Wednesday

Oh boy oh boy oh boy.

IT'S ON.

I don't know if I can handle this.

Tuesday

Oh, hey, Dumbledore!




Why so Gandalf?

(PS, you're gonna wanna click on that.)

Monday

You know what I like? Music.

Music is like the opposite of getting fourteen mosquito bites in an afternoon in which you didn't even leave the house. That is, it's a thing I greatly enjoy. It's also the opposite of falling down several stairs. Several brick stairs. In shorts. Onto concrete. Basically, it's a good time all around.

Depending on the music, of course. Some music is shit. Or some neutral substance.

Yes, both those things happened today.

So let's get this party started. For your mental clarity, I'm trying to select the album that I would have selected at that general point in time, not necessarily what I would choose now.


1983 - It's kind of a lie to include this as a year I was alive, actually. I was only around for 3 fifty-secondths of it. Boy this is off to a bad start.

1984 - Um. Going solely by Wikipedia's listings ... nothing, seriously.

1985 - ... Nothing.

1986 - All right, here's the thing, I spent my earliest years listening to a lot of ABBA, Johnny Cash, Celtic music, Zeppelin, and cassettes of Rainbow Brite or Sesame Street.

1987 - Out Of The Blue by Debbie Gibson. YES I JUST DID THAT.

1988 - New Jersey by Bon Jovi.

1989 - Like A Prayer by Madonna.

1990 - Wilson Phillips by Wilson Phillips. (Narrowly beating out NKOTB.)

1991 - Time Passes By by Kathy Mattea.

1992 - This year and the next are the years I became officially aware of popular music. So whereas the previous years I either had one clear choice, or was struggling to find something, I now have a Cambrian Explosion of options. That said, America's Least Wanted by Ugly Kid Joe.

1993 - Tuesday Night Music Club by Sheryl Crow. (The first CD I ever bought myself.)

1994 - Weezer (Blue Album) by Weezer.

1995 - New Beginning by Tracy Chapman.

1996 - Tidal by Fiona Apple.

1997 - Either/Or by Elliott Smith. (A bit of a cheat, because I didn't start listening to Elliott Smith until a few years later. However, the nearest competitors would be Erykah Badu, Savage Garden, or the Spice Girls, all of which would have been equally hedging on truthfulness. I spent half this year crippled, so I read a lot.)

1998 - If You Forget Me... by Devics.

1999 - Fly by The Dixie Chicks (This year was really slim for some reason. Maybe because everyone though we were going to die?)

2000 - Ghost Stories by Amanda Ghost.

2001 - The Tyranny Of Distance by Ted Leo And The Pharmacists.

2002 - Castaways And Cutouts by The Decemberists.

2003 - Transatlanticism by Death Cab For Cutie.

2004 - More Adventurous by Rilo Kiley.

2005 - The Mysterious Production Of Eggs by Andrew Bird.

2006 - Fox Confessor Brings The Flood by Neko Case.

2007 - Made Of Bricks by Kate Nash.

2008 - Stop Drop And Roll!!! by The Foxboro Hot Tubs.


On Jenny's blog, I said, "I'm interested to see the progression from endearingly overproduced to insufferably hipster." -- I think I've done my work here.

Saturday

Better!

I am.

Friday

Yeah, I'm definitely a lot less happy today.

Because I think I'm having a kidney stone attack. Or appendicitis! Or a burst cyst! It's always so much fun to guess. But I'm pretty sure it's a kidney stone.

I've been downing water and tea since 8 o'clock this morning, very little of which is coming out of me in the approved way. Although I did have some mostly-water projectile vomit a little while ago, so that was really fun. I also have to wait another 2-ish hours before I can take more oxycodone, which will be fine until ... probably about half an hour from now.

Other than being doped up and in near-constant pain, I'm pretty much going about my day as normal. What the hell else am I gonna do, right? My mother stayed home today, so happily I have someone to take me to the emergency room, if that becomes the prudent choice of action.

Incidentally, in case you were wondering what was up yesterday, some epic, and eventually legendary shit was going down on the internet because of Comic Con. Or, its new name: Ear Rape '08.

In an effort to distract both myself and you, here's an interview with Robert Pattinson, star of the hot mess that is Twilight. I think it adequately captures why I'm officially obsessively in love with him now. That and the fact that he showed up to this thing high as a kite covered in hickies wearing clothes he stole from the set and monumentally disheveled hair. I know that doesn't sound like it follows, but to be honest, the dirtier he seems, the fewer inhibitions I feel.

Thursday

I'm sorry.

I'm sure this will pass tomorrow. ... Sunday the latest. But right now? I love my new fandom more than I love all of you.

I'm sorry.

Seriously, though.

If this does not make you laugh, you might be dead inside.

I should probably give this its own tag category.

Wednesday

Maybe it is me.

Last week, between Doctor Who and this community I joined that I don't want to tell you about, I don't think I moved from the computer for maybe 72 hours. In lieu of trying to remember what meals I missed, let me just say: all of them.

But now? I just had a "the internet is so boring" moment.

My recent experience taught me that I don't necessarily want to revive the days when all I would do was sit in front of a high-volume community for hours on end. Even if it is consistently entertaining. For one thing, I have other shit to do. (Which, not that I didn't in high school, but ... eh ... not really ... eh ... I don't really now either ... eh.) Also I'm old now and I get thrown into crises about how my life is slipping away and is essentially over every other day. (Yeah, I know. I don't want to hear it. When was the last time you tried to break into an industry obsessed with youth and beauty?)

AND TODAY I'M ALREADY BORED WITH THE INTERNET.

I'm so bored I just blogged, basically. So, I'm going to go do some needlepoint and watch the Colbert Report and mull over all the responsibilities I'm shirking.

What is wrong with me?

Sunday

That's it.

I have to download the rest of the Doctor Who series* 4 episodes.

Why?

Because right now I'm imagining that every single thing on the internet right now is about the finale and you can't convince me otherwise.

Annika's birthday is totally a spoiler, I'm sure of it. (P.S. Happy Birthday Annika.)

Thursday

Well played, Warner Brothers. Well played.

I was thinking to myself just today that I was feeling rather, well ... over Harry Potter. I was even going to make a post about it!

And then the internet was like,

"Would you like some hi-res Half Blood Prince stills?"

And I was like, "YES."

It's why my speaking English is so good.

Why not? Filched from Annika.

I'll do a modified rules version:
1. Bold what you've read
2. Italicize what you plan on reading.

If you see an entry that's neither, feel free to tell me why I should read it.

This Particular List Of Books

1. Pride And Prejudice - Jane Austen
2. The Lord Of The Rings - J.R.R. Tolkien
3. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Brontë
4. The Harry Potter Series - J.K. Rowling
5. To Kill A Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6. The Bible - Anonymous (I had a book of Bible stories for children when I was younger, and I've used it to look up answers to crossword puzzles, but that's about it.)
7. Wuthering Heights - Emily Brontë (Then I can have a discussion on whether it sucks or not!)
8. Nineteen Eighty-Four - George Orwell
9. His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10. Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
11. Little Women - Louisa May Alcott
12. Tess Of The D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy (On the shelf.)
13. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller (Lost to the Book Holocaust.)
14. The Complete Works Of William Shakespeare (Yay! Task complete.)
15. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16. The Hobbit - J.R.R. Tolkien
17. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18. The Catcher In The Rye - J.D. Salinger
19. The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20. Middlemarch - George Eliot
21. Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22. The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
23. Bleak House - Charles Dickens (I have the Complete Works of Dickens, so I plan to read them all at one point.)
24. War And Peace - Leo Tolstoy (I want to buy it, but I'm abysmally poor right now.)
25. The Hitch Hiker’s Guide To The Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26. Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27. Crime And Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28. Grapes Of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29. Alice In Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30. The Wind In The Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32. David Copperfield – Charles Dickens
33. The Chronicles Of Narnia - C.S. Lewis
34. Emma - Jane Austen
35. Persuasion - Jane Austen
36. The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe - C.S. Lewis
37. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39. Memoirs Of A Geisha - Arthur Golden
40. Winnie The Pooh - A.A. Milne
41. Animal Farm - George Orwell (I didn't try to read this, but I tried to try.)
42. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43. One Hundred Years Of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44. A Prayer For Owen Meaney - John Irving (On the shelf. Might as well.)
45. The Woman In White - Wilkie Collins
46. Anne Of Green Gables - Lucy Maud Montgomery
47. Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy (Caz says it's good.)
48. The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49. Lord Of The Flies - William Golding
50. Atonement - Ian McEwan
51. Life Of Pi - Yann Martel
52. Dune - Frank Herbert (Kirk says it's good.)
53. Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54. Sense And Sensibility - Jane Austen
55. A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56. The Shadow Of The Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57. A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
59. The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-time - Mark Haddon
60. Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61. Of Mice And Men - John Steinbeck
62. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63. The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65. Count Of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66. On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67. Jude The Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68. Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69. Midnight’s Children - Sir Salman Rushdie (I did read The Satanic Verses, though.)
70. Moby Dick - Herman Melville (I also want to read Billy Budd. Shout out to Mr. Holtzman!)
71. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72. Dracula - Bram Stoker
73. The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74. Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75. Ulysses - James Joyce
76. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77. Swallows And Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78. Germinal - Émile Zola
79. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray (I love this freaking book.)
80. Possession - A.S. Byatt
81. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82. Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83. The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84. The Remains Of The Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87. Charlotte’s Web - E.B. White
88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom
89. Adventures Of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90. The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton
91. Heart Of Darkness - Joseph Conrad (Lost in the Book Holocaust.)
92. The Little Prince – Antoine de St. Exupery
93. The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks
94. Watership Down - Richard Adams
95. A Confederacy Of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole
96. A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute
97. The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98. Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99. Charlie And The Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl (I can't bitch about the movie until I've read the book. Probably.)
100. Les Misérables – Victor Hugo


Yes, I corrected the list for capitalization, completeness, and uniformity of style.

Monday

George Carlin died, you know?

I don't really want to talk about it. But I figured I'd mention it.

Sunday

Diēs patrī.

I don't have enough titles in Latin.

Today is Father's Day! So, happy day to all of those reading who, um, is a father. To mark this occasion, I decided to make a list. Here is a list of ways I do/have referred to my father. (I wanted to say "Things I've Called My Father" but that sounds like it will include inappropriate things. It doesn't!)


Dada - I'm told that this was my first word.

Daddy - This is the primary way I address him. Really! I call him Daddy, even though I am not six. I've occasionally, briefly, considered using "Daddy" to talk about him to other people - because I think that sounds like it would be delightfully Southern. "Yes, Daddy always says ... " And then I could sip a mint julep on the veranda. I once tried compromising by saying "My Daddy," but that sounded too cloyingly precious, and I had to stop right away. As it is, the only person I will use simply "Daddy" around (besides him) is, naturally enough, my sister.

Father - This is my secondary means of address. I actually address him as "Father" almost half the time. You may have noticed that I skipped right over "Dad" - I never use that one. It would feel awkward and foreign, like something I'd say if I were angry and sarcastic. Total endearment or total formality. No in-betweens! This is also the way I will almost always refer to him when talking to other people. "My father ... etc." That's how most people do it, right?

Pater - I'm really pretentious, what can I say? He doesn't seem to mind. Plus, when said blithely and brightly, "Hey there, Pater!" it's really fun to say.

Weed - I'm not sure when this started, but around the time I was seven or eight, I was calling my father Weed pretty much exclusively. I'm given to understand that it's because he was always out in the yard, like a weed is. Not, ... y'know. It's sort of like how I came to call my very overweight aunt "Aunt Skinny" - it sounds really terrible, but there's actually a totally justified, non-horrible reason for it. I believe I stopped because I realized that it probably wasn't a good thing to call someone.

The Old Man - When I talk about him with my mother (and sometimes my sister), this is usually what I call him. Probably because that's how my mother would refer to him to me. (Well, when she was in a good mood. When she wasn't, she would call him "your father".) It works, because he's always been rather old in spirit. He was delighted when he turned 62 and could start getting senior discounts everywhere. Plus, you know, he's my old man.


I guess that's it! I thought there'd be more. The list for my mother is a lot longer and more colorful.

Now I'm going out to eat with my Daddy.

Saturday

"When it's my time, then I will let you know."

Good news, everyone! I'm not a zombie anymore!

In case you missed the memo, the world ended, again, yesterday. I didn't do so well this year. Neither did the poor SPISH! Oh well. I think of it as being like, we were the stars from the original apocalypse, and we got called back for the sequel to lend it some gravitas, and then we got killed off for shock value, but it's okay because you know the third outing would totally blow and we'd feel lucky to not be involved with that mess anyway.

Anyway, in addition to BLITE, O(t)W! yesterday's post was also brought you by my listening to "The Pedestrian" by the Foxboro Hot Tubs on repeat, and by my playing five straight hours of Snood. Yeah, that game! Still! I have an unregistered version ($19.99? Pfft! I'm not made of money!) but for the day they were letting people try out all the registered features, so I finally got to die at Hexagon City. Good times.

Oh right, that song. I love that song! It's whence this entry's title comes as well as, incidentally, yesterday's. Yes, that was "It's my time to go." put through Babelfish in Zombie. I should point out that the title, and, like, five other words are the only things that I was intentionally trying to write. Any other things that turned into actual words, and the fact that I managed to name-drop God and Jaws is completely coincidental.

It was actually my hope that I would get more actual words in there. But unconsciously, you know? Like a Ouija board? Didn't really happen. But Pat paid me the best compliment ever. Finnegan's Wake as written by zombies was exactly what I was going for. I mean, it was clearly a lazier effort than last year, but there was some amount of story behind it.

Anyway, after the zombie invasion, I got my weekly dose of aliens and robots, and then I read some more crappy vampire fanfiction, so the panoply of monsters got fully rounded out.

I really wanted to make a post about the latest episode of Robots, but the output probably would have been nearly as insensate as my last post. It was so awesome. I was so impressed that I proselytized to several people afterwards. Really. Do you watch Robots? Have you seen Robots? You should. Do it. Yeah, those unfortunate developments from last year still happened, but ... it's good anyway.

I've been in a blogging mood lately, so hold your breath* for a slew of upcoming exciting** posts. ... Unless my mood changes, ... which it very well might.

*don't
**non-

Friday

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.
.

Tuesday

Y/Nay!!!

Today is National Iced Tea Day!!

... But I don't have any iced tea!

WHAT IS THIS UNCONSCIONABLE INJUSTICE?!

Monday

I was serious, you guys.

Issue the first.

This is an excerpt from the New York Times Magazine editorials page, May 25, 2008:
"When will we realize that it is equally important to raise girls to be sensitive, compassionate, smart individuals with intact values, not to mention healthy, intact knees."

There was another example I found in the Smithsonian Magazine, but I can't find it again and it's pissing me off. The NY Times! The Smithsonian! It's worse than I thought.

Issue the second.

Am I really the only person who's ever seen Felix the Cat: The Movie?

Wednesday

Aunt Rose.

My Aunt Rose died on Saturday night.

I wanted to write something out, to acknowledge this and say something about her, but after several attempts I've realized that it's not going to happen. I'm not okay about it. On one hand, she was nearly 96 years old (I mean 94 of course. She didn't want anyone to know how old she was, and even her obituary didn't know the truth. Keep it amongst yourselves.) On the other hand I love her and I'm not ready and it sucks. On a third hand, she's with my Uncle Joe and her children now. On a fourth hand ... I miss them, too. At some moments more than ever.


So for the past few days I've been hanging around with family members that, for one reason or another, I don't see very often. (For the sake of clarity I should note, unless it's my Aunt Rita, who is my father's sister, any time I mention an "Aunt" or an "Uncle", you should assume that it's one of my grandparents' siblings, and that they've been dead at least 15 years.) First, there's Aunt Rose's grandson and his children, who are around my age. My cousins and I have always had this weird sense of rivalry and dislike going on with them, and I really don't even know why. I know that it was handed down from our parents. I think it may be because my cousin Theresa was always a miserable pill all the time. But we liked Theresa, so, really, I don't get it. Truly, they've probably all turned out to be great people, and better people than my cousins at any rate. But I wouldn't even know how to start a conversation with them. The fact that we were crying over the same woman who had so touched our lives while we were standing on opposite sides of the room was interesting, to say the least. Oh, and the one that I had been thinking of as "the baby"? He's, like, sixteen now. The fuck.

Her granddaughter Roseanne was also there, and she's awesome. I used to play with her daughter Kelli when we were very small, but I couldn't talk to her. Literally. She's deaf.

Roseanne's siblings were not in attendance, and my cousin Suzanne was snubbed from the list of surviving family, so that's all you really need to know about that.

Then there were the relatives that I try to avoid because they all became Born Again Christians. I don't mean that I dislike them, but I try to avoid them. See, they're good people, and friendly to a fault, and because of their religious ethics and family values, they'll be first in line to help you if you, say, need to have your house repaired or need help getting out of bankruptcy. But they also sometimes send out Christmas cards with poems about the Judgment Day and how the unbelievers will burn in a lake of fire. Their sense of humor is also seriously lacking. How am I, to whom blasphemy is like a second native language, supposed to handle that? Also, they home-schooled all their children, reinforcing all the worst home-schooling stereotypes in the process. Thanks, guys. Except, I did get to see my cousin Nicole again, and she always seemed pretty sane. She went to school for massage therapy. I wouldn't mind seeing her again. I bet she's awesome.

Then there are my Aunt Rita's children, my lonely two first cousins. ... I don't even want to discuss them, really.

As I sort of expected, I had many relatives gushing that I look just like my grandmother (or, as most of them unsettlingly refer to her, "Aunt Gracie"), and recalling how beautiful she was. She was beautiful, but I don't look like her, and I don't know why they all think I do. I mean, I'm sure I resemble her a little; she is my grandmother. I do look a lot like my father. Of course, I also look a lot like my mother. It depends on which one I'm standing next to. I'd say I'm a fairly even mix, and I'd say my father is an even mix of his parents. So, by that account, I look about one-fourth like my grandmother ... and three-fourths not like her. Really, though, my grandmother had small, round eyes. My eyes are large and almond-shaped. My grandmother had a round nose. My nose comes to a point. My grandmother had an oval face. I have a square face. My grandmother had jet-black curly hair. My hair is chestnut-brown and wavy. Although it has been very humid lately, so it's been curlier. Anyway. I think they're just seeing what they want to see.

I also got to meet my Aunt Madeleine's two children, whom I don't think I've ever met before. Her daughter looks just the way I remember Aunt Madeleine looking. And she also looked a lot like Jenny. It was odd. She hadn't seen my father in some 20 years, so she made a great fresh audience for all the tragic stories of all his maladies. Which he regaled her with, incidentally, while they were both kneeling at the casket. Oh yes he did. My father, ladies and gentlemen.

My Aunt Rose had a brother named Nate that she was just crazy about. I never met him, as he died before I was born, but she talked about him all the time. His full name was Natale D'Amore, which in Italian means "Christmas of Love." Isn't that the best name you've ever heard? His four daughters were there. I'm sure I've never met them before, but they were very familiar to me because they all looked just like Stephanie. It was crazy. They all had similar eyes and noses, and they all had her hair and they all wore glasses. So for a few minutes I pretended that Stephanie was one of my cousins and it made me very happy.

There was one thing that my cousin Michael said to me (one thing that didn't make me want to hit him, anyway) that made me ponder. With Aunt Rose gone, with all the people that we've lost gone, our connection to those other people in that room has pretty much disappeared. Aunt Rose was, as my sister called her, "the last of the dinosaurs." ... I believe she meant it as a compliment. She was the last of all the old relatives, the ones the different branches had in common, the ones that made holiday dinners, the ones that connected everybody. I wondered, more than once, if I would ever see some of these people after this.

We had some adventures getting into the line for the cemetery. Of that cemetery: "Who's there?" I asked my mother. "Everyone," she replied. I saw my Aunt Madeleine and Uncle Neil and Aunt Mary. I saw a few cousins and many familiar names. I looked a little bit for my grandparents, but I didn't really look. As we were driving through, my mother teared up suddenly. I'm sure that's where my sister is. I've never been to a cemetery except when laying someone to rest. I've never felt the urge to go back. Aunt Rose was laid next to her husband, my Uncle Joe. They were married for 60 years, and she'd been without him for 18. They ran short on flowers, so I didn't get to place one. Before I left, I kissed his name with my fingertips.

Monday

Radio Update.

So, I've been listening to the radio when I drive in my car. Which I do now at least three days a week. My life is so on the edge, I know.

I have become very enamored of WRXP, 101.9, the erstwhile smooth jazz station. Now The Rock Experience!

Today I heard Death Cab For Cutie on the radio for the first time ever. That's right! First time ever. Also, the White Stripes. And! They played a U2 song that I don't think I've heard before, and it made me not hate U2 for a little while.

(About that, I don't actually hate U2. But have you noticed how everyone is all about U2 all of a sudden? And about how they're apparently the greatest band in the history of the world forever in the whole world? It's driving me crazy. Because - no. You're overdoing the praise. Having "In The Name Of Love" be the only song you ever play does not help. See also: Van Halen.)

The DJs actually talk about the music and concerts that they went to and stuff like that. BUT. Importantly, they do it quickly, keep it to around a minute, and then get back to playing music. Except today one of them was talking about his divorce, and it was really awkward.

Also, someone in that studio is in love with the song "Time To Pretend" by MGMT. I hear it all the freaking time. (My history with that song: I got it free off a music website and decided I didn't really care for it. Then, later, A. sent it to me along with another of their songs. Because he didn't know! The second song made the first one sound a lot better. Ugh. But! Now that I keep hearing it, I don't mind it. It's everywhere, though! Moonlight used a lyric for an episode title. Speaking of which - [single cold tear for Moonlight].)

Tuesday

Results of election leaked early?

I know I don't usually talk about politics, but I wanted to share this. I get my Latest Primary Results news from AOL.com, because it's easiest because that's where my email lives. I haven't checked any other news sources, so I don't know if this is an isolated incident - but I doubt it.

Today, Nebraska and West Virginia are holding their primaries. Clinton and Obama are battling it out in West Virginia! But it seems, when I checked at 7:15 this morning (don't ask), Obama had already been declared the winner in Nebraska, with 0% of precincts reporting.

The polls in Nebraska, incidentally, close at 9PM, CT.

Look, it's not that I doubt that Obama will win Nebraska. If that's what the indications are, fine. However, call me old-fashioned if you must, isn't it customary to actually hold the election before you tell the people who won it?