To the girl in the checkout line at the grocery store last night,

Honey, you're buying toilet paper and Tampax. you really want to wear sweatpants so low we can all see the exact placement of your pelvic bones? or did you just want us all to think your BMI is high enough that you're still menstruating? When your elbows are thicker than your arms, and i can know this, because you're barely wearing anything that could be called a top? Riiiiight. Plus, what kind of people do you pick up at the grocery store anyway? Ew. Skeeve.

Nice tan, though. Can't help but notice. Don't get cancer, eh?

Dear Grocery Store,

When you put up a sign saying No shoes, No shirt, No service, could you please include And cover your skinny damn pubis on the end?

Labels: people

because somewhere in there, right next to the clean plate club compulsion i've been trying to rid myself of for nearly a decade now and which it could be argued contributes in a significant way to American obesity, but we're not going there today, but somewhere way down in the middle is a belief that if i can share a meal with someone, then something in our relationship is fundamentally okay. That breaking bread together is an affirmation. and it probably isn't for anyone else, anywhere, ever. but the stupid little idealist that still hopes for world peace won't turn down half a Kit Kat or a cup of coffee or some peach pie, just in case. i have to be the only person who takes this shit seriously: it's not. it's just a metaphor. but still, if we could all just sit down and have a fucking beer. maybe. right?

Labels: festivities, food

wait. how did this happen? i want a wii. wii wii wii. i know that i want a wii because of the way i always used to play Ecco the dolphin: i move the damn thing to try and get him to jump. that and e.v.o.: the search for eden, which appealed to me as a molecular biologist, ha. i didn't get very far (at least not in ecco), mostly because the controller thingie was notoriously unresponsive to me jerking it all the hell around. but i don't want to be a person with a game system. i have no place to put a wii. i have no idea if it works on european televisions or european electric plugs. i don't want one in a tiny apartment. now if warcraft was available on wii ... and if i didn't have to reroll ...

Labels: media

i try. Most of the time. and sometimes it doesn't really work, which is discoraging; being a reguarly disappointed optimist is not an easy thing to attempt. and the more news that happens and the more things one learns, it doesn't so much seem to apply, and the atrocities that make the news and the little inhumanities that don't all make it harder. Which leads one to resent them that much more, blah blah blah.

Labels: reflection

it's a good thing Bond is smarter than Freerunning Guy, because Freerunning Guy is better. man, i hope they put that crazy monkey shit in the Olympics.

Oddly hunky. like, bulgily so. i think i pictured something wirier, because damn are those ever some biceps.

i like my violence taped on the screen with safetypeople standing just out of the camera, thanks. Let's keep it there, then, eh?

Labels: media

out of the east. 10:45, Saturday night, central time.

Labels: random

so - of course - as soon as you figure out why something bothers you to such a ridiculous degree, it minimizes, not because you figured out why it was bothering you, but that it stopped entirely for reasons beyond your control. But it's good to know where it came from, all the same, that all that is still there and that it can come back like this and next time i will know why. especially because i know i'm right, because it's my head i'm doing the figuring out on, so there's no maybe do you think and no miscommunication. it is such a satisfying feeling, teasing that out. they'd be the best puzzles if they weren't so awful to go through. when i do this i get the idea that someday i will have my whole head mapped out, that i will be able to identify where every thought comes from, and that would be a very weird thing, but doesn't it also sound a little like nirvana?

similarly, something happened just a little while ago to someone, and i thought it had never happened before to someone i knew or particularly liked, only it did, and i had just forgotten all about it. and the first one, well, that all worked out in the end, more or less, kind of, or it would have been easier if everyone asked my advice to begin with. because i was right and i wasn't sure i would be, i really wanted to be, and it took years and years to come out, and then after it all i was. Unexpectedly, really. i mean i thought it was a lost cause so i let it go. But the fact that the first one is all okay now, or mostly, or at least they're okay with it, gives me hope for the second. If hope is what you can call it, instead of some stabby little hurry-it-up vodou inner-head thing, because calling this holding anybody in the light would be a stretch.

Labels: reflection

i have, i think, removed all the clothes that don't fit or are not flattering or that in whatever way i don't like. what i have left to purge, yet, are the ones that i don't wear but have kept so far because i like the idea of them (there are a lot of these), the ones i don't wear often but are only duplicates (this is going to be hard - i love winter accessories. however, i think i have approximately a lot: the brown cable scarf, the brown wooly one, the gray one that matches the hat and glove set, the gray and black one that doesn't match the hat and glove set, but that is warmer, and i have several winter hats but no "nice" ones, really, but the gray one and the other gray one and the two black ones, and then i have a lot of pairs of gloves: the cream leather ones, the dark brown leather ones that are probably, really, my favorites, but that have been used for gardening and cactus-handling, the black leather ones, the gray fleecey ones, the other gray fleecey ones, two pairs of identical tweency black ones, the medium brown real-fleece ones that are probably the warmest but i hate how they look, the other black leather ones ... and how do i choose which i don't get to keep any more? i can only wear one pair at a time and none of them (with the exception of one of the pairs of gray fleecey ones, and the tweency black identical ones but he won't admit to those) fit m. how do i choose? do i need a complete set of each black, gray, and brown? and then, what about these, which are simply gorgeous?), the ones i keep but keep not wearing for no reason in particular, the few but important clothes i keep for sentimental purposes only but don't wear any more at all (well, i can think of only one item in this category besides the wedding dress, but still), ...

• that black tube dress. Clear. i have the other one and i look better in it anyway.
• Greeny-browny-skirt. Looks funny, because it was made of some synthetic fabric and the color was green when i got it, but is now brown. Fits interestingly with appropriate tops but i, um, don't wear it on any sort of regular basis, and i have other things to wear to Fancy Occasions, right? Make note to inventory occasion-wear.
• Red skirt that is nearly identical to greeny-browny-skirt, above. Clear. it's red, and none of my clothes at all go with it, except all the black ones. Crap.
• Non-winter scarves: Keep. because with limited clothing choices, i am going to need to accesorize! woot!
• Any item that is a dog hair magnet. case in point: nubby wool pants. but they're warm! what do i do?
• Pants that fit: keep. Decision made. (this one is easy: all pants that do not fit, including all low-rise waistlines, ugh, are already gone! haha!)
• That patterned halter dress. i can't wear a bra with it. Fuck that.
• Anything else i can't wear a proper bra with. case in point: eveningwear, and that flimsy blue thing from Banana Republic i have worn exactly once in nearly three years. it had the fucking tag on it for two years sitting in my closet and it makes my arms look fat.
• That white peasant shirt that leaves crimpy-marks. Ugh, not comfy. Lesson: trends suck.
• Blue sweaters. Keep all of them.
• Everything that is cashmere: keep.
• Toss out all halter necklines, for that matter.
• Favor v-necks and polos and collars; crew-necks can leave. what have i learned? Interesting, yet bra-friendly, necklines are my friend.
• Things without proper waistlines make me look un-curvy, which is not good. Keep this in mind when trying on that adorable white sundress that i love so.
• anything with the vaguest hint of stain: this includes the green waffle shirt, which is warm, but easily replaceable with Any Other Shirt I Own as a layering tee.
• Anything that needs to be fixed, that i'm clearly not ever going to fix. yeah, the salvation army loves that one.
• jewelry i don't wear. case in point: anything i bought at a garage sale when i was twelve.

let's assume i have enough boxes.

Labels: emptor

at every opportunity. i don't like it when i complain too much. and i always warn people when they say they want to know and they always say, No, really, it's okay, and then i open my mouth and this pure retching venom comes out and my lips turn black and my head starts to spin around backwards and i think they're always a little taken aback, or maybe i'm just that self-conscious, but i don't like it. it isn't fun. it isn't funny, and i'm not even trying to be entertaining, i'm just venting all this rancid karmic pollution out into the atmosphere. it isn't a good time for anyone. and even, here, you see this? this is meta-complaining. a whole new level of annoying and not-fun-ness.

and then when they actually see the bile, they always go, wow, i didn't realize it was that bad, and then i try and defend it and re-minimize it because maybe it isn't really? maybe i'm overdramatizing? only i'm not, and i damn well know it. and it sounds that bad because it IS, because all of the things that i say are facts. but i don't want it to be, so i try and be an apologist about it, only that isn't particularly healthy either for anyone concerned and only makes me look flaky.

Labels: reflection

i'll know Friday. 95% on RT. Not too shabby for a Bond flicka. Not too shabby at all.

Labels: media

The people that are really hardcore, the people that i would say are hardcore, who don't go out to dinner nearly every tuesday these days for margaritas or, tonight, sushi, the people who live on Red Bull and cheetos and order pizza every night, the people who never, ever go outside or to movies, the ones who would never consider going to work on a saturday or going to visit friends in Austin or going anywhere or doing anything, and who certainly don't play with their dogs, no, those people would not call me a gamer. those people would certainly not call me a hardcore gamer. no. and they would be right.

but i have three level 60's now. the druid is in nearly solid purple and the lock is almost half already, and the rogue was well equipped in her day, too. and i had no leveling services. i know i'm at well over 30 days of playtime on at least two of them. solid. so the people who don't play, they see this and think i'm some kind of crazy person. where the only difference between me and them is that one of us watches television, in which one is not an active part of one's entertainment and which is not in any sense a social activity, and one of us, um, has to kind of push buttons and stuff and talks to people on the computer (and, yes, we have microphones, so it is vocal talking, but i still type way fast).

Labels: media

if you wake it up. if you push the right buttons. because, when talking about the people who do politics around here, it is acceptable to say "i just don't like her hair" about hillary clinton as a reason to not vote for her. why is it that it is valid to make comments about her wardrobe, about her personality? are these things that matter? and if they are, why is it always, always, always less valid and more diminutive to call a male politician bitchy? how is tom delay NOT the exact definition of bitchy? how is it fair that if the governor of texas looks skeevy, that isn't taken as seriously as nancy pelosi wearing an Armani power suit? That comparing the president to a chimp is a joke, whereas talking about the jewelry choices of the next Speaker of the House is a serious issue? or "she seems pushy." she is a senator: SHE IS SUPPOSED TO BE PUSHY. that's, like, the whole point. To get things done that you want, that people know you want and that they voted for you so you could get them done. senators are supposed to be powerful. you want them to be powerful. if hillary was a man everyone would love her. All the parts of her personality - the aggression, the outspokenness, the having a fucking opinion on things - and why the FUCK do i know this about her, when i don't about my own fucking congressman? - would be admirable traits in a man. But no, she's a woman, so she's supposed to have perfect makeup (see also: the Katherine Harris ugly-makeup-gate) and be a follower. and fuck that.

Labels: politics

and yet, i keep taking them. Every time they are linked. why is that? when i know this is the case: that people think they are accurate because, as per the Forer effect,

• they think the test is valid and the description has been specifically tailored just for them;
• they trust the person or computer administering the test; and
• the results are mostly positive.

but they are always so flattering. none of it is ever liz, sometimes you can be really hard to get along with or you just don't like people, do you? or you know, you can be such a freaking snob. even the ones that guess on which personality disorders you have. People with narcicisstic personality disorder are often ambitious and know themselves to be capable or Agoraphobics are usually very well-read or People who suffer from panic attacks are excellent planners and like to think things through really, really thoroughly. i don't know. i get bitchy when people start categorizing each other.

Labels: tests

so i have the sword of damocles just sort of making lazy little ellipses, twisting in the breeze, like a tiger filled with ennui. At some point this was all implicity agreed upon. and, also, there's really nothing i can fucking do about it, is there, then?

Labels: people

thank you for voting.

i am trying to decide if i should allow myself to have hope, or if it's all a bunch of crap and doesn't really matter, which is not what i want to believe, but can't help being a little bit revolutionary about. But still, thank you for voting.

Labels: politics

you. now. go. now.

Labels: politics

i am not representative of the people of Texas A&M University. i'm not. this is something i have come to accept. But when i get a survey from a researcher in the kinesiology department asking all sorts of things upon which i'm pretty sure in which i differ from a lot of my coworkers, it's very, very hard to restrain myself from decorating said survey with little happy rainbows and intersecting Marsses and Venusses and writing - in fat hot pink marker - across the front of the envelope - REALLY, IT'S OKAY. i could not restrain myself from writing a dissertation on the inside of the envelope as to why being gay is not a sin against god.

In fact i might go get the envelope back. campus mail hasn't picked it up yet. and it is "anonymous." So, dear kinesiology department researcher, When you get an envelope that's all decorated with gay pride stuff, that one's from me.

Labels: politics, texas

why is it that one is always "hung until he is dead"? is it possible to judicialize a punishment that is "hung until not quite dead" or "hung just a little bit" or even "hung in the standard manner", because wouldn't that mean up to and including death? and does this mean that the coroner or E.M.T. or somebody has to climb up on the gallows and examine certain ex-dictators to determine that they are, in fact, deceased, and can be taken down? is there a "hung until that rat fucker's head falls off" or is that cruel and unusual, and if so, why, because he's already dead? can we legislate "hung until merely unconscious" for lesser offenses? and if the hangee falls into a seventeen-year coma, does he stay up there? and if the hangee does that jumpy little jig-thing that they do, and sometimes that goes on for what really seems like an awfully long time, especially for someone who's supposed to be dead, and people cheer, then is it an "activist judge"?

also, i need to call the dad and see if amnesty international is organizing a letter-writing campaign. Because i want to doubt it, but there it is. is there really no line you can cross? eh, i'm just not a christian woman, then. HAHA, funny!

Labels: writing

which we saw. we were trying to think of which parts were staged and which were honest-to-goodness people on a subway car screaming about chickens, and not actors, or Pamela, or something. some parts had to have been staged. some parts, not so much. so, um - Funny, yes, but i don't ever have to see it again. Especially not the naked part.

also, it has become clear: all i need is alone time. Enough. Enough alone time.

Labels: media

Plus, it was only a matter of time. Every scientist accidentally starts fires. every single one - and if they say they haven't, it's just because they're too embarrassed. My fires are particularly lucky because both have happened when nobody else was around and both were entirely controllable and this one really wasn't even a fire. There were no visible flames.

So yesterday someone (and, yes, i know who someone was) decided to finally eat the leftover fish that had been sitting in the fridge at work for nearly a week, and i hope they enjoyed it greatly, because it made the entire lab reek. And one hopes that the ventilation system will take care of it shortly but it was bad all afternoon. and then i came in today, i had things to do, and it was still bad. And i wanted a cup of tea. only lab reeked of fish, and the microwave reeked of fish particularly badly, and i did not want my cup of tea to taste like week old leftover snapper. because, fucking eew. and so there was some baked goods that somebody had brought in that were getting a little stale and nobody was eating them and so i decided, Lemon poppyseed cake smell. right? only apparently stale lemon poppyseed cake does not like to go in the microwave. because it was working and the lemon poppyseed smell was starting to cover up the fish smell, and then i turned around and there was smoke racing out of the damn microwave. And more smoke inside of it. But no flames! this is very important. i did not start an actual fire.

And the fish stench was to the point that sharply burnt baked goods still smell better than fish. The fish is entirely gone.

Labels: work

oh, of course, best thing that's ever happened, right?

THEN ACT LIKE IT.

so i was never on the A team. ever. and you never know exactly why, really, i think it's because my face isn't symmetrical enough or something - but. i never, ever was. The thing that was so lovely about powell house (or, really, one of many things, but the one that is the topic for today) was that you could pretend you were. Mostly. Almost. And even when you didn't quite believe it, really, somewhere you did. and there still was an elite, clearly, and there were untouchables just as much as anywhere else, but you could - if you were just oblivous enough - you could still get away with anything. It's a funny thing to know you're both at the very top of the pecking order (just like everyone else) and also really not at all, to know that you have the freedom to do whatever you like and they can't do a damn thing about it, not here, but somewhere in their secrets you're cut off.

This was hammered home at the reunion thing over the summer because there was this person there who sent me a real, paper letter talking about what an incredible person i am, or i was, back in the day. It was written on purple note-cards so you knew he meant it, and i always rather liked him (not in that particular way, but just in the way that he was nice and i honestly respected him), so knowing that he rather liked me and thought of me in this clearly glowing manner was a good thing. and i think somewhere i still have it because i still have everything that anyone at powell house ever gave me, including the little plastic bunnies and the tube of glitter and the old tacky bracelets and the strawberry chap-stik that has long since dried out, which i bet you didn't know was possible. but knowing that this person that i highly respected and whose opinion i valued thought that i was also a good person, that was nice. That was very healthy for my self-esteem.

Person was on the a-list.

and at the reunion? Person had no idea who i was. and i think eventually he remembered: but by then it was too late and it was all uncomfortable and weird and after enthusiastically greeting him upon his arrival and receiving that patented chilly Quaker hug, further contact was so not coming from my corner. And i was kind of surprised and hurt and i went to every damn thing i could at that place for years, so to not know me at all? Ugh.

and the only reason that it was okay was that i didn't want to be in that circle any more. i don't need it. And still somewhere it would be nice, sure. but at some point, i'm just not emo enough to be an A-lister there. my crazy Quaker mind-meld doesn't work that way. so, yeah, i'll go up to the cornfield and have a beer and just fucking chill with MY cool people, because being all deep and intense makes me sleepy. and i have learned that i like to just fucking chill, instead of trying to be all this other random bullshit: and that cheap yellow American lite Pabst fucking knockoff was the best beer i have ever had.

i remain convinced that under any other circumstances, Genny Lite would be fugly. "excusive bottom-fermenting yeast?" retch.

*not very factual on motorcycles either

:anmut: :annika: :chin: :dooce: :ewok mama: :food: :little frog school: :lj: :longform: :low odysseys: :natalya: :rich: :salon: :slate: :this is how: :unique yn:



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