Awesomeness Never Goes Out of Style
I'm taking a break from blogging about my health problems to show you the latest addition to my record collection.* Um, did she say record collection? Yes, my record collection. It's about 24 records big and includes this gem, MJ's "Thriller", and the WWF album. As you can see, I only collect quality pieces.
I popped this sucker onto the turntable the other evening and made dinner while doing some interpretive dance to "SOS". One minute I am moping about how I'm going to pay for a root canal and the next I am warbling into a wooden spoon and flapping my arms. There's just something irrepressibly happy about Abba. I would wager you could step knee deep in dog poop, get fired from your job, and find a human finger in your french fries, and you'd still find yourself jutting your hips to one side and hoisting your arms over your head once "Dancing Queen" came on.
Well, I'd wager you would. I'd wager CLH would chew his dinner and shake his head and wonder why his girlfriend insisted on singing harmony to "Fernando" with a mouth full of salad mix. I can't help it. They just make me believe that, with enough dramatic gesticulations, anyone can sing their way out of bad mood. I think it's because Abba are aliens made entirely of wholesomeness and good cheer. I'm not a statistician or anything, but I'm pretty sure you could track a very clear trend in world peace summits, hand holding, and Abba record release dates.
Also, check out the fashion points here. Um... knee-high boots? Cute tweed hats? Ponchos? Is anyone else weirded out by the fact that these EXACT outfits are totally in fashion right now? And the boots? Check out the details on these puppies. Amazing.
I'm gonna come right out and say it: the guys, the guys are TOTALLY rockin' it here. REAL men wear jaunty scarves and platform boots. Am I right, ladies?
And speaking of fashionable comebacks, I, for one, am totally ready for David Sedaris's new book. Know why? 'Cause I got me a phonograph. That's right. The NY Times has announced that his new book will be released on vinyl. Do I need any more proof that great minds think alike? Or that knee-high boots will ever go out of style?
*Thank you to Geoff, Steph, Gingi, for the contribution to my collection.
Not So Much Progress
It's official: I'm sick of writing this novel. The words are just not coming, and surprise surprise, I find it easier to write about myself than other people. Shocking, I know.
No, it will not help to twist the plot and have the neighbor's cat swallow the evidence during the police investigation. It will not be cute, nor will it be clever, to make my main character morph into a bird or a wolf or a wizard any of that stuff the young people care about these days. I cannot introduce any more characters this late in the game. There's already enough death and destruction, so no one else can die. And there will be no vampires, damnit. There will just be normal humans who did extra-normal things whose stories I cannot, for the life of me, seem to push out of my fingertips without sounding like Jack Kerouac having an asthma attack.
Fuck.
This is harder than I thought it was going to be.
Report From the Windowsill
When our friends Lacy & Roberto moved from the US to Canada, they had to leave behind a dozen or so houseplants. Somehow, I agreed to take them all in. Hopeless at decorating, I simply lined them all up, firing squad style, in front of my fireplace (and then I crossed my fingers and said a little prayer that we would never, ever have to use the fireplace because some of those plants were HEAVY and hadn't I had enough of the heavy lifting for one year?)
Well, I am happy to report to Lacy and Roberto that their African violets are doing marvelously. Apparently, we have the perfect combo of natural light and human sweat running down the window panes because they are thriving in here. And, as Lacy predicted, they've made a comback. When I got the plants back in July, they were flowerless and some of the leaves a little worse for the wear. But even the one we thought would never flower has shot up a lovely little stem of deep purple.
I've been experimenting with using CLH's big bad heavy camera lately, so I'm going to start posting bigger, more vibrant pictures to this site. Lucky for me CLH knows a thing or two about technology, because, let's face it, I have very little patience for it. And there might not be any pictures of African violets here at all if I didn't have him to ask about cords and file formats and which program I use to open what photo. If it were up to me, I would be chiseling you pictures onto a piece of slate using a mallet and a sharpened piece of rebar. And then trying to cram that piece of slate into to my disk drive while yelling obscenities.
Facts About the Sixties Triplex
Number of times CLH has nearly burned the place down in four months: 2
Number of cooking vessels he has nearly melted by leaving them on the electric stove while he works in another room: 2
Number of house plants that have been damaged/kicked over during the mad dash from the office to the kitchen because he has finally noticed the apartment is full of smoke: 2
Number of texts I have received this month that have started with the words "Uh oh": 2
Number of times I have forgotten to turn the heat off before I go to work: too many to count.
My Apologies To All The Trees That Gave Their Lives
Cannot. Find. Top. Of. Desk. Must. Grunt. Out. Statements. A la. William. Shatner. Must. Clean. Off. Desk. To. Think. Straight.
Aaaah. There we are. An hour and seven different emails to seven different charity organizations later, I am free of clutter.
Seriously. Who the hell authorized the selling of my name to every blasted charity under the sun? So I gave twenty five bucks to a Native American charity years ago. Does that mean that I have to receive a letter a day, some with return address labels, some with whole sets of Christmas cards in them asking for money for the rest of my life?</p>
</span>I'm pretty sure there's a service out there that will tell these guys to scram for you, but I can't for the life of me remember the name of it. I think Brad Pitt once did a spot on Oprah for it. Was it Brad Pitt? Or some other hunky celebrity? Well, a lot of good his looks did me because I can't remember his face or the website. Just his pecs. Under his white t-shirt. Yup. That's pretty much all I remember.</p>
A quick Google search reveals the usual tips for making junk mail go away. http://www.ecocycle.org/junkmail/index.cfm#step6 </span></span></span>I'm not a penny pinching ogre or anything. It's just that I give to my LOCAL charities. And any yahoo willing to tape a REAL AMERICAN DOLLAR to the freaking ask letter to entice you to match his contribution CANNOT be hurting all that bad, right?
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http://www.obviously.com/junkmail/></p>