So Long, Suckers!

Many years ago, I had a job I didn't much care for. The company made up for the long hours and high-stress environment with a fabulously tiny paycheck. All I ever did was work, and when I wasn't working, I was talking about working. I was well on my way to becoming a Washington Tool.

In fact, I became so insufferable that my sister loaned me money so I could get the hell out. So I did. I prepared two resignation letters. The first letter was the standard, "It's not you, it's me, I need room to grow and boy howdy have I learned a lot!"

The second was written in crayon and said, "So long, suckers!"

I submitted the first. To this day, I wish I'd had the nerve to submit the second. It is the sole regret of my life.

With that, I'm outta here. And, in honor of that long-ago day when I learned that, sometimes, quitting is the better part of valor:

SO LONG, SUCKERS!

Oh, this isn't my last post or anything. Don't cry! I'm just leaving town and on blog-cation for a few days. I'm headed to Chapel Thrill, North Cackalackee for football, beer, and possibly some more beer. I'll be back soon enough.

PS - In honor of Talk Like a Pirate Day:

What's a pirate's favorite candy?

Caaaaarrrrramels!

I Might Be Wearing a Barrel Right Now

I have no clothes.

And I don’t mean in that vain, ridiculous, staring at a full closet and yelling, “I have nothing to wear!” sense. I mean, I have no clothes. I am down to my last dress. And I own virtually every dress that has ever been made.

There’s an explanation. I live on the fifth floor. The laundry room is in the basement. My building’s elevators have been out of order for the last few weeks. And I’m weak and lazy and don’t want to carry a heavy basket of laundry up and down six flights. I might as well take my clothes down to the river and beat them with rocks.

The last time I washed clothes, FreckledK was a blonde, AIG was a solid and respectable company, and Bangkok Dangerous improbably ruled the box office.

Things are getting desperate. I may have to retrieve my wedding gown from its Shelf of Shame and wear it to work tomorrow. I may have to buy underwear on my way home tonight. I may have to recycle my grocery bags into a trendy plastic outfit. I may have to pack nothing but pajamas for my trip this weekend. I may have to suck it up and carry my laundry up and down six flights of stairs.

Heaven help me.

In the comments, tell me the longest you’ve ever gone without doing laundry, and why.

Face Jam, Not Facebook!

Yesterday, I alluded to a troubling cultural shift: the ascendancy of social networking over Internet porn.

First off, what is wrong with you people? It’s porn, and it’s free! It’s free porn. How can Facebook even begin to compete with that? Sure, it’s fun to convert nouns into verbs (“to friend someone,” “to author a book” and so on). And it’s great to find out that the kid who pulled your pigtails collects Dungeons & Dragons figurines and is still living with his parents. But, people: PORN.

Second, I’m worried about how this is going to affect our society as a whole. Recent trends have taken us toward social isolationism. Examples include the ascendancy of longer workweeks, the breakdown of the nuclear family, and increased mobility.

Porn reinforced the lone wolf in all of us. With the popularity of social networking, people are beginning to interact again. No longer is it every man for himself, facing a landscape of implants, acrobatics and improbable social situations. Only in the world of porn is “You're not the usual cabana boy,” an effective pickup. (I know, I tried.) Instead, people are interacting. Messaging. Announcing their status. And connecting…with no nudity whatsoever.

This is deeply, deeply troubling. I hate people, and I do not want them to band together and conspire against me. So I say we start a movement: No More Scorn for Porn (NMSFP, which really rolls off the tongue). Together, we’ll go and download and much porn as we can possibly find. Who's in?

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'll be Googling "Grosse Point Spank."

PS – Disclaimer for Dad: I’m not really a porn freak. And I never knew about your Playboy stash. Also, that time in high school you busted me for sneaking out? I was totally taking candy and schoolbooks to disadvantaged syphilitic legless orphans. I was NOT making out with a 19-year-old in a vintage Mustang. Really.

Outrageous Fortune

It’s a topsy-turvy, mad, mad, confusing, and ever-changing world. Internet porn is no longer king. And we now have flying cars, moving sidewalks, and personal jet-packs.

We don’t? Really? Why not?

One thing I can always count on is the all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet near my office. This legendary experience is eight bucks, which includes a soda, tasty heat-lamp cuisine (the buffet table operates as an enormous Easy-Bake Oven), soup and fruit.

Yesterday, LivitLuvit and I decided to meet up for lunch and buffet conquest. All was well (and delicious!) until the fortune cookies arrived.

Liv’s fortune had been personally written for her by Barack Obama, “We must become the change that we want to see.” Inspiration, and a tasty snack!

What sort of fortune would be in store for me? Fame? Wealth? Love? Unicorns and ponies? I got excited. I tore open my cookie. However, instead of Barack Obama, my fortune was written by dyslexic monkeys. Dyslexic monkeys on crack.

“Today’s profits are yesterday’s good well-ripened.”

Now, it could just be that I’m a stickler for grammar. Or, more likely, it’s that D-minus I got in Economics 10. But I have no clue what that even means. If I’m good today, I’ll have money tomorrow? Old people are well-ripened and profitable?

I should cook and sell old people?

Then I remembered, these things are a crock. Now, Tarot, that's the real deal. So I did what anyone would do in that situation:

I stole Liv’s fortune. Sucker!

The Multiple-Choice Path to Everlasting Love

Dating sites such as OKCupid! and EHarmony (motto: "We Hate the Gays") ask their patrons to fill out a numbing series of questions. These moral conundrums march before users like a Rockettes line of lame, such as, "Do you believe in preemptive war, and, moreover, if you found a $20 bill in the street, would you keep it? Or would you give it to the legless mute homeless guy? You'd keep it? Wow!"

Then the program matches you up with prospective suitors. My last OKCupid! match batch included two of my friends, plus a man interested in building a polyamorous love-nest in Waldorf. So, clearly, scientific matching works! Except when it doesn't. Which is most of the time.

Over the weekend, I noticed that OKCupid! also allows users to submit their own questions. In the interest of finding my perfectly perfect soulmate, I tried to write a few myself:

1. Do you like stuff?
a. Yes
b. No
c. Maybe
d. Whuh?

2. Do you take responsibility for your actions?
a. Yes
b. No
c. The bitch set me up!
d. I know what “the bitch set me up” is about, and yes, the bitch did in fact set me up

3. Have you ever done a line of cocaine off a prostitute’s thigh?
a. Yes
b. No
c. A DEAD prostitute’s thigh, no less. Sucka!
d. The hell?

4. You have a baby in front of you. How would you go about decorating it?
a. Star stickers
b. Glitter
c. House paint
d. All of the above

5. Two trains leave a station somewhere. One is traveling 75 miles per hour, the other is traveling at 64 miles per hour. Stuff happens. What sort of stuff?
a. The trains collide outside of Minneapolis at 3:53 pm in the afternoon
b. The trains pull into Chicago at the exact same time
c. “3:53 PM in the afternoon?” Redundancy much? Weren’t you a journalism major?
d. I LIKE TACOS. AND COOKIES. AND COOKIES MADE OUT OF TACOS.

As of yet, none of my questions have made it into general circulation. But if I meet a man who answers them all correctly, I will have to marry him that instant, have a dozen of his babies, and name all of the babies, "Awesome Radical."

Hrm. And my mother wonders why I'm single.

Who Knew Meatheads Could Be Such Poets?

Commenter Justin mentioned being unable to get through the entirety of Wednesday’s wacko-rant. Apparently, that sort of bile needs to be broken down into chewable, digestible chunks.

Even better, let’s tart up the Firehose of Meathead’s missive into poetry! Many of his insults practically arranged themselves into pentametric couplets (though not all iambic, so, overgrown English majors: most lines won’t scan, get over it). I threw in tetrameter at the end. Or possibly not. I haven't taken a poetry class in more than a decade, so I'm rusty on meter.

Without further ado (or maybe just a little more ado...), I offer my first poem in the nearly six years of this site. You're witnessing history, y'all. Weep before its beauty, and recognize yourselves as mere pebbles on the Beach of the Universe.

From the Meathead, With Love
And you are Suzy homemaker who makes
Useless fats, cheese fondue, Old Glory cakes.
My killer abs don’t come from drinking beer,
My old slobby self is my greatest fear.
Endurance training may be cynical,
I do seven miles of elliptical.
And I can pair that with a two-mile run,
So at forty-six I’m still having fun.
Vain? Me? Vain, oh baby, you’ve got that right,
Today I’m just itching for a fight.
My body and cocky-ass attitude,
A conceeded, ripped, chiseled, dago dude.
I can go for hours in the sack,
Provided there’s a mirror on your back.

I love all those useless hours in the gym, but you,
Have your American flag cake and eat it too.

Happy Friday, everyone!

The Importance of Frivolity

I debated whether to post at all today. September 11 doesn’t feel like the right sort of time for goofiness, relentlessly mocking my own flaws, or micro-analyzing the world around me. It feels as if I should have something bigger and more important to say.

But I believe frivolity is of enormous importance. We need all of the little details that make up our days. I believe in the lame jokes, the small kindnesses, and a spirit of resilient levity in an imperfect and often evil world.

On September 11, 2001, I hunkered down in my sister’s apartment with a small group of hometown friends. We foraged for pizza, we watched the news, we waited to hear if our friend’s dad had made it safely out of the Pentagon. When he knew his dad was safe, my friend poured himself a big glass of wine, grinned, and said, “I have a few brain cells marked for deletion.” That small bit of humor pulled the day into focus. That was when I knew that everything would be OK.

So thank you to everyone who has posted something beautiful and profound about today. But also, thank you to everyone who posted something ordinary, frivolous, nitpicky or ridiculous. We need you, too. We have to mix the sublime with the absurd. It lets us know that a broken heart can keep beating. In your honor, I offer a link to a hilarious and odd video:

Rick Astley, Beaker-Style