Balls and Walnuts
more than you ever wanted to know
Category Archives: such as it is
Incommunicado
We’re in Vancouver. Try as I might, I cannot get a network connection for my Blackberry; I’m writing this on the Sylvia Hotel’s remarkably slow lobby computer.
So it looks like I won’t have anything for you until we get back to Seattle, late this coming Monday. Oh, well! Hopefully, I’ll have some stories to tell.
By the way: driving from Seattle to Vancouver yesterday was NOT fun. Six hours drive time, three of which was spent in traffic at the border crossing and shortly beyond it (when the 99 narrowed from four lanes to two). Gaaah . . . but the family held up remarkably well.
D.
Travel notes
I know it’s not Thanksgiving, but I’m thankful we made it through baggage claim, car rental, and hotel registration in record time: one hour from plane-landing to ass-sitting. Not bad!
And I’m thankful that SFO’s food court hasn’t wrought holy hell upon my colon. Yet.
I’m also thankful for the innocent smile of the 10-month-old blond cherub who sat in front of me on the plane, bouncing up now and then to declare, UH-OH!
And lastly, I’m thankful for the ample cleavage of the young woman sleeping beside me on the plane, for giving me something to look at when my book failed to titillate.
Kushiel’s Dart, by the way, a book SxKitten recommended. NINE HUNDRED PAGES LONG. So — if I tried to sell my trilogy as fantasy rather than SF, could I get away with a 300K-word story, too? Too bad it’s SF. ALTHOUGH it’s never too late to throw in a magical golden dragon . . .
D.
Nuthin’ tonight
It’s 9:49 PM and I’m only now getting to my emails. I was in the OR from 7:30 AM to 6:00 PM, and then I had a meeting until 8:15.
Plus, Karen’s mad at me. That kills the creative juices straight away.
D.
Proof
A lot of you have heard me say that I’m a lesbian trapped in a man’s body, and apparently this is true, given this list of the 100 Hottest Women chosen by gay/bi women over at AfterEllen.com.
Let’s face it: Maxim doesn’t cater to lesbians. In fact, you could say it flies in the face of all that we hold dear, especially when it declares Lindsay Lohan the hottest of them all, as it did when it published The Maxim Hot 100 List last month. So we asked you, our readers, to create your own list of hotties, and you came out in droves to nominate the women you think deserve to be on the AfterEllen.com Hot 100 List. Thousands of votes later, we have the results.
How is our list different from Maxim‘s? Eight of the top 10 women on our list aren’t mentioned anywhere on the Maxim list (Angelina Jolie and Lena Headey are the exceptions), and only four of the women who made Maxim‘s top 10 (Jessica Alba, Scarlett Johansson, Jessica Biel and Lindsay Lohan) appear somewhere on the AfterEllen.com list.
Clearly, what straight men and lesbians find sexy in a woman is a little bit different.
Cap’n Dyke will be delighted to see that Angelina Jolie made #2. Me, I’m tickled by everyone I see here, but in the top 10: Angelina, Salma, and Natalie, YUM. But why the lack of ethnic balance? I’d love to compare Maxim’s list with AfterEllen’s list on ethnic balance, relative blondeness, and relative boobage, but I’m writing on my office computer, which is slooooow. Guess I’ll have my work cut out for me this evening.
Check it out, though, and tell me who’s your favorite from the top 10. Oh, what’s my proof? I have to go all the way down to #25, Mariska Hargitay, before I find someone whom I don’t consider hot.
D.
PS: Glad to see Michelle Rodriguez in the #24 spot. Karen and I both think she’s hot, even though Karen claims she just likes Michelle’s acting.
PPS: Is that really Lucy Lawless?
News bits
I’ve had another late-and-tiring day. I seem to be having a lot of those lately, and I’m telling you, it’s a real drag. Sometimes I tell Karen I want to quit. I’ll wing it. Something will come up.
She just smiles and laughs.
***
Because inquiring minds want to know, here’s My MySpace Page.
Please be my friend?
***
I made the first cut for the Samhain Best First Line Contest. Mine is #15. They eliminated 2/3 of the 272 entries, and now it’s up to the 90 who remain to post their second lines. I suppose it’s a little too late to realize my second line is a sentence fragment, but at least I’m not the only one (e.g., #14). My third line is a bit of a run-on, but I’ll worry about that if I pass round two.
My current favorite is from Amme (#38):
Who are these women, and why do they want to be my friends?
A little over a year ago, I listened to Daisy Dexter Dobbs and set up a MySpace page. Daisy suggested it would drive more traffic to Balls and Walnuts, but I don’t know. I haven’t seen much action coming my way from MySpace. I guess I should be adding content over there, but it would be yet another daily chore. I can’t be bothered.
See, here’s what I don’t understand: who the hell are all these beautiful young women who want to be my friends? If they’re real, then my “Men” post the other day is complete and utter bullshit.
But I don’t think they’re real. I think they’re trying to sell me shit.
The joys of small theater
We went to the Ashland Cabaret last night and saw “The History of Western Civilization, Abridged,” a musical comedy. It had all the energy (and budget) of a talented high school production, and the satire was only marginally sharper than what you would expect from American theater. Not pablum, but not as cutting edge as your average Family Guy episode.
Despite all o’ that, we had fun, and Jake really liked it. Bear in mind that his frame of reference includes only a high school production of The Nutcracker.
But I miss the Los Angeles small theater scene. In tiny venues on (or just off) Melrose, Karen and I saw “Specific Hospital,” an improv spoof on the soap; “Stumpy’s Gang,” which concerned the janitor of a genetic engineering firm and his friends, the company’s discarded monstrosities, with whom he creates a television variety show;and, best of all, “Zombie Attack.”
“Zombie Attack” concerned a group of 20-somethings who spend the weekend at the remote cabin of one of their recently deceased aunts. They’re there to clean up the joint, but on the way, a cat gets hit by a car. The group’s wannabe occultist attempts a resurrection ritual which, as you might guess from the title, has unintended consequences.
See, there’s a serial killer on the loose, which you ought to have surmised from the phrase “remote cabin.” The role was played by the guy from “Third Rock From the Sun,” the fellow with the crazy facial expressions. He wasn’t a TV star at the time. But lordy, did that man have star quality. He was amazing. Anyway, he has been burying his victims in a nearby field. The zombies have to come from somewhere, doncha know.
To this day, I can’t imagine anything more fun than a live action zombie show. Barring anything with nudity, of course.
Last night’s show lacked “Zombie Attack”‘s free-wheeling insanity and near-painful edge. But one look at the audience explained why: largely an older crowd, unlike the folks who showed for those Melrose productions.
It’s like the Las Vegas phenomenon: playing to the common denominator. Yet again, I want to be back in the City, any city (except Vegas), and this time it isn’t my stomach talking.
D.
The Thursday Thirteen
. . . just became the Friday Fourteen. Let’s just hope it doesn’t become the Saturday Sixteen or the Sunday Seventeen.
Long, painful week, and I’m fresh out of creative energy. On the upside, I’m taking the next four days off. I’ll have that Fourteen whipped out in no time flat tomorrow morning. See ya then.
D.
Your ass deserves the very best
My room at the Lodge came equipped with a Washlet Toto, which sported a warmed and cushioned seat, front and rear bidets. I tried both bidets, but lacked the equipment to appreciate the former. The rear bidet was a revelation. Push a button, and a narrow, warm water jet hits you in the ass. You have to scoot around a bit to get it into the right spot, but the learning curve is shallow. I figured it out the very first time.
A wee knob allows you to control the water pressure, and at max pressure, I’m sure it could handle the toughest jobs. And even if you don’t require the max pressure, go for it anyway and revel in the sparkly clean sensation of an asshole well scrubbed.
Was there a blow dryer? I never did figure that out. Toto’s new product, the shapely Jasmin, features a warm air dryer. And, oh, they’re not called toilet seats anymore. Call ’em docking stations.
So the meeting hasn’t been pure torture.
Not quite as painful as wiping out under a wave, sand and saltwater scouring your eyes and flooding your nose. No, this meeting has been more akin to a hairshirt, or self-flagellation, or an icewater enema.
In other words, if I put myself into the proper mindset, it’s almost enjoyable.
Our Noble Purpose*: to devise a dynamic action plan optimized to transform our hospital into a sustainable system which will thrive in the 21st Century healthcare market. Anyone flashing on Catbert yet? Seriously — I wrote these things down as the meeting progressed:
Sustainable system
Drill down
Building a transformational action strategy
Jack Russell Terrier
This last was the high point of the morning. The resort owner’s pooch kept coming round to socialize, and it was a joy to hear the guy running the meeting say, “I love this dog!” while his eyes are saying, “Where’s my .22 when I need it?”
This morning, I also learned a new acronym: EBITDA, which means, Earnings Before yatta yatta shmatta. PROFIT, as best I can tell.
Once we broke into discussion groups, life improved. Guess I’m a better talker than a listener. I surprised myself by opening my yap a fair bit, mostly to crack wise at the head honcho’s expense. Two examples . . .
We were given this one handout, a Venn diagram with four intersecting bubbles: money, doctors, services, and leadership. Head Honcho (HH) wanted us to keep these priorities in mind during our discussion groups, and went so far as to instruct us to close our eyes and visualize the four bubbles. (Oh, I almost forgot. Know what we were doing this morning? Visioning. And I thought you needed to suck blotter paper for that.) So, eyes closed, I said, “I see Money, but the other bubbles read Food, Sex, and Sleep.”
When we were brainstorming Money, meanwhile fretting over the average age of our nursing staff (half of whom will probably retire in the next five years), I said, “So you need to improve the overall payer mix, right? What the hospital needs to do is upgrade the employee retirement health benefits, thereby improving our EBITDA.”
HH said, “Now, see, that’s what I call . . .” He faltered a moment. Then, “Oh. You were being facetious.”
I resisted the urge to say, “Well, duh.”
“I really appreciate your sense of humor,” he said.
But his eyes said, “Where’s my .22 when I need it?”
D.
*The HH’s fair-haired and high-breasted assistant really told us that this morning. Our Noble Purpose. Why am I flashing on Steve Martin’s character in The Jerk? Oh, yeah — Navin had a Special Purpose.
Sigh. I think I’d rather have a special purpose than a noble purpose.
Humor does it for me every time. I’m also partial to shoplifting dogs (#21).
***
Looks like we are, indeed, going to have a real vacation this year. Current plan: July 4 – 10. We’ll fly into Seattle, then somehow go up to Vancouver. This assumes Karen can find her and Jake’s birth certificates.
Will the rental car companies let us take one of their cars across the border?
We’re looking forward to seeing Dean and SxKitten in person. As for my Bay Area friends: we’re shooting for a Thanksgiving trip.
***
I was kvetching about our icky plywood floors to a friend, and she (being polite, I assume) tried to make plywood floors sound like a GOOD thing. Because, you know, they’re already so ugly you don’t have to worry about cleaning them.
And if you think that’s bad, you should see the kitchen.
D.