Inevitably, I’ve graduated from MILFs to GMILFs
This trophy wife thing? I’ve always thought it unseemly . . . except for Dennis (age 61) and Elizabeth (age 30) Kucinich. Dennis gets a pass, since he’s the poster child for LAWHSHC, Leprechauns of America Who Have Scored Hot Chicks.
Go Dennis. Too bad about that failed Presidential bid, but you still have Elizabeth.
Anyway, with great rarity, I’ve been an age-appropriate crusher. There was Cathy Rieux, a sixth grader who gave me a respectable kiss when I was a mere third-grader, but she was the exception to the rule.
Thirteen jobs
I think Dean did this one a while ago. But that’s okay, my jobs are different than Dean’s.
Welcome to my neighborhood
From today’s Letters to the Editor of my local paper. Picture Emily Litella, only not sweet.
Claims of relief provided by smoked marijuana need to be examined more carefully. Federal drug enforcement officers tell me that most smokers of high THC marijuana have been regular users for at least three years before obtaining a “medical” users card. Most of these addicts have not seen a legitimate medical doctor in at least six years.
The ax I’m grinding is a big one; I’m one of the people who got cancer from a neighbor’s smoked marijuana. I lived in a small apartment where I couldn’t get away from it. Sixteen years after diagnosis, thanks to a diet free of sugar, corn syrup, alcoholic drinks and extracts and a move to the clean air of Gasquet, I’m still alive and ticking. And the pot-smoking neighbor is dead and buried.
Yeah, I know. Every neighborhood has one. Just seems like ours has several.
D.
Winner of last week’s contest is . . .
My third blogiversary approaches: April 9th. How should we celebrate?
That first post was about a short story I had written, “My Troll Lover.” I had forgotten all about it (the story and the post, for that matter). Maybe I ought to spiff up the short story and post it to my sidebar. If I remember correctly, “My Troll Lover” was a real hoot.
D.
Playing too much Bioshock
I really, really want to write a post raving about Bioshock, but the words aren’t flowing tonight. They’re not flowing because I played too much Bioshock last night and had bad dreams and slept crappily*. Like:
Karen and I are trapped at one end of our house. Downstairs, there are zombies. [No zombies in Bioshock; just little girls who harvest precious Adam from fallen corpses, that’s all.] At the other end of the house are our eight-year-old daughter and our new baby girl. [No, we don’t have two daughters. It’s a DREAM.]
Harvest or rescue the Little Sister? Choices, choices . . .
I make my way through the attic until I am over the girls’ bedroom. I lower myself through the attic door, grab the baby, and pull her to safety. Then I hear the vanishing scream of my older daughter as she is dragged away by zombies.
The baby, I tuck between sheets of fiberglass insulation, where she will be safe. Safe from zombies, anyway. She’ll probably die from a horrible lung disease at age 35 from fiberglass and rat shit in her lungs, but at least she’ll live to age 35. I have another goal now: I have to find the older girl.
Creeping through the house, armed only with a wrench, I enter a darkened bedroom. Two women are asleep in the same bed. Twins. Zombie twins. But are they zombies, or are they victims of zombies? There’s only one way to find out. I stroke one woman’s cheek. It’s cold, and she does not react. I stroke the other woman’s cheek. Also cold.
Her eyes open. So do her sister’s.
“Pearl wants to meet you.”
They grab my wrists; my wrench is useless. One of them pats my stomach.
“You will make tasty carnitas. We must take you to Pearl!”
The dream ends with the knowledge that, without me to defend them, my wife and daughters are toast. And I?
I am a soft taco.
D.
*Like happily, only crappier.
Ouch.
Maybe I’ll write another post later this evening, once I regain the vision I lost after looking at this.
Damn you, Hello Kitty!
D.
Why I’ll never make it as a chick lit author
1. I refuse to work a pun into my title.
From the blurb for Kim Wong Keltner’s The Dim Sum of All Things,
Have you ever wondered:
- Why Asians love “Hello Kitty”?
- What the tattooed Chinese characters really say?
- How to achieve feng shui for optimum make-out sessions?
- Where Asian cuties meet the white guys who love them?
. . . which leads me to,
2. I cannot write saccharine cutesy-pie synopses.
3. I don’t accessorize well.
From Sophie Kinsella’s Remember Me. Emphasis mine:
When twenty-eight-year-old Lexi Smart wakes up in a London hospital, she’s in for a big surprise. Her teeth are perfect. Her body is toned. Her handbag is Vuitton. Having survived a car accident—in a Mercedes no less—Lexi has lost a big chunk of her memory, three years to be exact, and she’s about to find out just how much things have changed.
4. I’m not good with cliches.
From Jennifer Weiner’s In Her Shoes. Emphasis mine:
Meet Rose Feller, a thirty-year-old high-powered attorney with a secret passion for romance novels. She has an exercise regime she’s going to start next week, and she dreams of a man who will slide off her glasses, gaze into her eyes, and tell her she’s beautiful. She also dreams of getting her fantastically screwed-up, semi-employed little sister to straighten up and fly right.
Meet Rose’s sister, Maggie. Twenty-eight years old and drop-dead gorgeous. Although her big-screen stardom hasn’t progressed past her left hip’s appearance in a Will Smith video, Maggie dreams of fame and fortune — and of getting her big sister on a skin-care regimen.
and
5. All the trite titles have been taken.
Meg Cabot has Boy Meets Girl, Every Boy’s Got One, and The Boy Next Door. Jennifer Weiner has Good in Bed, In Her Shoes — and in case I wanted to consider any polyglot shenanigans, Gut im Bett and En Sus Zapatos, too. Carly Phillips has Sealed with a Kiss, Claire Cook has Life’s a Beach, and as I have already whined, Megan McCafferty has Sloppy Firsts, damn her. (I really wanted that one for my romance.)
See? It’s hopeless, I tell you. Hopeless.
Can I count this as an early Smart Bitches Day Post?
***
Live blogging: tonight at 7:00 Pacific. See you there!
Make it 7:40 PM. Gotta eat first.
Did I say 7:40? I meant 8:20! I bet you’ve all bailed . . .
D.
First beach day of the season
Yay! I’m done photo-futzing.
After a week of rain, we had sun today, and here at Chez Walnut it was deceptively warm. Jake and I noted the low tide and decided it would be a good beach day. We didn’t account for the wind-chill factor.
Photos below the cut. (Big, non-cropped versions here, at Flickr.)
Listening to
They Might Be Giants: Istanbul (Not Constantinople)
From Wikipedia, we learn
It was originally recorded by The Four Lads on August 12, 1953.
and
One of the more recent, better-known versions of the song is the cover by the rock group They Might Be Giants, who released it on their LP Flood in 1990, and on its own EP that same year. TMBG’s version is at a faster tempo than the original and contains a distinct klezmer influence, including a violin introduction and some accordion parts.
The Duke’s Men of Yale, an all-male a cappella group at Yale University, perform the song at the end of most of their concerts. The song has been in the repertoire of the Duke’s Men since 1953.
The song is on the album Bette Midler Live at Last.
I wonder if I might like any other TMBG songs?
. . . just listened to a few. Definitely an acquired taste.
What are you listening to?
D.