Fecking kids

The hills approximately point five miles from my apartment building have been ablaze most of the day. I work about 20 miles from there (YAH, my commute is laaaaaame), and I can see the huge plume of smoke from my window here on the 10th floor. Twenty miles away, people! See, look:

Apparently a couple of wayward teenagers turned themselves in to authorities in connection with the fire. I hope Officer McGruff, Smokey the Bear and... Hootie the Owl, or someone, seriously rough those kids up in the interrogation room back at the station. Wait, is Hootie the one with "give a hoot, don't pollute"? Or is he the one with the Tootsie Pop addiction? Whatever, send 'em all in there for some hard-core vigilante woodland creature-style justice. Fecking teenage feckfaces.

Defamer's coverage here.

LA Times coverage here if you're into, like, legit news sources.

Fox News coverage, if you want to hear how Al-Qaeda is a likely suspect. (Totally, totally kidding.) (Actually, they're claiming Barack Obama is responsible. HA! Got you again.)

It's so easy... writing for someone else

SO! In addition to my own poorly maintained blog, I've also started writing for my friend Sara's much better, much more life-affirming environmental blog, It's So Easy Being Green. I was so flattered and excited when she asked me, because in addition to being a great friend, I also have a lot of respect for her green campaign and for her awesome writing skillz. (With a z, obv.)

Plus, I'm finding that it's much easier to write something when I have a purpose, and someone expecting me to actually write. I have so many painfully boring drafts sitting unpublished in my own personal blog because a lot of times I feel terribly uninspired by my ho-humish life. But! Now I have an excuse to write about, like, THINGS. Things that I'm passionate about and enjoy researching.

Hopefully along the way I'll come up with things to write about here, too, since I've generally been really bad about it. 'Cause you know what I just remembered? Writing is fun! Wheeeee!

"You see, you have this MAT, with different CONCLUSIONS written on it that you can JUMP TO."

Over the weekend, a co-worker of mine was in a pretty bad snowboarding accident wherein he fecked up some vertebrae. He'll make it through, but I guess he's currently in a full body cast and will probably be out of work for several weeks.

Upon hearing this, my first thought was, "Luckyyyyy."

Return of the Lizard Lady

My face is falling off.

In chunks.

All over my desk, and the floor, and the front of my sweater. If I were eating right now, there would probably be face in my food.

My face is falling off due to my latest ploy to outsmart my acne. No... not acne, because I've graduated from acne. According to my dermatologist, because I'm an adult now (what! when??! no one asked me! it's a conspiracy! first I am too old for Urban Outfitters, now I am too old for acne!?), I don't have acne -- I have rosacea. OOOoooh, rozaaaayshaaahhhh. Doesn't it sound fancy and pretty? Don't you want to name your firstborn daughter Rosacea? DON'T DO IT. Because she will just be a big, dumb pimple with a pretty name.

Anyway, in an effort to trick my rozaaaaayshaaahhhhh into going away, I got a chemical peel on my face. I thought, "Hey! If I have someone peel my face off, maybe that will trick my pimples into thinking my face is gone for good. And then they will pack up their sebum and skedaddle off to a more appropriate, more pubescent home!" So I got this peel, which involved rubbing battery acid on my face. Which felt... burny. A lot burny. Except I didn't want to seem like a total sally to the lady inflicting the torture, so when she asked "how burny on a scale of 1 - 10" (8 point 5), I said, "Oh, a 4 or a 5" and also "THANK YOU SIR, MAY I HAVE ANOTHER!" Because, see how tough I am?

And now my face is falling off, and I look very much like a leper. But I'm trying not to let it bother me, because hopefully looking mildly diseased for a few days will be a small price to pay for (eventual) clear skin. Not that I am holding my breath. Because I've had crap skin for nigh on 15 years, and nothing has worked so far. Not taking vitamins, or drinking 40 gallons of water a day, or smearing toothpaste on my face, or antibiotics, or prayer, or Proactiv, or Noxema, or Clearasil, or changing birth control pills, or hating people with clear skin.

And, in fact, I lost my face once before. In junior high, my doctor put me on Retin-A. This caused my entire face to flake and peel pretty much constantly. And because I was in junior high and totally stupid, I took my flakey, peely face on my church youth group's water skiing trip. Which was crazytown, because Retin-A makes your skin really sensitive to things like sun and wind. So after a weekend of sunburn and windburn, I looked like a couple of alligators were getting busy on my face. And when the older, cooler high school boys (well, "cool" by church youth group standards) started calling me "Lizard Lady," I, in a highly uncharacteristic move for jr. high Becky, embraced it. I didn't cry or call my mom to pick me up. Whenever they called me Lizard Lady, I would pull my eyelids up, roll my eyes back into my head, and flick my tongue in and out of my mouth. Like... a lizard? I guess? I don't know, but apparently it made me just gross enough to be awesome.

So if you see me in the next couple days, just be all, "What's up Lizard Lady?" and I'll make my lizard face for you. And then we can hold hands around the campfire and sing songs about Jesus and cry for all of our friends who aren't Saved, and it'll be just like old times.

And more pants

I don't know what is going on, whether it is something to do with my astrology or what, but pants continue to plague me. And not just in the shower!


I am in dire need of some new pants. Pants that do not squish my belly out over the waistband, thereby giving me muffintop. Pants that do not create a coin-slot in the back when I sit down. Pants that manage to make my butt look full and spankalicious, not flat and pancakey. (I am so terrified that one day I am going to turn in to one of those ladies whose butt has migrated outward, abandoning the buttal region and setting up shop in hipsville. What if that is me one day!!! I can already feel my butt sliding down the back of my thighs. Soon there will be no distinction from knees all the way up to shoulders. agggggghhhhhh)


Anyway, I am perusing the Urban Outfitters website and I realize that I am officially an Old Lady. I am appalled by everything The Kids are wearing These Days. My options, according to Urban Outfitters, are to either wear pants so large I could smuggle WMDs in them, or to wear pants so tight that if I farted, the stink would be vacuum-sealed in until I peeled them off of me.



Exhibit A:


The "Boyfriend Pant"

This is attractive? This pajama-pant looking, long-crotched besmirchment of the female form? Let's all agree that our boyfriends' pants are best worn by our boyfriends. Who have use for spacious crotchal areas in their jeans.

BUT! It gets worse.

Exhibit B:

The "Upholstered Sofa Posing as Pants" Pants

If these pants make a professional model look hideous, why would I even attempt to wear them? Because I want to make my breasts look as tiny as possible in comparison to the 4,000 yards of tweed hanging off my waist? Because I have elephantitis of the ankles, and this is the only thing that hides it? Absurd.

Exhibit C:

"Body Paint Pants"

I think if you wear these pants, you have to make sure that you are entirely pube-free. Otherwise, everyone would be able to see the outline of each and every curly crotch hair underneath your "pants," aka, "colored saran wrap." Because obviously you can't wear underwear under these things. The pantylines! Think of the pantylines! And while these pants kind of look cute on this girl, who is so skinny you could swing a cat through the gap between her legs, they would not look cute on me. There would most definitely be muffintop-age. And I don't even want to think of the camel toe implications. The horror!

So, I don't know what this means for my Old Lady pants predicament. Am I going to have to start shopping at, like, Chico's? And L.L. Bean? And watching "The View" and buying estrogen supplements and turning the air conditioning on full blast to combat my hot flashes?

Pants

One of my favorite bloggers is the super duper awesome Sarah Brown. She is a comic genius and my favorite kind of writer. My favorite kind of writer = someone who can take something you had never given any actual thought to, a situation/personality tic/feeling/etc., and describe it so perfectly that you go, "HOLY GOD, yes!! This is something I am constantly experiencing in my life, how have I never noticed this before??!" I love that.

I was reading yesterday's post, and I had one of those moments. The whole post is spectacular, but the part I totally connected with was when she described what an avid reader she is:

"Sometimes I am late to work because I read my shampoo bottle in the shower. Why? Because it is there. There are words on it. The same words as yesterday morning, but that really can’t be helped. If I don’t read them, who will?"

YES, Sarah Brown! ME TOO!! I could not have said it better myself! I have read every shampoo bottle I have ever used, thoroughly and repeatedly. I also mentally edit for grammar and punctuation. I stand there under the water, reading the words I have already memorized, when I should be dried off and entering the deodorant application portion of my personal hygiene routine. This affinity for shampoo literature has caused me a great deal of consternation during the past few weeks, however.

You see, my current 'poo/'ditioner have trivia questions on the back of them. Which is great for a person's shower library, BUT. It requires a matching set. My hair is all crazytown and has special needs, so I didn't get a matching set. I have "Drama Clean" shampoo (scalp tends toward greasy) and "Hello Hydration" conditioner (ends tend toward split).

This puts me in a predicament, because it leaves me with:

Question: Who, on average, do you spend the most time talking to on the phone?

Answer: Pants.

While this makes me giggle, it also sends my brain into spasms. I don't actually care about the real answer to the phone question. But I am dying to know what question out there is answered with "pants." Many a morning have I stood in my shower, slack-jawed and letting the room get blindingly steamy, wondering what question "pants" belongs to.

What is the British word for "undergarments"?

Which item on Spongebob is square?

What is the term for having your shorts pulled down by someone else, usually in front of a large group of people, probably at summer camp?

I wonder this every morning. (Or almost every morning. Sometimes sleep is more important than washing off the stink.) What, friends, is the right question? Suggestions are greatly appreciated.

Side note: One of my favorite movie scenes ever is in "Billy Madison" when Adam Sandler is in the tub and he makes Shampoo and Conditioner fight each other. Next time we are in the bathtub together, I will happily re-enact this scene for you, as I have committed it to memory. And then I will ask you to kindly step out of my bathtub, you pervert.

Totally cheating

This is a MySpace survey I filled out. But I spent all week on it in between working (embarrassing), so I thought I'd cheat and make it double as a blog post. Because I'm the boss of my blog! So take that, complainants! HA!

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Tired of those same old 55 questions about me surveys? Well here are 55 I guarantee you've never answered.

(I stole this from ViVi. I think this survey is just what 2007 has been missing.)

1. Is your second toe longer than your first?
I don't appreciate the tone of this question.

2. Do you have a favorite type of pen?
-is.

3. Look at your planner for January 26, what are you doing?
How can I answer this question accurately if you don't specify a year?

4. What color are your toenails usually?
Neon green. (Also, this toe fetish of yours is a little disturbing. Sicko.)

5. What is the last thing you highlighted?
Toenails.

6. What color are your bathroom towels?
No towels. Just Sears catalogs.

7. What color are the seats in your car?
Black and white, furry.

8. Have you ever had a black and white cat?
Still do, sort of -- see question 7.

9. What is the last thing you put a stamp on?
I have been advised by my attorney not to answer any stamp-related questions before the trial.

10. Do you know anyone who lives in Wyoming?
I'm not friends with people in square states. I stick with the squiggles.

11. Why did you withdraw cash from the ATM the last time?
Strippers don't accept IOUs, y'all!

12. Who is the last baby that you held?
Mmm, baby.

13. Do you know of any twins with rhyming names?
Lefty and Not-Lefty.

14. Do you like Cinnamon toothpaste?
Toothpaste, no. Buttpaste, YES.

15. What kind of car were you driving 2 years ago?
Clown.

16. Pick one: Miami Hurricanes or Florida gators?
Clowns.

17. Last time you went to Six Flags?
Forgive me if I find you bothersome.

18. Do you have any wallpaper in your house?
Types of paper in my house (an exhaustive list): construction, blotting, sand, note, toilet, scrap, recycled, tissue, towel, bag, mache, pad, news, wrapping

19. Closest thing to you that is yellow:
Do you sometimes wish it was okay to make Asian jokes?

20. Last person to give you a business card?
Your mom. I didn't know she was Senior Vice President of Whoring Around -- good for her!

21. Who is the last person you wrote a check to?
What is this, 1997?

22. Closest framed picture to you?
Frames are for yuppy douchebags.

23. Last time you had someone cook for you?
Mmm, baby.

24. Have you ever applied for welfare?
What a weird question.

25. How many emails do you have?
The real question is, how many shemales do I have?

26. Last time you received flowers?
Funny story: One summer when I was in, like, junior high, we found a little tortoise crawling up our driveway. He had some kind of red paint on his shell, so we named him Raphael -- like the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle who also wore red. Raphael ate lettuce like a champ and was totally badass, and we were sure that if any members of the foot clan were lurking about, Raph would get all ninja up in their faces. Except when we came back from getting ice cream that afternoon, we discovered that Raphael had been completely cooked by the sun in his little cardboard box. Man, but that ice cream was good though.

27. Do you think marriage is meant for only a man & woman?
Yes. I also think the Earth is flat, that evolution is a load of crap, that women should not have the right to vote, and that global warming is something Al Gore made up as a political ploy. I also think the moon is made of bleu cheese and that if we are all really really good little boys and girls, we'll each get our own unicorn when we die.

29. Do you play air guitar?
No. I SHRED air guitar.

30. Do you take anything in your coffee?
No -- I like my coffee like I like my men... hot and black.

31. Do you have any Willow Tree figurines?
Over a thousand, yes.

32. What is your high school's rival mascot?
Buried in the ground!!!

33. Last person you spoke to from high school?
Oh wait, I never went to high school. I just went: elementary school, junior high, The Big Time.

34. Last time you used hand sanitizer?
I AM NOT MY MOTHER! I AM NOT!

35. Would you like to learn to play the drums?
Only if it doesn't cut into my air guitar rehearsal time.

36. What color are the blinds in your living room?
2/3 neon green. (Highlighter ran out.)

37. What is in your inbox at work?
Peanut butter sandwich. Needs jelly.

38. Last thing you read in the newspaper?
"Jen Garner lost Ben Affleck’s ring down the drain and had to have a plumber come pull it out." You just try and tell me that Us Weekly isn't news.

39. What was the last pageant you attended?
It is a condition of my parole that I not attend pageants.

40. What is the last place you bought pizza from?
Rodent fun fact: Many historians suggest that marmots, rather than rats, were the primary carriers of the Bubonic plague during several historic outbreaks.

41. Have you ever worn a crown?
No, but I will wear a crown as I'm riding atop my unicorn in the next life.

42. What is the last thing you stapled?
"Becky's Book of Rodent Fun Facts"

43. Did you ever drink Clear Pepsi?
Did you ever eat a knuckle sandwich?

44. Are you ticklish?
I have diarrhea. And yes.

45. Last time you saw fireworks?
I'll say this: Lee Greenwood was involved. And also tongue.

46. Last time you had a Krispy Kreme doughnut?
My bed is made of Krispy Kreme doughnuts, and my comforter is made of glaze.

47. Who is the last person that left you a message & you actually returned their call?
Parole officer.

48. Last time you parked under a carport?
SIGH. May I leave now?

49. Do you have a black dog?
Yes. No. Sort of. On holidays.

50. Do you have any pickles in your fridge?
Contents of my fridge (an exhaustive list): Brita water filter (UltraMax Dispenser; full), Thai Peanut Salad Dressing, lettuce (wilty), 2-Liter bottle of Diet Coke (flat), mostly eaten wedge of brie, mostly eaten kalamata olive loaf, 2 organic yogurts (blueberry, peach), milk (2%), coffee, mayonnaise (Best Foods), Asahi beer (1), bottle of wine (Viognier), butter (stick form), Country Crock Spreadable Butter *Now with yogurt (tub)

51. Are you an aunt or uncle?
Neither.

52. Who has the prettiest eyes that you know of?
Eyes are creepy.

53. When was the last time you saw a semi-truck?
Dunno, been under a carport all day.

54. Do you remember Ugly Kid Joe?
No. My parents were strict; I was raised in a bomb shelter. I wasn't allowed to Ugly Kid Joe.

Question 55 was too dumb, I deleted it.

Know what? Chicken butt.

Some people claim not to dream very frequently, or at least they don't remember their dreams. I dream a lot, especially during the hour of gauzy, late morning half-sleep I'm able to will myself into as the garbage truck bangs up and down the street.

Sometimes my dreams are totally cuckoo for cocoa puffs (ie: the world's cat population is trying to destroy all other forms of life, and I have to jam my family and as many dogs as I can find into my car so we can escape to a cat-free zone). Sometimes my dreams are totally mundane and boooooriiiing (I'm applying lip gloss, or scrubbing my bathroom sink). Other dreams are more legit, and they feature stressful, slightly modified real-life situations that are most likely freaking me out too much to thoroughly process during my waking hours. And there is yet another category of dreams wherein the specific events are preposterous, but the intensity of the emotion they provoke leads me to believe they are highly significant in some symbolic or veiled way.

Monday night I had a dream, the events of which were pretty unlikely... but it was extremely intense, and each of my senses were very much involved. I'm unclear as to where exactly I was and why, or whom I was with. But there I was with a handful of people, and we all had these bowls of food that we had to eat. So there I am, sort of munching and crunching away, when it dawns on me that the texture is a little funny.

What I am eating is not normal food.

It is all the discarded animal parts that you don't usually think about when you are eating a chicken sandwich or pork fried rice or any type of "normal" food items one might encounter as a carnivore.

To my complete and total horror, I looked down and saw that my bowl was filled with little eyeballs, chicken beaks, lobster claws, a pig's snout, and the thing that really sent me over the edge -- a delicate little duckling's foot. It was just as I picked up the little webbed foot that the horrible stench of all those random parts hit me. The odor was sour and vast and clinging -- like dumpster and vomit and the inside of the milk refrigerator at my old elementary school. My stomach turned like Brian Boitano in a triple-flip triple-toe loop combination.

Suddenly I realized that not everyone had to eat the nauseating appendage melange. After further inquiry, it became clear that anyone who was a vegetarian was excused. The rest of us were under punishment for being choosey about which animal parts we thought were ok to eat. If we chose to eat animals, we were stuck with the whole package: bones, beaks, tails and all.

I woke up from this dream completely drenched in sweat, with the foul stench still sort of lingering. I don't know if I believe any hoodoo about people getting important life messages through dreams or visions or burning bushes or talking walnuts, but the whole experience has left me traumatized enough to think maybe I should become a vegetarian, at least for a little while. I sort of doubt I could stick with it indefinitely, as I have all the willpower of a bar of soap. But for now, I can't pass the refrigerated meats section at Trader Joe's without imagining myself gnawing on a marinated chicken foot, and then my stomach gets all queasy, and my face contorts in ways that send small children screaming for their mothers.