car for money. I gave them 5 bucks and suggested they draw some business cards and pass them out in the neighborhood. From then on, I was like their god.
I just got way too involved with this family for anyone's good. When I realized that rh and lh were nearly always starving - their mom and her boyfriend were on every kind of drug and had no food but ramen noodles which the kids were required to cook themselves - That rh and lh were not only hungry all the time but were only allowed in the "big house" at all at the uncertain whim of the crazy grandma, and therefore often couldn't take showers or baths but washed themselves at the sink of the trailer -
Oh man! It broke my heart.
The older boy rh was filled with rage. I think if he could have worked up the nerve to kill his mom and especially the boyfriend, he would have. He hated them like poison but mostly silently. It would only come out in bitter comments once in a while. He seemed to have given up hope completely. He had trouble reading, but over time, seemed inspired to read by computer games and "Magic: the Gathering" cards.
His sister was outgoing and talkative. She was the one who would come to my door and tell me about how she had eaten ramen noodles for like her 10th straight meal because the boyfriend got the munchies and ate all their food (always things like cheap cereal in bags or white bread) Her brother would start beating on her to make her stop talking about it, because he was embarrased or ashamed. Anyway I often fed them. Shit would happen, like, where they'd send her to walk 5 miles up the mountain to the little store to buy some milk, and she knew she could come around the corner, knock on my door, and I'd drive her. There were other pathetic situations like when the mom and boyfriend would suggest that she and rh "go camping" which meant sleep in sleeping bags on the porch of the big house. They would get stung by wasps and bitten my mosquitos and come over to my house crying in the morning before school...
Now, one of the more horrible things was the lolita-like way she'd behave in that disturbing seductive way that sexually abused kids sometimes do... And I was like, shit, what are the odds here, she has lucked out that I am one of the sane nice people who isn't a total child molester (and also not some weird born again christian do-gooder). The "boyfriend" almost certainly was only hanging around the skanky mom in order to have access to her very lovely young daughter. It made me just want to puke.
lh would ask me weird questions about sex, sexuality, porn movies, and stuff like that. I always tried to answer her honestly but I tell you, it was also scary just to discuss anything like that with her, for fear that someone else would hear about it and then accuse me of molesting her. L. was with me once when lh asked us both "why do girls in porn movies go "uh uh uh" when they have sex and why do they squeal (in delight, presumably) when they see a penis?" What an appalling though reasonable question to come from a 10 year old... It had this assumption like "Well, when _I_ see a penis I don't feel excited so why do these porn movie girls? What am I missing?" Then, "and why do people want to have sex? And why do guys want to watch those movies?"
Once she came over alone and asked me "do gay people have a hard time in life?" I explained that yes, sometimes, they did have a hard time, but they did better if they found a community of other gay people to be supportive of them. I also explained about AIDS a little bit in case she had any weird misinformation. She was quiet for a while and then said "Well good, because I think I might be bi." I nodded sagely, and then made her a fried egg sandwich while we talked about how when we were billionaires, we would furnish our jet planes with hot tubs.
I was helping them with their homework and going to their school to talk to the teacher at their totally rich kid school (who considered them horrible problems and didn't have much sympathy). I had to explain to the dumb bitch teacher that they had no place or peace to do homework. They had no desk, no table, no reliable supply of things like paper, notebooks, or pencils. Basically they'd get home from school and the adults would tell them to get lost until bedtime. But no,the teacher had them labelled as "bad kids".
Once she had to write her autobiography for a school assignment and I offered to type it at her dictation. It came out to be 10 pages and was one of the most appalling things I'd ever read. Though now the guy who wrote "strip mining for whimsy" might just beat it. After the autobiography the teacher did seem just a TAD more sympathetic.
I was in so far over my head. I was always having to go to the emergency room with them, or there'd be some other weird crisis... so many stories. At the time I was on disability but K. was paying more of the rent than I was and I often ended up spending half my disability check on their school clothes and big birthday parties and stuff like that. Since their birthdays were just ignored. It got to be so nuts.
It was also like torture for me because I could not rescue them. I did a lot but was not always reliable myself. And I had no real power over them. I kept fantasizing that I could persuade the mom to let me foster parent them. But it didn't seem likely that would really happen. When I moved away, to move in with M. in New Mexico, they were very bitter that I was leaving. I felt more guilty than I thought possible.
I stayed in touch for a couple of years and visited once. When I showed up at their house I was immediately sucked into some crisis, needless to say.
Frankly I just couldn't handle it anymore and stopped writing out of despair. I feel really guilty about this. Sure, I was nice to them for a few years, but so what? I flaked out in the end. Maybe it just taught them even more that you can't trust anyone. Now I live in the area again and have periodically thought of calling them up, but chickened out.
The thought of lh as a 17 year old scares the fuck out of me though - she is sure to have some scary boyfriends. When she used to talk about her future she would say things like "When I'm 16 and kicked out of the house, I'll do (whatever thing)." When I think of contacting the family, I feel near certainty that within a week she, or maybe one of the cousins, would end up sleeping on my couch. I would be unable to say no. I'd probably be arrested for contributing to the delinquency of a minor or harboring a runaway.
At this point I have my own family and it's "us first". How wrong is this?
*sigh*. I've been here for 2 years. Should I contact them and yet try to keep my boundaries intact?
posted by badgerbag 2/24/2003 01:12:00 PM comment
Sunday, February 23, 2003
Ass spackle, Invisi-girdle, and ElbOff!
Today I was supposed to finish doing laundry, mow the lawn, buy a pitchfork, turn compost heap, maybe buy some lumber to build a sandbox, finish all reading for class, type up class notes.
Instead: did a little homework, pointlessly read real estate section of local newspaper, thought about translation, looked up obscure spanish words in the DRAE, downloaded music(The Mountain Goats, Twang Twang Shock a Boom), went to mall.
I did get the best t-shirts ever, one pink that says Bombshell bowling alley and one red with sparkling glitter ping pong paddles. A good trend, to make falsely aged t-shirts touting sports events from 1961. Also my first ever pair of some mildly low-rider jeans that fit and were cheap. My stomach is large, wobbly, and surgery scarred and I own no thong - my boxers will just have to hang out of there. I did notice that the low rider jeans make my ass look fabulously round. I was all goggling over my shoulder into the dressing room mirror and thinking, Hmm, baby got back! Ludicrous... I am now at the point where it will become increasingly silly for me to shop in the Macys junior dept. but I keep vowing to wear jeans and converse and have silly hair till I die of old age.
Will I be one of those sad candidates for ass spackle?
This was another great invention of L.'s! She described it as sort of an emergency kit - especially useful in that Macy's junior dept. On the escalator faced with a skinny 16 year old's butt crack? Whip out your kit and slap on some ass spackle! The grateful public wil fall at your feet. Of course the kit would come with a handy little trowel for laying it on. It's also possible that there would be a superhero - so that you could yell "Hey, Ass Spackle!" and a chick in a flight mechanic's jumpsuit and a shoulder bag would burst out of the mirrored wall right there on the Macy's escalator and do the job.
The world will just have to deal with my stomach. It was cool being pregnant because your stomach is supposed to be huge. Some people are grossed out by the flaunting of pregnant bellies but I'm not. Oddly, I am grossed out by men's paunches but think women's are cute. I will just continue to flaunt my non-pregnant belly. Behold my soft fertile abundant bulginess!
Or will L. invent Belly spackle for me? Or maybe "Invisi-girdle"?
One of our other great inventions is "ElbOff!". It's a thing that unfolds and clips to the arm of a seat in an airplane, erecting a sturdy barrier between your elbow and the elbow of your exasperating neighbor.
With these inventions, someday, we will make ONE MILLION DOLLARS.
posted by badgerbag 2/23/2003 05:20:00 PM comment
--
posted by badgerbag 2/23/2003 05:20:00 PM comment
Saturday, February 22, 2003
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posted by badgerbag 2/22/2003 08:29:00 AM comment
Thanks for showing us your beaver
M. looking out the window at the plastic yard animal in the grass: "Scuse me, Mister Beaver, you all wet, you having a bath, you need a towel?" Me and L. cracking up at this sweet concern on his part.
Then leaving her house I wave and say "Thanks Auntie L. for showing us your beaver!"
He's not even 3 yet, he doesn't get why we're laughing, but it's possible I will go to hell for cracking lewd jokes like this or for leering when Sam I am asks if you'd do it in the dark with a goat.
posted by badgerbag 2/22/2003 08:29:00 AM comment
Friday, February 21, 2003
A worthy successor to Tandem Underwear
A while ago me and L. came up with the fabulous invention of "Tandem Underwear". We were a little bit drunk at a party and got online, drunk, with credit card in hand, to buy the domain name. Laughing so hard it hurt - tandemunderwear.com! It's not taken! Hooray! We envisioned the adult-novelty-style packaging - like that you would find on a windup hopping penis - tacky in the same way that an ad for a joy buzzer or a squirting nickel would be from a 1970s comic book. We invented the instructional videotape illustrating funny different styles of getting into the Tandem Underwear. Lying down! Standing up! Front to front! Front to back! Romantically! Humorously! Yes! We will make a MILLION DOLLARS!
In case you cannot picture it properly, lacking the mindmeld of me and my sister, I will elucidate the T.A.: it is simply two pairs of underwear with the front parts cut out, sewn together, so that two people can wear underwear while engaged in intimate activity. It could be easily engineered for front to back activity as well... And what's the point, you ask? It puts some much needed humor into sex. And it is handy on cold winter nights.
Ooo, that smell!
Anyway, tonight at BY's slideshow party, L. came up with the brilliant product, "A Hint of Ass". I believe it was a bag of "Hint of Lime" tortilla chips that inspired this drunken wit. Instantly I could see it: "A Hint of Ass" perfume! In a fancy glass bottle actually shaped like an ass! No, L. says, like a greek column, but with a subtly rounded ASS at the top, for the capital! Should the marketing campaign be more Dada style, or more squeaky clean 1950's? No - Art Deco, like Aubrey Beardsley. "Hint of Ass" perfume! "Hint of Ass" bathroom air freshener (more honest than those pine or flower scented ones!) "Hint of Ass" sachets for underwear drawers! L. was drunkenly going on about how we would dress up in suits and have a business meeting with a fabulous PowerPoint slideshow of our "Hint of Ass" business plan. And then the interactive Flash game on the web site, hintofass.com. What would the game be? A sort of Love-o-meter thing, but more of an Ass-o-meter? Or flying ass cheeks going across the screen and you click on it to "get into my pants"? And the perfume bottle would spray the perfume somehow actually out of an asshole shaped thing right at the right spot!
Maybe this was so funny because I knew I could instantly picture the whole spectrum of silliness and total inappropriateness that could be generated around this idea. But when I tried to explain why I was laughing so hard I was getting asthma and almost puking, people just looked at me in polite horror - obviously appalled and not really thinking it was funny at all. In the car on the way home JHK was like "I hate to tell you this, but it's actually NOT as funny as tandem underwear".
I still think it is.
And when I say I was "drunk" I mean only that I had less than half of a glass of wine. It's not like I started out with any inhibitions to be removed. L. had knocked back maybe half a bottle and was looking rather flushed. So, not really drunk.
posted by badgerbag 2/21/2003 11:11:00 PM comment
why does it keep doing my posts twice? 8-P
posted by badgerbag 2/21/2003 03:57:00 PM comment
In which I just keep going and going
I could just write journal entries ALL DAY. The crap in my brain - out!
How nice it was to see SLJ in New York. I sat in the cafe above the Astor Place subway station - where by the way I saw these hundred year old decorative wall plaques with beavers by cut-down trees or nibbling the trees and I felt smug because I know a fair bit about John Jacob Astor and his founding of the Beaver Club and his plans for the utopian trading city of Astoria where fur trappers would bring their beaver skins to trade with China - And anyway I was in the cafe watching waves of people just boil out of the subway station stairwell and how interesting they were in sort of a typical hick in the big city way - And how nice it would be if then I saw the familiar face of my friend SLJ among the crowd - the way that it is always nice but sad in a strange city to imagine seeing someone familiar, so familiar that you would know them from a distance just by the way they walk and their vague outline - At some point I realized she was actually in the cafe on the other side, I saw her long braid hanging down her back. Talking to her it was just as if we had never stopped whatever our last conversation was and although we are not regular intimate friends and I don't know much about what is happening in her life and she doesn't know mine I felt like I knew her quite well if not better than ever. She seemed also to feel this way and pleased at the sudden feeling of connection with her own identity from the past coming up into now.
I was trying to tell her how I had been ineptly trying to explain to her friend BY what my concept of her soul was. "Well don't leave me in suspense, I am dying to know what your concept of my soul is." (I now imagine my sister's cynical sneer at my dumb pretentious conversations) The best I could come up with was talking about this poem she wrote when we were like 18 or so in which she was dancing alone in the moonlight by some fountain. It was an awful poem but awful in a good promising way and so she makes me think essentially of the little plastic ballerina on a musical jewelry box - the kind that is pink with some flowers and when you open the box lid, the ballerina sproings up and twirls around to some sickly yet haunting piece of classical music plinked out by the metal music cylinder. Surprisingly, she agreed with me and didn't seem insulted. The good parts of all that the plastic ballerina stands for - but also the trite parts but with a hefty dose of irony added in.
Is it possible anyone would ever want to read this stuff? I can't imagine.
posted by badgerbag 2/21/2003 03:57:00 PM comment
Sublime = boring?
Am thinking more of the trip to NY. We went to the opera to see Les Troyens (thank you mom in law), which was very good but very long and somewhere in the 3rd and 4th act I was having a long, slow train of thought like:
"Hmm, they've been doing the same thing for a long time. They're still doing it. Wonder if this is what it would really be like to be a king and have people dancing around specifically to entertain you all day. Entertaining, and luxurious, but kind of boring. Wonder if Berlioz meant it to be boring? Because it's all so slow you have a lot of time to think about all the ideas about what's happening. It's true, kings and queens are often bored when you read about them. Also love and happiness are boring. Wait, suddenly it's not boring, it's sublime. I keep thinking of words like "sublime" and "wafted", but also somehow still the word "boring". They are singing and the music is really like some kind of fairyland timeless ethereal music. [ I space out with no thoughts at all for quite a while on the wafty sublimeness] Oh man, this seat is uncomfortable. If kings are bored do they have to act like they're still regally pleased? The music and the voices are just blending together in some weird unearthly way. Man, love and slothful ease is boring. Oh, wait, it's all sublime again. In any normal play or opera or movie something would be happening with the plot and there would be no time to savor this strange complexity that maybe I just can't even quite understand because I am not able to concentrate and have not been smoking opium like apparently Berlioz was."
Then they're going to start a new song and I'm wondering if anything will happen in the plot.
Dido: Come, Jopas, sing for us your gentle pastoral song of the fields.
Jopas: Oh, the gentle golden fields of grain waving in the breeze, thank you, blessed Ceres!
(repeat for 1/2 hour)
Fuck! No plot twist. Sublime. Boring. Sublime. Boring!
In Act One I began crying as soon as Cassandra struck a pose, before she even opened her mouth. Then again when she pulled the curtain as if what was about to happen in Troy was so dreadful she couldn't bear to look. Dido did the same curtain pull move in the end. Then standing up on the pyre (a pile of presents from Aeneas) she lifted up the sword she was about to stab herself with and she was all radiant and gold and white and awful like a perfect "Queen of Swords" tarot card.
It was all the ultimate triumph of atmosphere over plot.
A good silly moment to be emulated for the rest of my life, the god or ghost or whatever it was appearing over the boring love scene with arm dramatically upraised and going "Italy!! Italy!!! Italy!!!!" in a tremendous doom filled voice.
I was going mentally "A toilet! A toilet! A toilet!" because it had been a couple of hours and if you leave for the bathroom they don't let you back in. It is possible that Berlioz had nightmares about people like me, but I really enjoyed his opera...
posted by badgerbag 2/21/2003 01:38:00 PM comment
nethack
Am fighting the urge to spend several days playing nethack.
Maybe just a few hours? Until my wrist starts to hurt?
posted by badgerbag 2/21/2003 01:38:00 PM comment
My theory of the Prom Queen and the Mousy Friend
I notice that in friendships between two (relatively straight) women, there is a sort of pecking order that establishes itself; one woman will become the Prom Queen and the other, her Mousy Friend.
The Prom Queen is assumed to be superior in physical and sexual attractiveness; her life is more interesting and dynamic than her friend's. The Mousy Friend is like the supporting actress who makes her friend look good, who hangs on her every word. The femmier one is usually the P.Q. but I don't think that's completely necessary. The relationship can be sexualized or not, i.e., the M.F. might be in the position of adoring worshipper of the coy, flirty P.Q. The P.Q. is often the thinner one.
It is weird to suddenly realize that I've been mousy-friended by someone who does not technically seem to be the PQ to my MF. When some honky-tonk going, divorced office worker just assumed that I'm mousy and my life is boring (which it is now, but wasn't always)
and, who, pitying me, allows me to listen to the description of her last date and one night stand. I end up knowing everything about her life, while she knows absolutely nothing about mine. The really odd part is that despite my general lack of susceptibility to girliness, I fall for it, uncontrollably, and feel myself becoming dowdy, pimply, and dull. I am tongue-tied. The PQ takes on a sort of golden aura like a movie star or a goddess.
I flash back to junior high and feel like Julie C. is about to show me her new dance routine and laughingly try to teach me how to put on makeup and convince me that someday I could be as beautiful as her. But underneath, I was aware that she was a complete twit.
Even if it doesn't seem to be about sex and femininity, it still happens. I noticed it recently among 2 girl geeks (J. and L.). Meeting them separately, I would not have been able to predict which of the two of them would be the PQ and which the MF. But once I saw them together, it was crystal clear.
When I feel myself becoming the PQ to someone, I try to stop doing it.
posted by badgerbag 2/21/2003 10:58:00 AM comment
We are back. Yay.
When I woke up in the middle of the night my bed was like a fluffy perfect cloud; I was supremely confident that I would fall right back asleep. No bedsprings were jabbing into me. That horrible 40 year old mattress in NYC - when I woke up in the morning I felt like I'd been beaten and thrown down a flight of steps. Princess and the Pea has nothing on me.
I'm still reeling from the aftermath of the giant mindfuck of relatives who seem to think everyone is motivated by money - what a family - what an in-law - spouting rhetoric about nobility and gentility and values while actually suspicious that everyone around him is out to get his money. My pity for him nearly completely gone, I clung to the belief that I could act rightly, in a Stoic committment to duty, despite everyone's awfulness. I couldn't even ask him if he wanted a cup of tea without feeling like he was thinking that I was trying to kiss his ass for money.
Thank god that the ceremony where we had to kneel down and kowtow twice was BEFORE I figured out what he meant by talking about inheritance. Otherwise I would not have been able to bring myself to do it. As it was, it was just like being in some strange cathedral and taking communion although I am not a Christian; I just feel like an anthropologist and a translator of beliefs into something I can accept.
Maybe he is worrying about senescence and who will take care of him in his old age. Does he think that no one will take care of him when he's decrepit and dying - unless they think he has loads of dough? I thought that only happened in books. Apparently not.
Frankly I wouldn't take care of him when he's decrepit - not for money or duty either, he is too weird and paranoid.
I did like the princess-like korean dress. It had a huge crinoline and petticoat assembly underneath - with a cotton lining that I believe could be described as a shift. The over-dress was silk or satin or something, light brown shading into dark brown just like a seal point siamese cat, with a trim of printed flowers at the hem and neck. Then a dark brown and black silk over-jacket embroidered with more flowers - it is just long sleeves and a back and then tied in front with a long sash. I believe one could also describe it as empire-waisted; a high waist that allows one to be pregnant without a visit to the dressmaker. I felt like a cross between a princess, a cabbage, and an eskimo in this ensemble - rather roly-poly and fluffy, in a pleasant way.
posted by badgerbag 2/21/2003 10:47:00 AM comment
Monday, February 17, 2003
Change of heart
Okay, after obtaining some snow pants and ski boots, I went out into the howling blizzard to place my geocache.
I felt like a frisky eskimo!
Snow pants. They are crucial. I climbed up 8 foot hills of snow mounded up at the ends of people's driveways and slid down. At the end of the street where it hits the beach, I plunged thigh deep through the snow and it felt so interesting and soft and powdery! Lying down or even just letting myself fall straight backwards into the very relaxing couch of snow perfectly molded to the shape of my body. I wish beds could be that way.
When I was little it was great fun to walk to school in the snow and slide down these hills, though some people would get grumpy if you got the snow back onto their walkways.
Some guys down the street piled up all their snow in their tiny chain link fenced front yard, went up on the first story roof, and jumped off into the giant snowbank. I went and talked to them and they sounded just like Brooklyn. Exotic fun!
posted by badgerbag 2/17/2003 12:28:00 PM comment
blizzard
We are snowed in at my in-laws at Rockaway Beach after our weekend in Manhattan.
They live in a huge old 3 story house half a block from the ocean. But only 3 rooms are
habitable - at the very top of the house - 2 tiny bedrooms and a kitchen (I don't count the
bathroom).
There is nowhere to sit but 2 kitchen chairs, one office chair, and the bed.
The kitchen table is a rickety old desk. In the bed, I can feel each individual bed spring
poking into my tender, princess-like flesh.
The funny part is, they have been living like this
for a year and a half. Now I understand how they travel to Kenya and Peru and everywhere and
stay in 5 dollar a night hotels. They are just naturally Spartans. It's not JUST that they're cheapskates;
the springs don't poke them, they don't notice the freezing cold, the 3 flights of stairs seem normal to them.
I thought I was not very fussy about things like sheets and towels, and their dinginess, oldness, tatteredness, or dirtiness, but the stuff here is gross beyond compare.
The worst part of this for me, besides the incredible amounts of dust, the general grossness and uncomfortableness, is that I cannot get away from people chewing. At any one moment, someone is eating something. Last night they were eating for 2 hours, somehow; first dinner, which I finished quickly (since it was all inedible to me except the plain pasta). I fled to the bedroom and put on headphones - brought for just such an occasion.
JHK went to shovel snow and seemed to enjoy the healthy exercise. Freak! My ass is freezing cold even with 2 pairs of pants and underwear and sitting in a padded office chair. "Don't you want to go have a snowball fight and make snow angels?" Fuck no!
"Some houses are overheated and that's a problem. That's not a problem with this house!" my mom in law just shrieked from the next room. She always shrieks - I'm not sure why. Usually I find it somewhat charming.
I would not make a good astronaut.
posted by badgerbag 2/17/2003 08:58:00 AM comment
Wednesday, February 12, 2003
About Bags
I have this problem with backpacks and bags and purses...
My theory of bags is that they are a manifestation of goddess-like power, of feminine abundance and fertility. Like the mother in The Swiss Family Robinson, in any situation or emergency I will be able to provide what is needed from my 'magic bag'.
My current bags:
Huge backpack for when I want a lot of books: spanish dictionary, binders, notebooks, bottle of water. Laptop can go in here. Flannel shirt can be squashed in. Front pockets have phone, pens, medicine, kleenexes, wallet, boxes of raisins and stuff. When fully loaded this thing must weigh about 50 pounds.
Small green shoulder bag Notebook, paperback book, phone, pens, inhaler, benadryl, tums. It takes about a week for this spartan collection of stuff to overflow with crap. A binder does not fit, alas.
Purple backpack with broken zipper This is the main diaper bag. Diapers, wipes, snacks, juice, entire extra outfit, toys, books. In a pinch, the entire giant fuzzy red blanket can be squashed into here. Cell phone and GPS and wallet and keys can be thrown into front pocket with broken zipper, because I'm a fucking idiot. In one week it becomes a disgusting mess. At times a wet diaper folded up into a neat ball has been excavated from under this stuff. The extra outfit hasn't been needed for about 6 months and it gets really linty and gross.
Laptop bag Special bag with shoulder strap, containing ibook, attachable mouse and microphone, power cord with extension. Sometimes gets notebook, inhaler, paperback book. No horrible lint as yet.
misc. tote bags About 5 or 6 tote bags that get used for quick trip to the park. Diapers, toys, juice, crackers, book and notebook and inhaler and phone. Can alternately be used for extra binder-carrying bag for poetry readings in conjunction with small green bag. After 2 months each bag is filled with the detritus of park and bookstore visits under the table or in the hallway or behind the door.
Each bag collects loose change, crumbs, squashed M & Ms, raisins, cheerios, used kleenex, lint, bits of paper folded up from my pocket. After about 4 months it starts to become compost and I clean out the bag.
But the essential problem is that there is a core population of crap that I nearly always have to switch from bag to bag: inhaler, phone, notebook and pens, mainly. I should have inhalers for all the bags?
Should one have just one pen, and one inhaler, and know where it is at all times? Or have 10 pens and 10 inhalers and scatter them about, hoping they will be conveniently at hand when they're needed?
When I was a kid I fantasized that someday i would have a sort of portable hole, or bag of holding, invisibly floating around like a shelf behind my head. When I wanted a book or something I would just reach up there and get it. I could look something up in the encyclopedia anytime. All kinds of food would be stored there and sweaters and whatever else you might want to carry around. Clearly I need this. In some ways the web has answered my "invisible portable bookshelf" needs.
posted by badgerbag 2/12/2003 01:47:00 PM comment
The big whine
Getting ready to go to NYC, unwillingly. To some people this would be a fun adventure.
Would Badger from Wind in the Willows go to New York in the dead of winter? Hell no - he would hole up in his den with a lot of books and some hot chocolate.
My asthma is so bad this week I dug out my old Medical Alert bracelet and put it on. I have this sick vision of choking on my own phlegm in the parking lot of Safeway while worried yuppies edge around me, figuring I'm a dying crack whore. (Like a bracelet will help???)
The backpack I was going to take on the plane - I cleaned it out.
Escuche y repita: DO NOT ever put a banana in your backpack.
Under all my stuff int he backpack at the very bottom was a totally black banana. As soon as I touched it, it burst, covering my fingers and all my stuff with deliquescent former banana. It did not mix well with the crushed M & Ms and tattered bits of kleenex and cracker crumbs down there. Thank god I bothered to clean it out instead of just taking it on the plane.
With all the "disaster training" stuff going on : My paranoia kicked in and I went and read all these disgusting web sites about smallpox and anthrax and botulism and chemical warfare (mostly from the CDC). Ugh! Why did I look at all those gross pictures of smallpoxed skin??? Why do I do it? My imagination is already bad enough without fuel.
Last night read Their Eyes Were Watching God. I did notice that the heroine gets to a) have sex with various men b) run off from marriages she doesn't like c) doesn't ever get raped or killed, though beated a little bit . Not bad for 1937. I kept bracing myself for the inevitable rape. But it didn't happen! Good job Zora Neale.
Speaking of rape... I have been deadly fascinated with the Catholic priests scandals. It confirms all my paranoia and conspiracy theories. The diosceses (dioscesi??? whatever) actually set up "victim's rights" and therapy groups, but didn't reveal that they were run by lawyers who would not only persuade the accusers/victims to not take legal action, but would report on the accusations to the church officials! Imagine going to a therapy group and secretly, your "therapist" was a lawyer hired by your rapist! Fuck.
JHK and I arguing about whether, if the priests didn't have to be celibate, this would still happen so much. Maybe a little bit less but if they're in a position of authority but no accountability, yeah it will happen quite a lot, whether they're allowed to fuck women their own age or not. JHK says no.
I also read in the NYTimes that in the Catholic Church molesting some little boy is not a violation of a priest's vow of chastity. it's a sin, but it's not as bad of a sin as fucking a consenting woman would be.
Grrr.
posted by badgerbag 2/12/2003 12:57:00 PM comment
